We sit next to the oldest cathedral in Riga. A man who is wearing sunglasses on a gray day, and may or may not be blind is playing hauntingly beautiful music on his cello. A little further on another man is playing folk music on the accordion. The wind blows and I shiver a bit. It's not really that cold, but we've just come from Turkey where it's still summer, so I'm having a little trouble adjusting. It's funny – at home in Scotland, I would never have thought this could be cold. This is summer weather in Skye.
The square is the center of the old town, and is surrounded by buildings that remind me of the cello music – beautiful but sad. Buildings that have seen too much. In the other side of the square they've set up outdoor bars with cheap Latvian beer and live music. I love sitting around downtown, it's a great place to watch the world go by. Compared to Turkey there are no animals on the streets. No dogs, and fortunately for me, no cats. The city is so calm and clean after Turkey. Almost so much so that it doesn't seem real.
This isn't one of those exciting travel stories. Because not all of travel is exciting. I thought it would be at first. But often what we do is to live on the road. It's a lot more challenging, but some things are still the same everywhere we go. Like arriving in all countries, the first thing to do is to get the local money. Next is to buy a pay phone card, and figure out how to get from the bus station/train station to where we are staying.
Last night the first two were no problem, but then we rung the girl we were supposed to stay with, and were told her phone was off. No problem, we thought. We'll take the bus to the center and try again. We found the bus station in the center, which conveniently – –
And now a scream comes from the center of the square. We look up. A crowd of men in suits and women in dresses stand in the square. At the center we glimpse a bride in a white dress. The group walks back past the cathedral, laughing and chatting, about to turn the corner and then stops, and the bride and groom turn back a little and begin dancing to the cello music. They dance slowly, gazing into each others eyes. The cellist takes no notice of them. I feel like I've entered a love scene of a movie made in the 1950s. The magic only last a few minutes though, and then the bride and groom disappear round the corner hand in hand.
Back to the bus station...it conveniently had a pay phone (most stations do), so we put down our bags and sat on the nearby
stairs...for the next three hours. We watched security people kick out guys who looked like they might not have showered in a long time. Watched many many women walk through in high heels. I always wondered why human woman wear high heels. We mice are much more sensible. We don't need shoes, although sometimes we wear boots for fun – but never with heels – –
An old man one bench over has taken a piece of bread from a green plastic bag. A pigeon sits on his hand and eats. The others strut around wondering how they can get a piece of the action. He starts to crumble some of the bread so the others can eat. A black pigeon tries to knock the other off the man's hand and he pushes it away. The cello music has stopped and the accordion music wafts over again.
Back to the bus station...we realized that a young woman and mouse with bags can loiter, and no one will kick them out. At eleven o'clock we gave up and found a hostel. This morning Kate discovers that she had written the number wrong. The hazards of life on the road. We call the girl to apologize, and she tells us to come over, we can stay the rest of the weekend, she's really glad that we are okay.
Two women sit down next to us. They are eating ice cream. I am really excited – we're back in a country where you are allowed to eat ice cream when it's cold out!!