Spent a few days in Riga. There were parts of Riga I liked and some I didn’t care for, but it’s an up and coming city, and the people are fantastic. I remember watching “Biosphere” in my hotel room. It was dubbed in Russian with Latvian subtitles, but the English still came through in the background. I remember feeling a bit embarrassed that Pauly Shore was being exported into Eastern Europe. Haven’t these people been through enough, what with communism and all?

I spent nearly 2 weeks in Rezekne, near the Russian border. I remember taking a 4 hour train ride from Riga to Rezekne with no head on the train cars. When I got to Rezekne, I went into the restroom located on he platform, but was so disgusted by the putrid, stagnant urine sitting in the trough-style urinal that I threw up and ended up relieving myself behind a bush outside.

It was extremely rainy in July, but I still had a great time making new friends in Rezekne. Went to a nightclub that was a blast, but almost got beat up by this huge Russian mafia thug. He wanted to play snooker with me, but since I didn’t know how to play, I refused. Things got ugly, but a new Latvian friend I had made, Sasha, was able to diffuse the situation by talking to the guy. And all I had to do is pay for this guy’s drinks all night!