Burning Desire For FIRE

The good thing about having friends with different interests to you is that they expose you to experiences that you wouldn’t normally see for yourself.

Liga is a foodie, and on my last day in Latvia, she booked us a table at her friend’s Green Michelin Starred restaurant. There were 4 of us at the table. James was flying back to Ireland after this, and Liga, from the Ligas’ Crazy Road Trip last year, was joining us too.

This is something that I’d never do on my own, but it was definitely a highlight of my trip. The food was amazing.

They really are beautiful birds, aren’t they?

As we were driving towards the lovely little village where the restaurant is, Liga remembered that there was a huge Pagan festival scheduled for that night. Bonfires, dancing, it was all going to happen. Shame that we had to get James to the airport…

We parked the car and walked over a little bridge over a stream. There was Liga, waiting for us in the garden. I realised when we were driving home that we didn’t take any photos of people – it was all about the food!
Oops.

There was a kitchen garden to wander around in. The restaurant takes great pride in sourcing locally grown ingredients.
This didn’t include the wines. They came from France, Portugal and Italy.

Remember the Michelin star pho restaurant I went to in Hanoi? There were decor here is a lot classier!

We went for the full experience – paired wines with each course and extra caviar and wagyu beef. Why not?

A little snack for starters, which wasn’t on the menu.

Unlike Australia, Latvia is very dog-friendly. I wasn’t sure about a dog being in such an expensive place, but of course, it’s a Cavalier. That’s perfectly ok. She was underneath the table next to us and she was a good girl.

Fish, with the extra fresh caviar.

Some bread with a mushroom spread that was so tasty.

You don’t want to overcook the wagyu.

This was absolutely delicious.

Duck. The beetroot was fabulous.

And finally, dessert. Again, so flavoursome. This meal was definitely a treat.

We dropped James off, then came back for a chilled last night. This is the silk carpet Liga brought home from Afghanistan. It’s stunning.

I’m hastily writing this on the first leg of my trip home, on the plane from Riga to Helsinki. WHAT a trip this has been! I’ve been so lucky.

But now my nose is pointing towards home. It’s going to be a long two days’ travel.

Dad joke of the day:

Liga’s cat has finally warmed up to me, along with her daughter. Today was a curriculum day for Alise, so she came with us to have a plane ride.

Isn’t this gorgeous? It’s the cafe that Liga’s friend Ernest runs, along with a small hotel and a charter lane business.

He worked in Europe for a few years, flying planes, then he said that he realised that if he wanted to own a place by a lake, Latvia was the only place where he could afford to do it.

Liga was telling me that there’s a groundswell of young people moving out of the big cities like Riga and moving back to the little villages that they originally came from. They open cafes, small businesses, bed and breakfasts, and the countryside is being renewed.

Ernest and his wife have been here for a few years, slowly renovating the old mill house.

This is a man made lake, apparently, but it’s been here for a few hundred years, I think.

It’s definitely a good place to put down roots.

We had a brief tour of the place, then we set off for the airport.

Here is our Cessna. I can fit under the wing!

Alise did her own thing while we were waiting for the plane. She slept for the entirety of the two hour drive, so she was raring to go.

Liga was happy to give her spot to Alise. She isn’t great with heights.

This was my view.

Here’s the runway…

This was only a portion of the solar panel farm. It covered a lot of ground.

Alise was loving it. She was taking photos and sending them to her parents and friends.

“You could pick up the buildings and put them in your hands,” she said.

We flew over the widest waterfall in Europe- Ventas Rumba. It’s a whopping 2 metres high, but hey! It’s the widest!

Latvia clearly has a thing for renewables.

James isn’t all that fond of heights. It was an educational experience for Alise, learning some new English swear words.

Actually, it was good that James was scared. It gave Alise something to focus on, and while we were laughing at James, she forgot to be nervous and she just had fun.

Over the Baltic Sea.

Alise took this photo for me as we were coming in to land. But first, we buzzed Liga, standing on the ground.

