Today was my first full day in Riga. It was much less stressful than my trip yesterday through Siaulai. So I could just sit back and relax.

I woke up at around 7 a.m., got ready and was at the hotel’s free breakfast by 7:30. Breakfast consisted of luncheon meats, cheese, toast, among other things. I managed to get myself toast and croissants and made myself a ham and cheese sandwich. I noticed they had a bin marked sausages but whenever I opened it up they were actually hot dogs. They had plenty of orange juice and apple juice but the cops were a bit too small requiring me to make multiple trips to the drink station. Do they seem to be a bit watered down there for after a couple of glasses I opted for apple juice. I’m beginning to rediscover apple juice on this trip and maybe some once I get back home.

I wanted to be sure to visit the Occupation Museum of Latvia as I am interested in World War II and Cold War history. It opened at 11 a.m. therefore I felt I needed to try and find other attractions in the area to waste my time  until opening time.

I stopped by the Freedom Monument which is a very tall statue holding three stars in a Central Square dividing the old town from the rest of Riga.

I then went to the Orthodox Cathedral. I took several pictures of the outside even somewhat the domes with the blooming trees outside. As I entered inside I saw the again they were no pews to sit on, a common practice among Orthodox churches. I had since been told that Orthodox worshippers do not sit down when a worship service is being conducted. I guess it makes for a shorter sermon.

I entered and saw that there birth signs stating no photography inside. This is always a little disappointing but I decided to put down my camera and just take a moment to experience everything without feeling the need to take a photo of everything I see. Within the church there was light up Vegas Style words in Cyrillic. The other icons and usual orthodox emblems. As I was walking around suddenly three priests emerged from a hidden door chanting and holding emblems of worship. Gathered nearby for families with small children. After a chant the parents brought up their children for some sort of ritual which involved feeding the children something that the priest had. I wasn’t sure if it was the first communion or something else. I will have to do some research about this. I know later on the children were given spoonfuls of water from a church worker but I wasn’t sure exactly what the ritual meant.

What I was thinking about when this was going on is whether or not Christian worship services in America among Protestants have become too casual. It’s almost as if you’re having a conversation with someone at a coffee shop rather than worshiping God these days. And I wonder how the early Christians worshiped. Was there a lot of Pomp and Circumstance? Or was it more along the lines of a casual Church camp worship service? The truth is I really don’t know. And I really wonder if I am on the right side of things with the worship of my local congregation being relatively casual compared to a Catholic or Orthodox worship service. I know that we all have idiosyncrasies which make worship too much in one direction. We all have our hinderanvrs through church tradition that hinders our ways of worshipping God.

The priests begin to speak and some sort of chant or something and I decided it was time for me to leave. Next step was to try and find the Museum of Occupation. I got turned around on Google Maps and got a little bit lost trying to find this place. That’s one thing about not being able to have cell phone service in other countries. You kind of rely on Wi-Fi networks and GPS in order to get to where you’re going.

I finally did make it to the occupation Museum but showed up an hour early. They stated that the museum was not to open until 11 a.m. by coincidence a young man appeared and invited me to Salvador Dali exhibit. Now mind you I know very little about art itself. I did take art appreciation and college and am familiar with Salvador Dali. I do recall one time I did get a Salvador Dali calendar for Christmas. Even though the exhibit was 9 Euro I figured it was a good opportunity to waste some time and provide the exhibitors some funding to carry on exhibits like these. The exhibit involved drawings which Salvador Dali had made in reference to The Divine Comedy. I hadn’t read The Divine Comedy so I was a little bit unfamiliar with the subject. It was mostly just drawings, no oil paintings. After going through the first exhibit I sat down and chatted with the young man who invited me to the exhibit. He was from the country of Georgia but had lived in France and had moved to Latvia just two years ago. I asked if he knew Latvia and he said that he knew a little enough to get by. The other language which he used was Russian which seems to be a good second language within Riga to use as there are many Russian speakers. I was really interested in hearing more about Georgia as I would like to go there further down the road many years from now. I feel as though I need to be a seasoned traveler in order to experience what I believe is a rustic country like Georgia. He spoke of corruption and other things going on in Georgia but said that it should be safe for tourists to visit.

