"Reeg-ya? I Hardly Got to Know Ya."

atrocious puns (and the requisite mis-spelling of major European capitols) aside, my bried stay in Riga was quite delightful, especially after the week of less familiar traveling in Turkey and the whirlwind route that brought me to Latvia.

Here's on the deal: this city is totally crazy. and cool. It has very old building (by Euro standards - props to the ancients in Greece/Turkey),but these aren't monuments,they are actively in use alongside soviet apartment blocks and ridiculously opulent churches and basilicas. in fact, you practically can't find a street corned near my converted hostel that doesn't have at least one beautiful clock tower, steeple, or gargoyle adorning one of it's corner buildings.And I stayed in "New Town."

I'm also blown away on my first day in a former Soviet republic. I know a touch of russian history, but obviously I haven't learned the nuances. Like for example, how did the glorious St. Peters basilica remain intact during decades of supposedly athiest rule? what was it, the Peoples Bingo Hall of Uniform Magnificence?

And then it occurs to me that Communism (in a gross and unfair oversimplification) was an ideology created by intellectuals for the supposed benefit of the masses, but without really considering or asking what the masses really valued or wanted. Further (perhaps finally) it was a system which tried very hard to keep these same intellectuals rightly out of power, but unfortunately it turns out that it left the power positions opened, and this was largely exploited by non-intellectual elites that worked for neither the benefit of the masses nor the intellectual (even altruistic) goals. In short - I didn't realize how much lingering religion and other non-Soviet ideologies survived not only behind the Iron Curtain,but often under its condonement.

I'm not saying this is a huge revelation, or that it's a total surprise, I just didn't think about it. I was always taught about the Soviet as a very black-white (or to be honest, good vs evil) state. The concept of its realistically necessary heterogeny didn't occur to me.

I've already gone further than I should after only 16 hours in the place, but it was beautiful, cozy, friendly, and none-too-hot.

and The Sun Sets at Midnight. How's that for a better blog title!