Latvia - Day 1 in Riga

Arrived in Riga at about 10am, where our friendly hostess Katrina met me and law at the airport. She is currently a freshman at the Stockholm School of Economics. Really a cheerful and bubbly person she told us lots about Latvia, her life in school (how she hates marketing :p) and what to do in Latvia.

The currency of Latvia, the LVL is almost equivalent to the British Pound. We took a bus down to the hotel for 30 cents. Along the walk to the hotel, we passed by Old Riga, kind of the Old City here. Its olden architecture reflects the Russian influence in Latvia from days gone by. Now Latvia is a booming eastern european country where there is lots of contruction and things are really really mordernising up (as long as prices do not modernise until swedish prices :p).


Old Riga


Laima Clock - this is where most couples meet for dates - Soooo any girls wanna meet me at the Laima Clock?


A more modern Riga - most banks are along this street


Symbol of Latvia's Freedom


National Museum

Was able to grab a decent lunch for about 1.4 LVL, and dinner was at a CHINESE restaurant! Yea it was pretty surprising to see more asians in Riga after not seeing any the entire day. At least this Chinese restaurant was not serving Kung-Pow Chicken or General Tsao Chicken (typical sauce heavy food in the States).

Currently I am staying at the Albert Hotel, its this rather chic looking modern hotel with an interesting theme, guess if you enjoy maths, ALBERT einstein then yea this is the Hotel for you. The shower is really cool, you do not need to go thru the pain of adjusting temperature, you just turn a dial to the temperature setting you want and YAY.

Albert hotel

Hopefully i will get more shots of the competition and ppl around Riga for my next post, at least the Jetlag is over. And the party is this Saturday!