Right before it was time for me to enter it into the second exhibit I noticed they were playing a documentary about Salvador Dali on a big screen TV on the wall. What I found from that documentary is that Salvador was just as weird in person as what his paintings are.
I entered into the second exhibit. I was under the impression that these drawings have been done by Salvador Dali but later on I found that they were done by a secondary artist. It was the artist’s interpretation of the Book of Revelation. In literal interpretation of the Beast and angels mentioned in Revelation.
I got to be about 10:45 and I decided to check and see if the museum had become open. Sure enough it was open and I went through the exhibits reading the English subtitles. While I was there a small group of school children came in. This intrigued me because I’m always glad to see children learning about their country’s history. These children were probably around fifth or sixth grade and each had a piece of paper to answer questions pertaining to the tour. The tour guide had the children sit on the floor and I could tell he was trying to talk to them on a child’s level to a better explain the history of Latvia.

As I was just finishing up I was walking out and noticed an English tour going on. I figured I could better get more out of this English tour rather than sit and read all of the museum exhibits. The tour guide, a young lady, was easy to understand and presented a very little accent when speaking in English. I wanted to ask her if she had studied long-term in America.

As she went over each of the exhibits I found that the Soviet Union actually invaded Latvia and assuming the other Baltics states before World War II. Then when the Germans invaded Latvia they were welcomed in with the latvians thinking they would grant independence to Latvia. But obviously this was not the case and Latvia along with the other Baltics states were incorporated into Germany. The Red Army invaded once again and Latvia was placed under the rule of the Soviets until 1991.

The exhibit went into the history of occupied Latvia including those who opposed the Soviets and plotted against them. Many were sent to Siberia for hard labor. This was the theme to The Museum of Lithuania which I visited a couple of days ago.

As it turns out the tour group which I was with was actually a German School group of either high school or college students. Since German is not spoken as much in Latvia this German class opted instead for the English tour which I was happy for. The group did ask some intelligent questions after the tour and I even asked if many of the native Latvians have returned since the country gained independence.

Afterwards it was time for me to find someplace to eat. I had had pizza the night before at Pizza Hut there for pizza was out so I decided to opt for a hamburger. I went to one burger place suggested by TripAdvisor but they were closed. As I tried to find another hamburger restaurant I passed by a TGI Fridays and ended up eating there. I know many of my friends kid me about only eating at American style places when traveling abroad. For me it’s a sense of security: I know exactly what I’m going to get.

The waitress took my order which was an American cheeseburger with bacon. The waitress offered me onion rings which I thought was in lieu of the fries. However when she brought me the order she actually had both fries and onion rings.

I ate and use the restaurant’s Wi-Fi to chat with my girlfriend who had just woken up. The burger contained onions which I was unable to remove completely because they were chopped up into little pieces. But I was able to get most of the burger eating along with most of the fries and onion rings. When I tried to pay my bill with a credit card it seemed to reject it and I ended up paying by cash. I asked the waitress if my credit card has been rejected and she said that it was actually their credit card sales provider which was having trouble. This proved true whenever I use my credit card later on in the day and it was accepted.

I went onto see other churches and other exhibits too lengthy to describe exactly. When I see a church I just went into it. Some of the churches required an admission charge. I think these particular churches may have been taken over by the government and we’re no longer houses of worship period One church in particular serves mostly as an art exhibit rather than a house of worship. And this was some weird art. When was putting stuffed animals on to a lamp stand and calling it art.

This is what happens whenever you remove God from society. Just like these church this had been turned into God bless art exhibits we can turn our own lives into meaningless rituals.

