Long Trip part 2: Riga, Latvia

After the long bus ride I was a little tired so I pretty much chilled in the hostel. In the hostel I meet up with a bunch of guys Wally (canadian), Francis (aussie), keith (american), andrew (british), Alisa (Finnish) and paul (brit).

Since I arrived fairly late all the tourist places were closed, so we just chilled around and watched the hockey and soccer games. After that we decided to head out to the clubs but at some point I fell asleep and woke up the next morning, damn.

The next night I went quickly to try to get tickets to the evenings Canada/Latvia hockey game but unfortunately it was sold out, damn, it woulda been amazing, but more on that later. I decided to buy a ticket to the Russia/Ukraine game instead (manly cuz I wanted to see Ovechkin and Malkin play).

After getting my ticket, I went to the central market which was quite interesting and got a bunch of pasteries for 0.30 lats (0.60 cdn). After that I did the whole tourist thing, seeing all the buildings and such. St. Peters is the tallest one, i think so I went up to the top to get some good shots of the city. There were some other churches including St. Johns and Dome Church. After some other random architecture shots I went to the hostel to grab my Canada Jersey and walked to the stadium. Amazingly I was the only Canadian Jersey around, so that sucked a little, but the Lats didn't cause any trouble (it was before the game). On the way to the game I asaw the Freedom Tower (every time I see that word makes me want to go on the cruise more and more, damnit, august can't come soon enough) and a Russian Orthodox cathedral. The atmosphere in the game was disappointing, as the attendance was around 40%, but they were pretty loud. The Russians really took it to Ukraine, winning 6-0. Ovechkin played an alright game and got a goal and an assist. He wasn't the biggest impact player, but was pretty dangerous whenever he was on the ice. His goal was off a deflecting for the point. Malkin impressed me a lot more then AO did. He's gonna be an amazing place and plays a complete game. Very sound defensively, strong on the puck, good passing and vision and played with heart. In one sequence, he brought it in the zone, passed it off, recovered the puck twice and set up a good scoring chance. The kid can play. The russian goalie wasn't so good, always playing it safe and covering up the puck, but Ukraine never really threatened. Overall it was nice to see the young guys play.

After the game, I went back to the hostel and meet up with the guys. We decided to chill in the hostel and watch the game from here. After ordering 2 giant pizza's for 2.25 lats each we settled down for the game. This game was nuts and I really wished I could have attended. Canada opened up a 4-0 lead quicking (big props to Crosby) and never looked back. The funny thing about the game was that it had to be delayed twice due to the fans complaining and throwing stuff on the ice. The first time was with 2 minutes left in the first, with Canada up 4-0 after the ref called another penality on Latvia (there was like 8 pp chances for Canada in the first). They called the first period early, did the zambonie stuff and played the final 2 min then the 2nd immediately. Canada took it easy in the 2nd only scoring once but turned it on again in the 3rd scoring 3 in the first 2 minutes. After another Latvian penality, the crowd got worked up again and the players were sent back to the dressing room while they fixed things up. One of the Latvian played had to talk to the crowd though the PA system to get them to calm down. The Latvian's also had the weirdest/funniest chant going, "Fuck you.....Latvia", gold. After play resumed Canada scored immediately on the pp and ended up winning 11-0. Many were complaining that Canada should have taken it easy, but in all honesty, they did. 9 of the goals were on the PP so not much you can do there, when it was 5 on 5 they didn't push too hard. I think they said about 17 lats were thrown on the ice in coins (35 canadian) as well as a shoe and a cellphone (and a bunch of random crap). On a side note, the cheerleaders at the hockey games are SO pretty!! It's so hard to concentrate on the game with them dancing around. Crazy Europeans.

We went out to a club (Essential) afterwards and on the walk there, the Lats were cheering everywhere (I guess losing 11-0 is a good thing here). Wally was being an ass as usual which was funny, making fun of them all and such. Good times all around. The club was pretty nice and played good music (house?) but was damn expensive so we decided to leave a while later. A quick note, Latvian/Estonian/Finnish girls are very pretty.

On friday I go up earlier then the other guys and too a walk around, checking out some monuments and places, like the Swedish gate. Nothing too spectacular. Afterwards the guys went to get tickets to the USA/Finland game. I wish I coulda went too but I had spent my money elsewhere, more on that later. After checking out the Central Market, it was off for my fun activity of the day, the firing range. I went with 6 Brits to this place that just looked like a shack, but was like a huge underground bunker. In there we got to shoot a pistol (not sure which one), an AK47, and a shotgun. We had 8 shots for each gun. I think I was a little nervous and used my wrong eye to aim for the pistol, so they were all along the side of body target (5 points each) instead of center mass (10 points). With the AK47, it was set on single shot and my aim was much better, with all my registered hits to center mass. It didn't have as much kickback as I was expecting. The final gun was the Shotgun, this thing had a ton of kick, and my shoulder/bicep is still hurting (i think it slipped from my shoulder during shooting and was using my bicep as a brace. I managed to get the nicest shot the the day, a shotgun blast to the left side of the face :)

All in all, I got 150 points. I was hoping for better, but it was still fun and they let us pose with the guns afterwards. A bunch us us (me, paul, analisa) stay in the hostel to watch Finland just beat the shit outta USA. Afterwards, the guys that went to the game came back and most of us went to a pub to grab a drink. I tried some local shot called Sambouka (spelling?) which tasted like licorice). When I was there I met Mike Comrie and Kyle Calder (play for team canada) which was quite fun to chat win. Comrie was pretty quite, but Calder and his buddy were lots of fun. They offered to give me tickets for the Sunday Game but unfortunately I'm gone tomorrow which sucks. They also wanted me to come with them to the club, but we had made plans with some of the other guys to go to another place, so we didn't go. My Flames mojo was pretty low at the time (maybe cuz of the alcohol) but they were quizzing me on Flames numbers, and I couldn't remember them (i suck). I just couldn't remember Lundmark, and Juice's number, I got simon though (upon further checking, I did get Lundmark, they had it wrong). Not as good as Leslie's world championship experiences, but pretty sweet.

After the pub we headed over to a local club for some drinks and dancing. The group consisted of Wally, Andrew, Francis, Paul, Alisa and Me. It was pretty wicked there and we stayed till sunrise and called it a night. I love Riga!!

On my last night, I originally wanted to check out the Occupation Museum (have to do 1 museum) but I got up pretty late. When I was about to leave, we found out Wally had lost/thrown away his passport (he was headed home in 2 days) so we had to get that stuff straightened out. Crazy guy. After that we pretty much just did the usual sitting around, talking, chillin. Was definately a much different trip then most of my other ones. As I finish this post, I'm off to the airport to Stockholm. In my crappy planning skills, I found out I arrive at 6pm (much earlier then I thought) and didn't book a hostel, so it's gonna be chill at the airport and sleep there night. O well, at least I can do some planning for the rest of the trip. See you all in Stockholm.