daughter of latvia

A Tale of Three Cities

It's interesting to use three different currencies on a trip, and then to make some comparisons as to how far the dollar goes these days. Although we'd been told that all three cities we were visiting were "expensive" we soon learned that is a relative term even in northern Europe.

A good yardstick of this is in the hotels in which we stayed. While all three accommodations cost roughly the same - about US$200 a night - what we got for our money varied significantly.

In Riga, we lodged at the Hotel Monika. Looking for something quiet, I came across this hotel which was noted in its online reviews for excellent staff, and a location in the same neighborhood as many foreign embassies. Located to the north of Vecriga (Old Town) at the edge of a park, the hotel served breakfast each morning included in the room price.

Here's our room at the Hotel Monika:

We had a small balcony, a private bath with tub and shower, loads of closet space, a safe in the room, and the cleaning staff kept the room clean and neat. It was perfect for the time we spent in Riga, as it gave us plenty of room (there was also a love seat, chair, desk, and free wireless). Within a block there was a grocery store, ATM, convenience store, cafe, and the aforementioned park.

From here it was on to Stockholm. Susan had researched Stockholm and the rumors are true: it's a very expensive city. For about the same price, our room at the Hotel Anno 1647 (yes, built in 1647!) did not have a toilet or shower (those were shared with the other guests on our floor) but did have breakfast included in the cost of the room. No room safe, no true closets, and very small:

Gee, I felt right at home in my dorm room! <G> And we could not find a grocery store anywhere in the near neighborhood (Sodermalm, just south of Old Town) although there were many Seven Elevens.

Finally, in Amsterdam we switched gears a bit and rented a houseboat. We were just outside the Jordaan on Da Costakade, off Kinkerstrasse. Although we'd gotten used to hearty European breakfasts in the dining rooms of the both Monika and Anno 1647, we were fine with cooking our own breakfast in the houseboat, and there were numerous markets in the area, plus the aforementioned herring stand.
Although the bedroom of our houseboat wasn't much, a "short loft" with no windows, it had air conditioning and was quiet. And here's the living room of the houseboat:

We also loved the very modern bathroom, which had a huge sunken tub! Our tiny patio faced the canal and we could sit and watch the geese and other canal life forms. Highly Recommended.

Holland: The Herring Experience

Two times a year, the herring run is on, and the Dutch love to make the most of it by eating raw herring from street stalls. I'd read about it in the guide books but didn't realize we'd be there during one of the annual runs, and when Frederic told us about this auspicious opportunity to try something so Dutch, well, we just HAD to.

So the deal is:

• You find a street stall with the appropriate sign saying they have new, fresh herring. We just so happened to have one about three blocks from the houseboat, located on the Kinkerstrasse, our main street to the Jordaan and Western Canal areas.
• You make your choice, which is basically with or without bread. Some Dutch eat the herring by dangling it above their heads and then nibbling on it, but our stall served it cut into pieces, accompanied by onion and pickle, and decorated with the Holland flag toothpicks that also serve as little spears.
• You watch the man (in our case at least) trim and fillet the herring right in front of you. I swear, the work he does is at least as artful and precise as any sushi chef.
• You then eat the herring with the onion and pickle.
• You may also opt for the breath cleansing gum that was also sold from the stall, in case you have a date or meeting after your herring experience. (Read the sign, you can probably figure it out.)

We'd had some marinated herring in both Latvia and in Sweden, but this was the best of them all, in my opinion. The raw fish had a somewhat milder flavor than the preserved version, and was much less salty than the plain marinated herring in Riga. It tasted a bit like cooked tuna, actually, especially with the onion and pickle. I thought of it as a sort of deconstructed tuna salad.

Highly Recommended.

Amsterdam, Part Two

Susan and I just ducked into an internet cafe while walking around the neighborhood. It's our last day here and we're just roaming and people watching, after a lunch of Dutch pancakes (hers with lemon, sugar and bacon, mine with spinach and goat cheese).

Since we have to leave in the AM we're still figuring out the perfect last night in Amsterdam. We've already had the local culinary experience of the rijstaffel (rice plate, literally) along with some gado-gado and satay in an excellent Indonesian restaurant. Now that we've had Dutch pancakes and rijstaffel, we're at a loss.

We did hear that raw herring is fresh right now and so this would be the perfect time to experience that (it's sold by street vendors along the canals) but.... we think we had the best herring yet in Stockholm. More on that expensive dinner later--suffice it to say we had meatballs and dessert for around US$150. Luckily food here in Amsterdam is much less expensive.

We've been to the Van Gogh Museum and the Anne Frank Huis. We've also seen the Homomonument. Mostly we have wandered the streets near where we are staying.

The houseboat.... has been wonderful.

I will try to get an internet connection at the airport tomorrow and upload some photos.

Amsterdam

We have not gotten lost in one of Amsterdam's coffeehouses; there's not an internet connection on our houseboat.

