First Week in Riga

I visited Riga for a weekend before moving here, but now we're newly arrived to live here for 3 years. Our apartment isn't ready yet so we're in a hotel for a few weeks. It happens often enough that someone is moving out just as you're arriving, so there needs to be a little time to fix it up for the next occupants. It looks like it'll be well worth the wait.

These pictures show you around the neighborhood of our hotel which is also where our apartment will be: Old Town! The oldest parts of a city are usually the most amazing parts. They just don't make them like they used to. 😜

Vecrīga (Latvian: Old Riga) is the historical center of Riga, Latvia. Vecrīga was protected by a surrounding wall except the side adjacent to the Daugava river bank. When the wall was torn down, the waters from Daugava filled the space creating the Riga City Canal. The art nouveau architecture is beautiful. There's lovely parks, lots of restaurants, and plenty of shopping in this area so it's the perfect city living environment.

Here's a look around town using my wife's pictures. Click on the pics for larger versions. I'll pull out the camera eventually but she was more in tourist mode on arrival since I'm more focused on starting work. She has a great eye with her cell phone so the only thing it really lacks is the good optical zoom I have on my point-and-shoot camera.

It's the weekend now so I'll play curator to her photos here. 😜 She's already started Latvian classes and stumbled on a lecture about art curating so she's hitting the ground running. It's the best advice for any move really: Jump right in!

The weather is turning bad already but I kept hearing this cold weather advice in Sweden: there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. Dress right for the weather and it'll be fine.

  

the whole menu is full of fun names

 nice weather changes to cold rain

halloween is spreading

 Freedom Monument (Brīvības piemineklis)

 famous Riga Cat House (see the origin legends at the link)

That's just some of this cool little city. Riga's about 640,000 people and it's the largest city in the 3 baltic states. Latvia has 1.9 million people so it's a place of quality over quantity when you're looking at the size of it. Latvia is a little bit smaller than South Carolina and roughly the same size as West Virginia for some U.S. comparisons.

Some people asked where it was when I said we were moving here. Here it is and here we are!!!