Once we were back at the airport, Ernest took us for a quick tour of the planes. There was a Soviet MIG plane outs, as well as this one.

“ It doesn’t matter if it’s a Soviet plane, tank or car,” said Ernest. “ The measure of thumb is one kilometre per litre of fuel!”

Gliders.

Ernest gave us free booze and some coffee beans. James’ beer was a live beer. It turned out to taste really good, so they said.

I stuck to the best apple cider I’ve ever had.

Yum. I wish we could get this back in Australia.

Home again, home again.

James was really keen to hit the gay bars of Riga, so Alise was dropped off at her aunt’s place, and the three of us went out.

The gay bar was pretty dull, so after an hour or so we grabbed another Bolt and went into the city to a bar.

Liga translated some of the designer beer names.

6.Tapeworm killer

9. Beer from the swamp

I’m not drinking beer. They were hopping into it.

Beer is a big thing in Latvian culture. James accidentally put his foot in it when he looked at the board, and asked for a LITHUANIAN beer.

The barmaid stared unblinkingly at him and said, “Try again.”

He didn’t realise what he’d said, so the scene was repeated.

Oof. He finally got it right.

The three of us, just before we hit the nightclub.

Of course, if there’s a space to dance, I’m going to take it!

One girl asked how old I was, and when I told her, she said, “I hope I’m still doing things like this when I’m 62!”

“You will if you want to,” I said. “ It’s just a decision.”

Shots at 3AM. Why not?

This was an interesting conversation. This boy is of Russian descent, and has a huge disconnect in his life between his family and their political sympathies, along with his own inclinations.

“In Russia, they kill people like me,” he said. “I don’t want anything to do with Russia and the war, but my parents…”

The Russians have been here for at least a couple of generations, up to a couple of hundred years. People are heavily invested here. It’s not an easy thing to resolve.

Dad joke of the day:

Today was a road trip. We drove through Latvia, stopping off at a palace owned by a very wealthy Duke back in the day, before driving into Lithuania and having a little look around.

Rundale Palace was owned by a couple of generations of Dukes, before the Russians swept through and hung onto it for the next couple of centuries. I was excited to see that it still has a moat around it.

It would have been a simply stunning building back in the day. The bones were all still there, but it’s taken a monumental restoration job to get it back to where it is today.

It wasn’t just the Russians. Napoleon’s troops used this place as a hospital and that’s also never good news for beautiful old homes.

This room was the Gold Room. Masses of gilt decorations in a quasi throne room.

The room leading off from the Gold Room used to be used as a dining room. They could only seat 60 of their closest friends though.

I loved the ballroom. It was all plaster, which was left unpainted. It looked fantastic.

The stork’s nest in the middle of the ceiling was actual sticks and moss, just covered with plaster.

It had a small room where someone with a passion for vases exhibited their collection.

The Rose Room. This was one of my favourites.

There was a plaque on the wall of the Roman emperor Vespasian. LOOK AT HiS NOSE!!!!

omg

The western side of the palace was pretty much empty, so they used it for an exhibition of 17th century fashion.

This tiny little sculpture outside the cafe was exquisite. The fabric was handled so beautifully.

Liga out in the gardens.

The gardens around the palace were beautiful. They were very formally laid out.

Obviously this rose was named for Liga. There were hundreds of roses, all named.

What are the odds that I’d see a rose called this, on the very day the Dad joke was scheduled? Life is very funny sometimes.

We pinched some grapes from this vine. They were super sweet and juicy.

Then we were off to cross the border into Lithuania. James had mentioned something called the Hill of Crosses, so we thought we’d check it out.

Yeah, it looked pretty much the way it sounded. A hill of crosses. James in his red hat is clearly having a spiritual moment.

People started putting crosses on this hill for whatever reason, and eventually the Pope heard about it and came to visit. He donated a huge white cross “as a gift from God.”

There are thousands of crosses and rosary beads here. There’s a gift shop as you come in, which makes it easy for people to buy a cross and take it up there.

