The following blog entry has been republished here courtesy of Treacherous Truths.
You know, I’ve been waiting months for the proposed protest that was supposed to happen today in Riga (disclaimer: I advocate non-violent officially sanctioned protests) only to hear this morning on Radiobaltkom that not only is it not on but an application was not even submitted! Huh? Common sense should cause me to withhold comment until there is more information available just in case there was some good reason for not even trying! In spite of my reluctance to say so unequivocally, most metrics would indicate that upon first glance this does indeed count as a fail.
Moving right along, it was a busy day in Riga yesterday with us eventually not getting home until 9:00 pm so we partook of some nosh at a conveniently located Lido (there are eight in the chain). I haven’t been in one for quite a while now, maybe one year ago the last time. In 2008 when I returned home to Mrs. T’s new and freshly appointed flat here in Latvia (just after the popping sound of the real estate bubble had ruptured rudely in everyones face) after three years on the road I was in such rotten physical condition from all the hotel, restaurant and camp food that I went on a strict diet. I’m an ambitious cook and I like everything about the process from the purchasing of food to the preparation and cleanup, it’s therapeutic. But that one meal of bangers and mash at the Lido caused me to gain 1 full kilo I kid you not! I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to bloat so quickly since I didn’t eat that much yesterday, outside of a home breakfast of chai, toast and fresh squeezed OG that was my only meal, maybe my body chemistry has been permanently altered? Anyway, no more buffet food for me and I think I heard somewhere that the owner of the franchise is leaving Latvia anyway due to higher proposed taxes and a smaller client base and for sure it wasn’t very busy at 5:00-6:00 pm when we were there even taking into account the take away clients. Thats a fail.
Previous to that I was wandering around Stockmann waiting for Mrs. T to tram in from a different part of Riga and marveling at the prices of mens clothes. I own a Wind River fall jacket that I purchased at a Marks Work Warehouse in Alberta, Canada about seven years ago or so that was mirrored by the almost exact same jacket design at Stockmann that just happens to be of the Gant brand. Exactly The Same Color, even! My purchase price back then was something like 40 CAN if I can trust my sodden memory and the Gant was 257 lvl. Incredible don’t you think? Never mind the Hugo Boss brands or all the others, poorly sewn fakes offered up at incredible prices. Go ahead, learn about stitches or fabric and try to justify a purchase! When the missus finally showed up we went to the Gallerina in Old Town for comparison shopping but got wet and decided to sit on a bench amongst all the 50% OFF signs and people watch instead (my small fail, not very scientific I’m afraid). No one had shop bags indicating a purchase had been made and in fact most people just seemed to be coming in off the street to escape the wet or eat something. One Italian guy had a dozen oranges which he was devouring with gusto, sandwiches and hamburgers everywhere and no shopping being done, it was really a strange feeling since there is no food court. I thought security was going to start kicking all these diners out but they just ignored them. So we moved on to finish our business. And by the way, having a fabric curtain with a print suggesting a business with shelves full of product does not hide the fact that the shop behind the curtain is anything but empty and dusty. No one is fooled. Same as the facades on building fronts under construction. Fail!
I will admit though that there is a lot of building remont going on and I wonder who owns (is financing) them since there are a lot of already finished buildings that are totally empty and have been for quite some time. Make work projects? Fail in progress? My wife is on the other computer reading about Venice and how few people actually live there full time now. So few that there is talk of doing DNA tests to figure out what the actually number is. What is going on here?
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