Riga - On Filling Free Time

For my first day in Riga, the university dispatched a staff member to give me a walking tour at noon.  Having a couple of hours beforehand, I did my own exploring.  Having been to Riga before, I was free of obligation to take in the usual tourist sights and excursions.  I could just enjoy the charm of walking at leisure in a well-preserved, life-sized antique.  Riga was a member city of the Hanseatic League.  There are a few 13th-century remnants remaining and a lot of buildings from other centuries besides.  It's the perfect setting for a sword-and-sorcery adventure. The synagogue is in a back alley close to the hotel.  In fact, everything is close to the hotel in the old part, even a small, enclosed shopping mall (which is modern).  It would be at home in New Jersey with its Christmas lighting and its little boutiques.  I noted the supermarket there with triumph—I'll beat the high cost of living here (and the highly inflated exchange rate) by stocking up on incidental food for room fridge.  The weather was windy and cold but at least not raining.  Occasionally, spits of rain—hail, even—come down, but it stops after a minute.   Typically Baltic, except that by now they should have snow.  I can use Russian practically everywhere, which is an unanticipated advantage.

Madara Kirsa, my university-assigned guide, walked me around the old city again, explaining a few historical facts.  Her more useful assignment was to show me the university building and the room where I was to teach.  She is a graduate student, but if she mentioned her specialty, I didn't catch it.  She speaks superb English and has visited NY and Miami briefly.  The classroom building is large and traditional 19th-century and on the inside resembles hundreds of academic buildings throughout the Western world (and maybe elsewhere): worn stairs, scuffed halls, walls patchworked with notices.  I tried out the ladies room, which exhibited the same institutional dilapidation as toilets everywhere else (such as in courthouses) but with one notable exception—there are no toilet paper rolls in the stalls.  There’s a giant toilet paper roll on the wall when you walk in and you take what you think you’ll need with you.  Janitors probably love that, but I can’t say it’s a user-friendly idea.

I liberated Madara as soon as we finished in the classroom building and walked around the city some more, looking at souvenir kiosks, noting few items of potential interest.  By 3:00 I had exhausted the possibilities of Riga for the day.  I made plans for some further exploration tomorrow outside the bounds of the old city (which is not the sum-total of Riga).