It was a strange place. Now, as you know, I don’t have a religious bone in my body, but I can respect the faith of ordinary people who want to contribute to a collective art installation.

But I can’t respond to this in a positive way. It’s just firewood thrown every which way. Big areas of the hill looked like this, which was a shame.

But there were gems among the rubbish.

After we visited the gift shop on the way out… I bought another Christmas Tree decoration… we headed into the nearest town to buy a traditional Lithuanian meal.

Here was our restaurant, chosen for us by Google. It had jolly German music playing, and it was full of macrame.

Liga was adamant that we had to try the potato dumplings. James, being Irish, needed no convincing, though we both drew the line at the pig lungs. We ordered a plate of two dumplings each, his filled with meat and mine with cheese.

The pictures in the menu were deceptive. Each dumpling was as big as my head.

I could only finish one.

Look at us in Lithuania!

I tried to take some photos of Lithuania as we drove back to Riga.

I’m sorry. I like this one.

These countries have so much timber. Forests are everywhere.

Tomorrow, Liga is planning an adventure for James and I.

Dad joke of the day:

This morning before we headed off, Liga showed me a couple of magazine articles she wrote about her trip to Afghanistan. She went there on her own, and travelled to remote areas.

Her photos are amazing, especially the ones taken with people who have never seen a female tourist before. She’s a brave woman!

We drove to another town near Riga. We were leaving James in Riga for the day and going for a girls day.

This is the oldest wooden church in the Baltics. It’s a Lutheran one, I think, built in the early 1700s.

It looks very Scandi inside.

The bible is very old. Imagine the thrill those people would have had when they saw a bible in their own language for the first time… especially if they could read it.

A little more up the path was the ruin of an old castle complex built around 1350. Earlier wooden structures were there, but 1350 was when the Catholic Church got serious about security here.

Of course, my naive belief that the climbing to the top of towers had finished far this holiday was wrong.

They built this thing to last.

It didn’t, of course, with all the conflicts and bloodthirsty takeovers this country has suffered. Restoration began in the 1960s.

“If you look, you see that all the graffiti is Russians names,” said Liga. “ They are the only ones who don’t care about ruining anything.”

This old, timber-lined well is still in use today.

Dog and cat footprints in the bricks.

Less than a week to go, Scout.

This castle had an underfloor heating system. Pretty advanced design for back then.

Then it was off to the country to the traditional Latvian sauna. Liga was very insistent that I experience a proper sauna.

The Latvian sauna has a slightly different feel than a Finnish one, for example. It has a more spiritual side. Liga said to me yesterday, “ You will need to say something you wish to leave there. A problem you have; something you’ve said that you regret… something like that.”

Well, being a Virgo, I’m practically perfect in every way… 😳

Haha. I wish! I thought of a couple of things, so I was ready.

We drank two cups of tea made from wormwood and mallow, which was really bitter. The idea is that you can’t wash your soul clean until you drink the bitter and eat the sweet. This was fruit touched by the sun.

We sat for ages, sipping the tea and talking. There was no rush, as the wood fire slowly warmed up the sauna.

It was all about relaxing, letting the world fall away and just letting the conversation flow.

Liga said that back in the day, the villagers worked 6 days, and on Sundays they gathered together in the saunas. They could get properly clean, they could relax and gossip with the neighbours.

Women gave birth in the saunas, and when people died, their bodies were prepared for burial here.

Sound was also an important part of the sauna, but later.

Remember this lake. It’s also an important part of the whole experience, but later.

We stripped naked and went into the sauna. We were there for quite a long time. We sat in the steam, while Agitai used bunches of dried birch leaves to flick cool water on us. We made a ‘tea’ of different herbs and citrus, and our feet went in there. It smelled amazing.

We each sang a song that is supposed to be important to us. When I was asked to sing, I couldn’t think of anything except Men At Work’s ‘Down Under’, so they got the first verse and the chorus.

Liga ducked outside to take a photo through the window. I don’t have a stitch on here.