We LOVE Amsterdam and will post more as soon as possible.

Stockholm: The Second Child

Susan and I have been in Stockholm more than a day now and we're using the analogy that after Riga, Stockholm is kind of like the "second child." You take fewer pictures; you're more relaxed, but also more tired; and there's just less ooohing and ahhing and cooing.

That said, Stockholm is a beautiful child city, and we spent most of yesterday exploring her by water. First we got tickets for the "hop on/hop off" boat that is kind of like the water taxi in Victoria, BC, only bigger. We took that around the inner ring that includes Gamla stan (Old Town), the Royal Palace, and Djurgarden. Then we also took a tour of the inner archipelago, and it was so much like being out in the Canadian Gulf (or US San Juan) Islands, it was amazing.

We also went through Gamla stan and walked around the main city, and our own Sodermalm neighborhood a bit. So by water and foot we explored and soaked it all in.

Stockholm is also much noisier, and, true to what we'd heard, much more expensive... even Riga seems cheap now by comparison. Our hotel rooms cost about the same per night in each city, but whereas we had a huge, nicely appointed room and private bath in Riga, here we have a very small room, lumpy bed, no AC (and noisy street below), and must share the bath (toilet and shower) with the other guests on our floor. Our hotel is charming, built in 1647 (its name is "Anno 1647") and has a great location, so don't get me wrong, it's not a bad place. It's just not much like the Monika in Riga. And we have a "budget" room so it's not like the photos on the hotel web site.

And I am still recovering from the price of our dinner last night. We had a salad, a shared dish of "halloumi" (grilled Greek cheese) and ribs, plus one mixed drink and one hard pear cider... and the tab was about $100 US. And this was not gourmet cuisine.

I am taking part or all of this day to relax and organize photos and maybe spend some time in art galleries we heard are good, and which were closed yesterday. Susan is off looking at old ships in the maritime museum. Tonight we are having Swedish meatballs for dinner--the only "smorgasbord" in town was booked!

Eating American in Riga

Since Latvia's independence from the Soviets in the early 1990s, the food scene has evolved. Even more than I imagined, there are all types of international cuisines represented: Irish, Chinese, Lebanese, lots of sushi, American.

We have had a lot of great Latvian food (although I have not yet found good pirags) but sometimes one just wants to eat in a more "back home" style. Last night, our final night in Riga, we had thought we might go to Vincents, a very high-end restaurant, for some gourmet cuisine, specifically their Latvian tasting menu. But as the day evolved we decided against that, and finally, around 9 pm we set out for pizza. We were curious as to how it would compare to the American pizza we know.

Earlier in the day, we'd also yearned for a lighter lunch; we ate a place called Felings (with a long "e" , as in "feelings" we think). We had some great potato dumplings with cheese sauce (which will be featured in a future entry) but to start our meal we each ordered a chicken caesar salad. As you can see, salads here tend to be very light on the lettuce (yes, it IS there)... the croutons, very white (although these had a basil drizzle) and dill is on, well, everything, even caesar salads.

The pizza was a challenge. We knew there was a pizza place near our hotel, but it was a neighborhood joint, not for tourists, so we were faced with the task of ordering pizza from a Latvian menu. I did see familiar terms such as "Neopolitan" and "Genovese" so we presumed the Genovese would have pesto,  and it did. The photo shows what we got, with its pesto and cherry tomatoes.

I'll be blogging more about Latvia foods, customs, and such, shortly. However, we need to check out of the hotel and begin our last day in Riga... we fly to Stockholm this evening.

12 Plosta iela

There is so much rattling around in my brain about yesterdays' trip to the western part of Latvia (Kurzeme) but the main purpose of the trip was to see the town my mother lived in until she fled Latvia during WWII.

Armed with copies of old papers I found when she died, including translations of her birth certificate and confirmation certificate, Susan and I headed into Ventspils after visiting Kuldiga. Ventspils was nothing like the rest of Latvia we'd seen, and although I knew it had been greatly changed during the Soviet times, I was a bit unprepared for how different it was than Riga, or the other smaller cities we'd been to. Cranes, derricks, ships, warehouses, ships all along the riverfront, very industrial.

We had opted for the Latvian GPS unit for our rental car and so we input the closest thing we could find to my mother's home address. Her papers all said "12 Plostu iela" and the unit did not find it; however it did return a "12 Plosta iela" so we headed there. On the left we found more industrial buildings and machines along the river. Across the street on the right hand side, a most beautiful but neglected Russian Orthodox church, with vacant lots on both sides. The church is a at 16 Plosta iela. If this was my mother's street, her home would have been to the left on one of the vacant lots.

Next we walked to the Latvian Evangelical Church mentioned in her confirmation documents. The church still stands, and in fact Friday evening church services were just starting as we arrived. It has been well preserved, painted a lovely yellow and was stunning to our eyes against the clear blue sky.

