{"id":1213,"date":"2016-08-01T08:29:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-01T08:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2016-08-01T08:31:01","modified_gmt":"2016-08-01T08:31:01","slug":"the-riga-groove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1213","title":{"rendered":"The Riga Groove"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RigaPictureView\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I used to laugh at kids who jumped on a cheap Ryan Air flight, and landed having no idea where they were.\u00a0 I arrived in Riga, Latvia, a bit like the kids.\u00a0 After leaving the no-nonsense airport, I got into a taxi, observed the driver who is taking me somewhere (gentle giant, with a set square face and pointy nose).\u00a0 Hitting stride after airport blacktop, there was already a forest, already fir trees.\u00a0 Across the barrier were waves of wild weedy plants, moving to the air currents that they alone felt.\u00a0 They shifted and called and consoled, like a scene from the Russian filmmaker Tarkovsky.\u00a0 Maybe after the artifice of Paris, I was constructing a myth of a return to thickness of nature after too much (or a breakdown) of civilization.<\/p>\n

It was quite a myth.\u00a0 Riga turns out to be a happening city.\u00a0 It\u2019s not post-civilization at all – its huge port still supports a city punctuated by needles and spires.\u00a0 The old town looks like a setting for a fairy tale, by turns Scandinavian or German, with sharp rustic roofs, bright colors, vibrant decoration.\u00a0 Dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, its buildings are restored with fresh blue, orange, pink paint.\u00a0 Each one is different in their little lanes.<\/p>\n

As if creating a new public Ibiza, a loungy bar sits in an open square, playing cool beats in the evening.\u00a0 Small cobbled streets packed with coffee houses and Brits on bar crawls.\u00a0 Latvia joined the EU five years ago, and between ease of travel and investment of euros, it\u2019s becoming a stop on party\/destination circuit.\u00a0 Maybe it will be the next Prague. There are restaurants playing fast and furious with local ingredients, making dandelion wine, turning out marvels.<\/p>\n

It makes for fascinating people watching.\u00a0 There are Valkyrie look – oversized, blanched-blond.\u00a0 There are Russians in all their variety. \u00a0 British lads.\u00a0 Bright, hip Latvian kids who don\u2019t seem to miss a beat, who can combine, in a single sentence, words in Latvian, Russian and English.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the winding historic center on one side of the wide river.\u00a0 The other side has another story, to be discovered.<\/p>\n

\"Riga\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I used to laugh at kids who jumped on a cheap Ryan Air flight, and landed having no idea where they were.\u00a0 I arrived in Riga, Latvia, a bit like the kids.\u00a0 After leaving the no-nonsense airport, I got into … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[479,482],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-latvia","tag-riga"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-jz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1215,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/1215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}