There I am, hiding behind the dried birch.

Do you see the red around Agiai’s hat? It’s to stop the sauna master from absorbing anything bad that we might get rid of.

She is a third generation Sauna Master.

After the sauna part is over, you thank your parents, family and friends for being in your life. Then Agitai took me outside, still naked, and we got waist-deep into the lake outside the sauna. It was ICY.

She held me afloat, while I concentrated on stretching out and controlling my breathing. Georgia once told me that if I was ever stressed or in pain, if you breathe deeply and slowly, it tricks your brain that everything is ok. I was telling my brain that it really wasn’t that cold…

See the bunches of birch hanging up?

After the cold lake, I was brought in and wrapped up like a baby bunny. It was so relaxing. Then, as I shut my eyes, she and Liga used the bowls to make an amazing sound scape.

Then they disappeared back into the sauna to let me sleep.

I didn’t snooze, but it was warm and comforting. It was lovely.

It was an experience I’ll never forget.

James, Liga and I went out to dinner at a restaurant that one of Liga’s army friends owns. Best chile con carne nachos I’ve ever had.

The margaritas weren’t bad, too.

Dad joke of the day:

This morning we walked to Tallinn Old Town for breakfast. We had to fortify ourselves for the long car trip to another country… a full 350 kms.

Haha! Yes. Apparently this is considered almost as an epic drive in these parts.

No filter. This was the park in Tallinn as we walked back to the car.

Once we were out of Tallinn, it was all gently rolling countryside and forests. The buildings were all shaped very differently to farm buildings from home, which of course only added to the charm.

Timber is a huge part of the economy here. They have so many trees and so few people to live amongst them. Half of Estonia’s population of 1 million lives in the capital. Latvia is the same, except their population is double that of Estonia.

Woo hoo! Another new country! What an amazing life I’m living right now.

Liga pointed out this dirt track. This is where, in the early 1990’s, people lined up, hand in hand, in an unbroken chain which led from one end of the 3 Baltic countries to the other. They were protesting being forced to be under Soviet rule.

Liga was one of those people.

It was interesting. She says that there’s a huge divide between the old people/Boomers and her generation. The oldies remember life under communism as being really easy. Housing and jobs were provided for everyone, there was no unemployment and nobody had to think or use any initiative. Life was spoon fed to you.

Of course, the younger ones want the freedom to decide their own future. They are vehemently against Russia and want nothing to do with it. “We just have to wait for the old ones to die and then we’ll be free of their nostalgia that helps no one.”

Mid afternoon we arrived at Liga’s place, where she was reunited with her grumpy-faced cat and her family. James from Ireland was in the city, so we arranged to meet up after I put some washing on.

Riga doesn’t have an underground rail, so these tunnels are purely for crossing the road. Buskers sometimes use them.

I’m in this photo with James, I promise!

Old Town Riga is pretty much for the tourists. Liga says she hardly ever goes here.

It’s a pretty place.

There is a traditional Latvian drink we tried. First we had shots of the traditional type, then the blackcurrant version. James and I liked both, and they certainly warmed us up.

This square has one of the nods to a film called ‘Flow.’ It’s the first Latvian film to win an Oscar. It’s an animated movie with no dialogue, and the guy who made it used free software from the internet. There are different statues for each character, dotted around the city.

Liga.

It was almost 7pm and it was still light. My phone was nearly dead…

It’s a bit sobering when we zoom in closer to the radio building…

Bullet holes from when they were fighting the Russians.

The Christmas markets here are meant to be pretty amazing. You can see why.

The musicians of Bremen. It’s a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. I touched the snout of the bottom one for luck. The others were all too high.

My phone died then. We went to a local restaurant near Liga’s place, with her husband and daughter, where we had what was essentially a pork chop Parma with mashed potatoes. Delicious!

Here’s Alise. She’s vey smart and wholly delightful. Her English, even at 8 years old, is extremely good.

Goodnight!

Dad joke of the day: