shenanigans: 07/01/2018

On Friday, myself and my newfound Australian friend, Candy went on a daytrip to a nearby beach town, called Jurmala. The weather wasn’t great for the beach, but as we both grew up on beaches, we decided to grab our swimsuits and head out anyways.

We got some snacks at the train station, and caught a commuter train with all the people headed outside of the city for work (I assume).

When we got there, it was a lot chillier than expected, so we layered up and just followed the general flow of people until we figured out how to find the beach. On a nice day, it would have been a really good beach for laying in the sand and reading a book. Or at least, that’s what my Canadian eyes saw. Candy just complained that the beach looked dirty because the sand wasn’t white. Not all of us got to grow up swimming in the Great Barrier Reef. I thought the beach was fine.

We spent the morning walking around the beach, looking for seashells, and getting our toes wet in the surf. I chased a couple of funny looking seagulls, and we bumped into some guy from our hostel that we chatted to for a few minutes. It looked like he came out to write in a journal or possibly to write a book, so we left him be after some friendly hellos.

The weather chased us in and out, and the clouds looked pretty stormy out to sea. Once it started raining, we quickly donned our raincoats and headed back into the forest. The sky spit on us on and off all day, but it stayed relatively warm until the afternoon.

While walking through the forest, we saw a guy in the distance, popping up and down in the forest. Candy wondered what he was doing, and I was pretty sure he was foraging, so we left the trail and started walking through the woods…only to discover a strawberry patch!

We picked so many strawbs. So many strawbs.

I’ve actually never seen so many in one place in my life. We immediately shed all our gear and sat down in the forest to pick berries. Candy was thrilled, and I was fairly tickled myself. We didn’t have any way to store the strawberries, so I dug out my pastry bag from breakfast and we put the ones we didn’t immediately eat into the bag. We shared them over lunch later in the day.

The whole rest of our day was spent popping in and out of the forests. We also found some nettles (that we didn’t touch), some wild blueberries, and there were raspberries, but they hadn’t berried yet. This land is a cornucopia of abundance and I love it.

Home, but lusher. Home, but greener. Home, but with a long growing season. Home, but if we’d been occupied by the Russians for forty years.

We eventually got hungry enough for real food, and found a restaurant and got a warm meal in us. I had some kind of bean dish that tasted decidedly like someone tried to make chili, but completely messed up the spices. It was good, but it was a little weird. Either way, it was warm and filling, and I was a little wet from the rain, and in shorts.

By the time we left Jurmala, it was raining really hard, and we were both pretty cold. It felt good to get back onto the train and head back to Riga.

We never did get to dip in the Baltic sea, but that’s okay. We harvested close to a kilogram of tiny, delicious strawberries. Which is exactly what Latvians would have been doing for Ligo, anyhow.

On Saturday, I finally said my goodbyes to all my temporary friends in Riga. It was hard, but we all exchanged numbers and promised to keep in touch. (Will we? Probably not, but I can accept that.)

Candy and I went out for an early breakfast, because as nice as the free waffles are at the hostel, I really wanted something that wasn’t just bread for breakfast. Because it was a holiday, it was hard to find something open, but we eventually picked some fancy restaurant, I ordered a coffee, and then we both decided we didn’t want to eat food there, because the cheap pancake house was going to open in a half hour. I drank my expensive coffee and Candy got nothing, and the waiter didn’t like us very much, I think.

I tried to pay with a 50 euro note just to break it, and I got in trouble. I tipped him really well though for having to put up with us on a holiday when he should have been in the countryside with his family. He still didn’t seem to like us. We left and headed to the cheap pancake place and got a giant plate of hearty, stodgy fruit and potato and meat filled pancakes for a little over 3 euro (aka, the price of my coffee).

The fact that we forwent free waffles for pancakes wasn’t lost on us, but they were seriously delicious.

After that, we parted ways and I headed back to the hostel to pack for my 12:30 train to Sigulda.

Laura, my couchsurfing host met me at the train station in Sigulda an hour and a half later with her bicycle, and thus began this weird holiday weekend adventure that became my last few days in Latvia, and in Europe.

We walked in the intermittent rain to her friends place, where we grabbed another bicycle. It had a flat tire, but if I was willing to fix it, I could use it for the weekend. Then, we walked to the bus station where we met another couchsurfer who had requested to stay last minute, and it ended up being a dude from the hostel I just came from. We hadn’t hung out together, but we recognized each other. Small world.

After that, we headed back to Laura’s place on the edge of town to drop off our gear, as we were both carrying backpacks and pushing bikes now. We settled in, and she started to make us some potato pancakes. We helped by grating potatoes as she peeled them, and crammed ourselves into her tiny concrete kitchen while we listened to Latvian music on the radio. Every once in a while she’d comment on what the lyrics of the song were, or mention a band name if we said we liked the music.

Her apartment, like most apartments I’ve ever been in, in Europe, was really small. It was up a flight of stairs, with a narrow hallway. Her walls were all bare concrete, with random splashes of paint on them, that apparently her uncle did when he was small. The apartment belonged to her grandfather, who lived there with her, but he’s really sick right now, and in the hospital, so she had the place to herself. The only modern thing in the whole place was her washing machine, and everything else looked like it was purchased during the USSR. The couch I slept on was old and flat and hard, with faded corduroy and worn blankets covering it. One bedroom was part bedroom, part where the laundry hung to dry, and the kitchen was small, with a tabletop fridge and a sink that looked screwed into the wall. The bathroom had a clawfoot tub that leaked, and the toilet was aging. All of her friend’s places, even the houses, didn’t look much different.

