Duisburg and Riga

Sveiki,

So this latest trip was to Riga, Latvia to join Andre and his friends Christian, Christian, Christian, Pierre, Daniel, and Sasha on their vacation.  We fly through Düsseldorf, Germany and stopped there for a day and a half to see Christoph and Simon.  

To start things off, we arrived in Düsseldorf where Simon picked us up and drove us the 45 minutes or so to Duisburg, where Christoph studies.  We hung out at Christoph's apartment, catching up for a bit, then got dinner and headed to Cologne, the biggest of the group of cities nearby.

The river running through Duisburg, we stopped here for dinner

Christoph has an awesome record player in his room, and we listened to vinyl after vinyl

His bedroom was also huge!

We went downtown and grabbed some tea at Christoph's favorite outdoor coffee shop,
we were the youngest people there by probably 50 years

Then we went to the zoo!

As usual, I had more fun taking pictures of the plants than the animals at the zoo

This one came out really nicely too

Some parts of the zoo were really nice

I really like the way the sky came out on this one

After the sightseeing and hanging with Christoph and Simon, we took the bus to the airport at 3:20 in the morning, and flew to Riga at 6:30am.  Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep that night and crashed immediately after getting to our hostel, but we still managed to do a little sightseeing later that day.  

The Freedom Monument, I originally imagined it to be a lot smaller, but it's actually 138 feet tall

The Latvian National Opera House

The Powder Tower, thus named for the fact that it used to be a hold for gunpowder

The Dome Cathedral, in front of the Dome Square, the largest square in town

I just thought this picture looked kind of goofy, it's one of the other sides of the Dome Square

St. Peter's Cathedral (the big tall one, not the gazebo in front)

The next day the Germans arrived, and we moved into a 3 bedroom apartment near the front of Old Town, the part of Riga where most of the tourist attractions are.  

Christian, the tallest of the group by far, bough just this tiny little bag of luggage, him carrying it looked like a kid carrying a lunchbox to school, I don't understand how he could possibly fit even more than a single pair of pants inside it. 

As you can see, the apartment was really nice.  Pictured here are the three Christians, Andre and Mike

Pierre printed out a sightseeing guide and was our tour guide throughout the city, unfortunately it was in German,
so the only time I understood a word of it was whenever he happened to stop to translate for Mike and I

The House of Blackheads, our apartment was literally right behind this building

Just to show you how close together all the tourists attractions were, the touristy Old Town was tiny.

As you see from the picture above, St. Peter's was right near by, and we stopped by there again

Part of the Old Town Wall, you can see Pierre telling us something about it in the background

The other side of the wall with Latvia's old coat of arms

I have no idea what Pierre was trying to explain, chances are it was in German, but he was so funny this weekend

The Swedish Gate, one of the few remnants of the Scandinavian rule of Riga 

The Three Brothers, the oldest houses in Riga and each representing a different period of Middle Age construction

Riga Castle, it looks pretty plain from the outside, but the president of Latvia lives inside

Of course we passed through the Dome Square again too

I believe Pierre's remark was that this is 'the cheapest way to renovate your house'

And our tour ended up right where it started with Pierre's last remark being, 'this building looks like another old  artifact, but it's a trick, it was actually build it 2003.'

Perhaps not the most flattering picture of Sasha, but it was so funny that I need a picture of it too

... which got me started taking pictures of Mike's camera

The next day we spent more of our time in the City Center outside of Old Town, the symmetry in this picture is really cool 

The City Center is best known for it's unique architecture

Much of the city is decorated in this Art Nouveau architecture

This street, Elizabetes Street, is the main street for the Art Nouveau District

This area is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site for it's Art Nouveau

There was no photography allowed inside, but the next day after the Germans left before we did,
Mike and I went and spent a few hours checking out the Latvia National Museum of Art

On the way back home, we flew into an airport outside of Stockholm and had a few hours to kill in Nykopping before our train ride back to Vaxjo, so we went into town to check it out and get some food. It was a nice day out to walk around and the city was a nice one too, very reminiscent of Vaxjo.

Heading towards downtown Nykopping for some desperately needed food

Fooling around killing time waiting at the train station

Another random shot killing time, I think this one was from a tree I climbed, I didn't need to do it to get the shot, it was just fun.

I guess that's all I have for now, but in 3 days I head off again for a 10 day/5 city trip to Holland, Belgium, France and England, so check back in a bit for tons of pictures to come.

Ardievas