Posterous theme by Cory Watilo
Adam & Bella

Blast from the past

If I had known I would be hanging my socks up one by one to dry, I would not have used so many of them in one week.

Photo

It was very interesting to come back to Riga 13 years later where a lot of things have changed and become a lot more like what I am used to in the US, and some not at all. 

For example Double Coffee (aka, in Adam's opinion, an improved version of Starbucks) is everywhere, but in addition to lattes and cappuccinos they also serve milk cocktails like what I remember having as a kid. Of course, now I could order as many of them as I wanted, even with banana flavor (I hadn't tried a banana before moving to the US). There was also the Central Market which was way better then the tiny little market we have once a week in Menlo Park, with fresh fish, any cuts of meat you may want, quite fatty farmer's cheese, and of course buns with pieces of lard. 

With some trouble I eventually found the building where I went to kindergarden, and the street that we would cross from the building to go to the playground. It was about at that location I told my kindergarden teacher in Soviet Latvia that all of my parents' friends were moving to the US, ooops - not something to be said out loud in Soviet times.  

Adam and I even went to the building that used to be the grocery store where you would stand in a long line to order bread, then get the check and stand in another line to pay for it, and then stand in line again to get that bread,  only to repeat the same process again in the dairy, meat and other departments. Now it's a huge mall that has even expanded into the building across the street. We of course also went to Drogas (aka Walgreens), and even though coming from the US, it doesn't look like they sell anything special, I still got excited every time I passed by that store because I remember when it opened for the first time in Riga. We snubbed the first McDonalds in Riga (that used to give out balloons to kids) and didn't go in for the usual shake and french fries.

Walking through the Old City was amazing, my only regret was that when I lived there I never appreciated it, of course things didn't look as nice as they do now.