She had lots of jars of jam, and other pickled foods, and the eggs were from her family’s farm. Most of what she ate came from her farm, rather than the store, as far as I could tell. And Latvians can food in all kinds of jars! We ate jam from an old salsa jar. It goes moldy on the top over time, but you just throw that bit out when you open a new jar, and carry on eating. I never would have thought to can food in salsa jars. I’d be too afraid of oxygen getting in. I guess it’s fine, though.

Later in the evening, I fixed the bike, though it clicked really badly, and the brakes didn’t work well (and were foot brakes, besides) and the front wheel definitely wobbled. I was told it was fine, and I could use it for the evening. Myself, Laura, and Christian (the other couchsurfer), rode to the old medieval castle for some live theatre and other Ligo celebrations. There was a lot of confusion over being let in with our bags (because we had beers in them), and eventually we had to leave them with security before we could go in.

I didn’t understand the play, and Laura said it was actually quite boring anyhow. We met up with her friend Christine, and her nine year old son, Ricard, and spent the evening just hanging out. Christine could speak English, but was quite shy to do so, and Ricard could speak some, but we mostly communicated in candy, and winks. He was showing off for the new people, and he was adorable and mischievous.

At sunset, we gathered round the Ligo bonfire, and took part in the traditional festivities. We gathered in a circle around the fire, and as it was lit, there were women singing and throwing things on the fire. Laura helped translate some for me, and the ladies were throwing beer and cheese and dried flowers from last year on the fire. Then, only the women formed a group (us included), and we were given flower petals to throw on the fire. Then, the men formed a group (albeit smaller), and were given oak leaves to throw onto the fire. Afterwards, we all formed a circle holding hands, and danced around the fire, breaking off when the music changed to dance briefly with the partner next to you. I was told it was supposed to be alternating genders, but we had more women in the crowd than men. At the very end, everyone broke apart, and a band started to play some music. I danced briefly with Ricard to make him blush, and then we left and headed to a little bonfire at Laura’s friends place.

We rode our bikes there after saying goodbye to Christine and Ricard, and I met a whole bunch of new people, who’s names I entirely don’t recall. There were some snacks, and I was hungry, so I munched on some wild blueberries and some pastries. There was this old man there sitting in a chair, and I swear he reminded me of the ghost of Christmas present from the Christmas Carol. He wore a giant crown of oak leaves that overshadowed his entire face, and I remember him best of all. He couldn’t speak English, so anything I said to him was translated through someone else, but he told us it was traditional to run and jump over the bonfire, and when that got translated into English, he laughed, and we were told by others that it’s not, and he was just trying to get the foreigners to do something stupid.

So…I did something stupid. I took off down the yard at a full run and leaped over the fire, only to turn around and realize I’d started a thing, because someone else came right behind me and did the same. We high fived.

The old man was the grandfather of the house, but I wish I had caught his name. It started with a G sound. Gerund, or Gertrund…something like that. I liked him. As we left the house to head to the river (for yet another bonfire), he walked us to the gates of his house and sung to us the traditional Ligo song, which we sung back at him. I didn’t know what the words meant, but I’d heard it repeated enough over the evening, that I could repeat the chorus.

Bikes in tow and beers in hand, a big group of us started to walk back to the castle and towards the river. At the castle, we parted ways, and a much smaller group of us headed to the river. At this point, it was close to midnight and getting dark, and the start of the trail to the river was in a cemetary, which I was decidedly not keen on. I can’t hold my breath for that long!

I was getting really tired by this point, because I had gotten up at 5 that morning, and I didn’t realize how far out the river was from town. Once we reached the trail, we still had another kilometre of steep downhill to hike, and I’ve got terrible depth perception in the dark. I ended up having to use my phone as a flashlight, because while I could see, I couldn’t tell how steep the slope was and kept stumbling.

After what felt like forever, we finally arrived at the river to a couple of tents set up, a bunch of drunk Latvians, and a massive bonfire. I never took any photos of it, but I wish I had. I was really tired, and didn’t want to drink anymore, and I still hadn’t eaten dinner other than a few snacks, so I just plopped myself down on a log next to the fire and kept a bit to myself. I chatted with people who came to sit with me, but I wish I could have been more energetic. At one point, Laura was running around the fire like a wild thing, and I was sleepy just looking at her.

Some younger guy who was very, very drunk tried to hit on me (part of the traditional gatherings for Ligo involve going off into the forest and having sex – a huge population of Latvians have birthdays nine months after June), but I just let it slide and chatted with him instead.

Finally at 3-something, someone else was heading back, and I hitched a ride with them. I didn’t feel confident I could find my way back to our bikes without another person, although it did actually turn out to be easy enough, so I waited until someone else was leaving at the same time. Christine had come for a bit and drove, so I took a ride back with her. I think it was close to 4am when I got to sleep, and Christian and Laura didn’t make it in until 6:30am.

The next morning, I woke at 8, and Laura didn’t wake until noon. It was raining heavily, and I didn’t feel motivated to get out and do anything. We made pancakes when she woke up, and at 2:30 when Christian awoke, we made him pancakes too. Both Laura and Christian were really hungover, and I was glad I had only one beer the night before. I felt bad enough from lack of sleep.

The rain persisted all day, and we only left her house once for dinner. I wanted to see more of the town, but I don’t feel regretful that I didn’t. Sunday was Jani Day, another holiday, and most things would have been closed anyhow. Later in the evening, I caught the last train back to Riga, and headed to the airport.

I originally wanted to spend a couple nights in Amsterdam, but I couldn’t find cheap accomodations last minute, so I slept in the Riga airport (which was awful), and then flew straight home. I somehow made all my connections (and picked up more stroopwafels in the Amsterdam airport), and my bag also somehow made it home with me. Alan picked me up from the airport Monday night, and I’ve spent all week since trying to shake my jetlag.

It was a good trip.