Some of my great-grandparents came from there in the 1920’s and while they were Jewish and the city’s Jewish population has shifted and stuff I still want to just explore where my ancestors lived and get to know the people there. Also I’ll probably be the first in my family to travel to where my ancestors lived because none of my grandparents or parents have visited there or the other places my family came from
Aug 16, 2024
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Riga is a beautiful city, by far my favourite of the short time i've spent in the Baltic states. I arrived at 7:00am from Lithuania by bus and spent my first few hours walking around the Old Town and city centre as the sun rose. I was immediately stuck by the playful architecture and felt drawn to it's whimsy. I hadn't done too much research and wasn't quite sure what to expect when I arrived. However, I immediatly felt such an affinity towards Latvia.
A major enticing factor for most young travellers is the cost. Riga was very affordable with accomondation as low as (if I remember correctly) $10 a night and beers around $6. Latvian food, in addition to being excellent, is also quite cheap. I went to a Latvian resturant chain called Lido and ate an entire day's worth of food for around $15. Lido was loud, hectic, and somewhat intimidating, but the food was excellent and I think we should petition to have one built in every country.
In line with affordability is the thrifting in Riga. There is an expansive amount of thrift stores with an array of great finds. I was there at the end of a two week trip and didn't have much room left in my bags to shop extensivly, but I picked up a black raincoat out of necessity (it was 20 degrees my first day but had begun snowing on my third?) for about $10 that I have been using consistently since. They have quality jeans, leather coats, vintage finds, and the best selection of knit sweaters i've seen thoughout Europe and Scandinavia, even better than Norway.
Lastly, I met an array of very lovely Latvians. I had heard that Latvians can be a bit reserved and assumed it'd be a similar vibe to Norwegians. However, every Latvian that I spent time with was very welcoming, kind, and warm. I stayed in an airbnb and my host was very kind and welcoming. He gave my great advice on what to do/see, cooked me breakfast in the morning, and chatted with me about my travels and shared his. He was, admittidly, a bit strange but overall I enojyed staying there, though I don't think I would stay with him again.
I met a guy through Bumble while I was there who offered to show me around the city. We went for beers the first day I arrived (though I had been up since 3:00am and my soul was somewhat nonexsistent at that point) and the following day we went thrifting, to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, Lido, the oldest cinema in Latvia, Stalin's building, as well as spending time walking around the city. He was extremly kind and very funny, as well as knowledgable. I learnt so much about the history and culture of Latvia and am very thankful for the time we spent together, I don't know if I would have enjoyed my time in Latvia as much had it not been for him.
Lastly, on my final day in Riga I got a tattoo. Just to briefly return to the affordability, the tattoo was $75, which was $40 cheaper than the tattoo I got in Krakow, and they are very similar in size. The artist was an 18 year old Latvian girl who I immediatly fell in love with. She reminded me exactly of my friend Megan from back home and was very silly and outgoing and I was immediately very comfortable around her. It was nice to meet her as the other two people I had met here were men, so it was interesting to hear about Latvia from such an outgoing female perspective. We did confess our love fo each other at the end of the appointment and she followed me on Instagram! Truly, love at first site.
If you ever get the chance, or are ever so enticed, you gotta go.
May 5, 2024
listen, i know everyone and their mother has been to portugal this summer — but for good reason!!
a great first trip for anyone who hasn’t been to europe before. friendly locals and a beautiful city.
Aug 27, 2024
I went on a family vacation for my nanas 80th this summer in Italy. Florence was my favorite city we saw. Traveling with extended family proved to be overwhelming so I broke off from the group and found this library / movie theatre, and decompressed by watching some of moulin rouge.
I think about it often.
ps i don’t wanna be thought of as a dweeb for replying to my own ask
Nov 8, 2024
Top Recs from @av100
My parents told me many times growing up they both love this movie and I finally watched it last year for a class that I took
Oct 17, 2024
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It’s just so nice when people genuinely give a shit about you or your friends and you both want to get to know each other more love people like that
Jul 10, 2024
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There’s been multiple reports of AI taking up lots of energy to generate things and we don’t need more energy being wasted to produce a soulless, computer generated piece of AI art (Idk how others feel about AI art but whenever I look at it I feel sick and my heart sinks because it just feels so empty) so that’s one thing. Another issue is all these horrific deepfake scandals, to an incident that happened to at least 1 girl at the high school I went to (I’m not gonna say their names or anything because they’ve already been through so much shit) to South Korea’s recent crackdown on deepfake p0rn which revealed just how rampant it was throughout the country (and I just know shit like this is happening worldwide it’s not just their country). There’s also social media manipulation, biases in AI (only 100/7,000 of this world’s languages being used in chatbot training which only contributes further to languages being endangered), the very real threat of AI to be used to create more inequality, etc. While it looks like generative AI is flopping in some areas now (thank god) I’m still very concerned about it
Oct 2, 2024