Latvija

So me, Shiz, Mr T and Paul Hitchcock are due to go to Latvia on Wed for a couple of days, taking advantage of the new Ryannair Liverpool-Riga route – return tickets less than 40quid! It will be my 3rd time (March 03 with some Lithuanian students and July 02 with Taylor – see the Wild East - were the other times) though there were never many tourists around. However, now I hear tales of it being overrun at weekends with drunk Brits on stag dos. A very different situation from 20 years ago!

I had a great uncle who once owned a paper mill in Riga in the 1930s and he lived there with his family for some 10 years, though I think he had to leave in 1938 as the political situation was becoming increasingly bad with the threat of a Nazi takeover from the west and communist invasion from the east. Both happened, though I never found out what became of the paper mill. My Dad and some relatives once speculated about going to Riga and delving into the family history, though this was in the 1980s when the Latvian Soviet Socialist Repulic was locked firmly into the Soviet Union and it was effectively closed off for westerners.

Latvia is the most Russified of the Baltic States and in Riga there are more Russians than Latvians. Understandably the Latvians were a bit pissed off about becoming a minority in their own country especially when the Latvian language looked like it was heading for extinction in the 1980s. Now everything has turned round and the Russian influence is slowly decreasing. Nonetheless it's still the no.2 language and I’ve been trying to resuscitate my Russian in anticipation for the trip (which has seems like it’s been steadily getting worse over the last two years). Practice has dropped to a mere 1-1.5hours a week (vocab, reading and bit of listening to radio through internet) often on only 1 or two nights, so the last month I’ve tried to enforce a rigorous regime of 30mins every-day-no-excuses, but it hasn’t seemed to have made much difference, though my reading is probably no worse than it was two years ago. To have any success at any language though you really do need to live in a country where it’s spoken all the time. Trying to learn remotely is a difficult task.

Greece (II)

So a quick review of Greece. Firstly, we couldn’t land at Skiathos airport due to a heavy thunderstorm – The runway is allegedly the 3rd shortest in the world and the Australian pilot made a few attempts before we were completely out of fuel and had to divert to Thessaloniki on the mainland. Eventually made it back to Skiathos about 4 hours late which was a bit annoying. Then there wasn’t space to park the plane, so we had to wait another 15mins for a ‘parking space’. Bloody Air Malta flight took ages!

The organisation at the terminal was very Eastern European. In fact Greece basically is Albania/Bulgaria/Romania albeit with a lot more money pumped in and thousands more Northern European Tourists, but under the surface things seem to operate with the same level of (in)efficiency.

Was a bit horrified at first to see ‘All day English Breakfast’ offered menus everywhere and dozens of English around, but after sinking the first Mythos beer of the afternoon in Admirals Bar started to feel a bit more relaxed.

In fact I really enjoyed Greece and hope I can return for a week every year. Of course I still want to rough it in Tajikistan and go to Moldova – Europe’s bleakest and poorest country – but there was something relaxing about a package holiday. And Skiathos did seem very stereotypically Greek.

Around half the bars were run by Greeks and the other half by English ex-pats. Everywhere very relaxed, no police around anywhere. Able to practice Russian with a Macedonian girl called Tamara working at one of the bars. Scenery much greener than I expected. Not as many English around as I thought and most people seeemed to have been several times before so there almost seemed to be a community of holidaymakers who'd seen each other at some point in the past.

Favourite bars:
Kazbar – Colin an English guy (Tottenham fan) plays live music every night.
Bembos – run by a Yorkshire couple – 60/70s themed.
Tamara’s bar (don’t remember real name)
Roof-top bar – on a roof. Fabulous views of the harbour.Jelly bean cocktails served. Only problem was terrible 70s cheesey music played all the time. I can only take so much of Dancing Queen...