At this particular church you can take an elevator to the top of the tower. In this particular elevator it was me a girl and two apparently gay guys who were riding to the top of the tower. One of the gay guys was apparently very scared of heights and was being very flamboyant about it. We got to the top and I soon discovered that my jacket would come in handy since the wind at the top of the cathedral was cooling things down quite a bit. Coming back down the elevator one of the gay guys mentioned that he would not be going to the top of the TV tower After experiencing this particular Tower. The TV tower is much much higher than this church tower and everyone had a good laugh over it because he will have been so adamant about being scared of going up that high.
Afterwards I went to the Mentzendorff house which is a 17th century Merchant House with authentic Furniture of the era inside of it. I tried to pay the 5.45 Euro entrance fee in cash but realized I did not have enough change to pay. Therefore I pay via credit card. This exhibit charged me extra to be able to take photographs. I found this practice to be absurd. Regardless of where you are unless photos are prohibited you should not have to pay extra in order to make pictures.
The exhibit itself was ho-hum and included contemporary art exhibits within the 17th century exhibit. I found Contemporary Art Within this historic exhibit to be way out of place and felt the Contemporary Art belong in Contemporary Art Museum. In the Attic portion there was a whole exhibit dedicated to tulips.
Afterwards I decided it was time to try and find the three brothers which are three old houses. I wandered around using Google Maps for a while and discovered the Riga Castle which Wilson or already does serve as the presidential residence of the president of Latvia. I found the Three Brothers houses took some photos and did a video while a Chinese tour group stood nearby. As I was finding my way back to my hotel room I came across a free Musuem on War artifacts. I’m always interested in war artifacts in the fact that it was free made it even more appealing. So I went up and went through all four floors of the exhibits. At the end there was even a display of American uniforms with an American flag above it among several other countries as well.
I came back to my hotel room to rest before trying to get supper.
After resting I decided to walk to a prominent Riga landmark that is the Academy of Sciences also known as Stalin’s Birthday Cake. It was one of three guys first skyscrapers built during the Soviet occupation. It’s pretty prominent along the skyline but is on the other side away from the old town. I had to walk through the Open Air Market Place whose vendors were packing up as it was the end of the day. It was mostly a fruit market from what I could tell. I saw a cat eating cat food out of the bag apparently provided by one of the vendors. I tried to make friends with it but it had a tendency to run away. One of the other vendors was trying to get the cat’s attention in a friendly sort of way. I figured maybe several different vendors had taken up with the cat and was providing it with food. The cat never let me pet it and had a tendency to meow at me in a weird sort of way.
I made it to the Academy of Sciences to take some photos and videos of the sun hitting it just right at sunset.
I walked back to the old town hoping to find the big and little Guild buildings along with the cat house building. The cat house building took me a little bit more time to try and find as it is not as prominent as one would think. So the legend goes is that one prominent guildsman was not allowed into the Riga guilds and instead put a cat whose bottom was facing City Hall as a form of protest. This cat statue has become somewhat of an emblem in Riga and you can see it on t-shirts.
not really wanting a big meal after I had had TGI Fridays for lunch I decided upon Subway. at the subway I chatted with the attendant about sports and if he could recommend a store that would sell Latvia had the Subway I chatted with the attendant about sports and if he could recommend a store that would sell Latvian hockey shirts. There was a Latvian hockey shirt prominent Lee displayed underneath the TV and I wanted to know where I can find one. He told me a particular store which I could only half understand what he was saying. It had “de Riga” in the title.
I went to a local mall nearby hotel to search for said sports store to where I could buy a Latvian hockey shirt. However I was unable to find one. But I did see a nice golf shirt with Latvia on it which I may buy.
Tomorrow will be another day and Riga. I will finish up probably take some more photographs and shop for souvenirs. I also plan on going to the top of the Academy of Sciences also known as Stalin’s Birthday Cake to get some good views of the city.