Return from Riga

After receiving our brand new visas, we headed back to St. Petersburg, Rossiya. We stopped again at the border and had to go through the whole ordeal of getting passports and migration cards checked. The thing is, these guards come on to the train in the middle of the night, wake you up, and ask you questions in Russian. My Russian is not that great in the best of times, let alone when some surly guard wakes you up and immediately expect an answer to their question. This one guard woke me up, and asked me where my bag was. I pointed to it. Then they asked me something and I pointed to my bag again. They asked me something again and I pointed again, rather frustrated that this guard just won't let me go back to sleep. Finally, one of my companions said that they were asking what was IN the bag. "Whaddya think? Clothes. What else would I have in there?" What a stupid, stupid question to wake somebody up for! What's in the bag? If you think I'm smuggling something or doing something illegal, then just grab the bag and search it, I don't care. But if you aren't going to search it, why wake me up to ask? 

Well, Riga was nice. Latvia is part of the EU and it was much more European than I thought it would be. Just about everywhere I went, there was someone who spoke English, so I didn't even have to fumble around in my Russian too much. Because everything in St. Petersburg is so expensive, I've had to rely, for the most part, on my bachelor cooking; but in Riga, I ate enough to get me through Christmas. I ate at TGIFriday's every day I was there. It was terrific. It was so strange to be in a place of business that actually wanted to help you! 

Riga is a neat little city. Here's a photo from the top of the belltower St. Peter's Church of Old Town.

Here's a photo of the "legendary Uzbek pop group Yalla."
Here's a photo from the fashion show that occurred in the lobby of my hotel.