The church's threshold was worn with the hundreds of years that people have crossed it. While the church was not as ornate as the Catholic ones to which we've been here, it has a beautiful dome reaching to the sky, topped by a cross.

It's difficult for me to express what it was like to see the church that my mother had attended in her youth and young adulthood. Even more difficult to think that I may have seen the place of her home on Plosta iela. I spent a bit of time trying to imagine all the derricks and steel buildings gone, and what the street might have looked like in the 20s and 30s. I stared a long time at the church threshold, imagining her coming through the door.

Although some of the streets between 12 Plosta iela and the church (at 6 Tirgus iela) have been closed off, it's possible to walk toward the water from the church and see where the connection between the buildings on Plosta may have been in decades past. It's a bit harder to edit out the ugliness of the industrial structures that exist there today.

If--as is likely--my mother's address was either wrong in the documents, or changed during the last 60-70 years, then I saw where she lived. It's near the river, and next to the huge Orthodox church. I imagine it in her time, thinking of nearby river and how lovely it might have been then. A few streets away were piles of timber, and in her day, those were likely there, as her father worked in the timber industry, she told me once.

I have many gaps in my knowledge of my mother. She never talked much of her life before the war or even in the Displaced Persons camps, prior to coming to the US. But going to Ventspils and exploring what I could of the town, and seeing the church where she was confirmed, has filled a long time yearning to know more than I did. I don't really have any "answers" but I do believe I understand more now.

It was a very special day.

The empty lot at 12 Plosta iela, in Ventspils.

Kuldiga in Pictures

I'll mostly let Kuldiga speak for itself in pictures.

On Friday we visited my cousin in Saldus in the morning, then headed up to Ventspils. On the way, we stopped in Kuldiga, mostly on the suggestion of several articles in guidebooks that urged doing so. We totally loved Kuldiga--in its Old Town we felt quite immersed in the feeling of the olden times. Very little has been "modernized" and many of the buildings are falling down.

We ate lunch at Spengers. Excellent food, some of the best yet (tho my vegetables were a bit heavy on the garlic, and it was POWERFUL garlic). Susan had savory crepes oozing veggies and cottage cheese... it was billed as "Spicy Pancakes" on the menu.

After lunch we headed over to the Venta River and the famous Ventas Rumba... the widest waterfall in Europe, as far as we can gather. Not very high. but very wide. If we had more time, we'd be back there to spend the day, hanging out in the river and such.

The photo album also includes the sculpture garden and the old sluice and what appears to be some kind of mill building.

On the Road!

Much of yesterday was consumed by a trip a bit out of town to the Latvian Open Air Ethnographic Museum, then getting our rental car for today's adventures. I have many photos and thoughts, just no time to post. It's about 6:30 am here as I write this, as we're about to take off again.

Today's itinerary is Saldus (where I have a cousin I have not seen in about 33 years); Kuldiga, which sounds like a fun place to visit, and Ventspils, the town where my mother was born and lived until WWII took her from her family and homeland.

It's a lot to do in one day, so we may end up staying over night there. We're armed with many maps, saved Google maps on my laptop, and... drum roll.... Latvian GPS! A mere bargain at 7 Lats per day, we have a Tom Tom unit for the car. (You don't want to know what the car rental cost--it was very expensive!).

OK--gotta run. More later, or maybe from the road!

From Soviet to Today

I remember hearing the stories in my youth. My father came to Latvia in the 70s to visit family and at that time, all visitors had to lodge at the old Soviet built hotel, which was apparently bugged and all conversations recorded. It was very difficult to get out on one's own to see family and visits to their homes were not allowed. All mail and phone conversations to and from the U.S were also monitored.

The effect of 50 years of Soviet domination on Latvia are still present today. Riga itself is a mix of the most beautiful old architecture I've ever seen in one city, with many buildings showing the years of decay and neglect along with their beauty. Some of the mid-century structures boast the modern, sparse Soviet "design sense." And much of it is dusted with graffiti, some is being rebuilt, and women still sweep the streets in front of their shops at night.

Riga's airport is amazingly beautiful. Very modern, with lots of wood (even wood floors!) and glass. Yet, an American we ran into said that just about 7 years ago, when he first flew into the airport, the old Soviet MIG fighter planes were still sitting out in the trees surrounding the airport. And now, on the way from the airport to the City, there's a huge mall across from a stand of birch trees. The new sits with the old, and there's enough of that old that I recognize it, like a familiar friend, from the stories and discussions and picture books of my childhood.

This city is so amazingly beautiful... she shines through the Soviet years. They have left their mark but something much more enduring and persistent has been there much longer, and that's where Riga's beauty lies. The parks, the Freedom Monument, the streets lined with Art Nouveau buildings, the enduring beauty of a city that has seen 800 years of life... I am so happy I made the plans to come here, and see it all for myself.