Enjoying a beer at the hostel bar
Somewhere between the border check and a grimy bus station next to the Russian Market in Riga, Skippy unravelled a tattered piece of paper with a brief note on it. “Frank’s Friendly Hostel. Club Essential. Do the Shooting. Say hi to Casper.”
The note was written by two Serbians Skippy had met on his travels. While discussing our upcoming trip the Serbs had given Skippy the low down on Riga. The summary of which Skippy had been carrying around in his wallet ever since.
Frank’s Friendly Hostel is at the edge of the old town and the main door is, uncharacteristically for a hostel, devoid of flashy signs. We climbed the steep, creaking stairs, were ushered into the bar and each given a beer. The barman was a pale guy with wispy white hair wearing an ill-fitting black t-shirt and black jeans. “Hello” the barman said, “My name is Casper. I am from Sweden, but I live here in Riga now because it’s cheaper to drink and it’s cheaper to smoke.”
Casper lives and works in the hostel. He sleeps, as he put it, in a little crack den upstairs. His job was to make sure everyone had a good time. Firstly he gave us maps and pointed out the tourist sites. Then he warned us about some of the annoyances of Riga and invited us to join him on his regular party night. We signed up looking forward to visiting one of Riga's great bars with a guy who obviously knew a thing or two about it.
We had a bit of a kip in the afternoon and met the party crew in the hostel bar at 11:00pm. Casper, looking like Kurt Cobain, served us a few beers and then led us off to one of his favourite Riga bars. And no wonder it was his favourite! Not only was it all of 200 meters from the hostel, he got a hug and a kiss from no less than 3 girls who worked there! No wonder this guy likes his job.
The bar was fairly tame but we were promised better things next time we went out. Next time our destination would be...Club Essential! But before then there were a few other things to take care of.
We visited the Occupation Museum which describes Latvian life under German occupation during World War II and Soviet occupation after the war. One of the leftovers of Soviet occupation is the Russian Market. Housed in several enormous sheds which look like aircraft hangers the market is wall-to-wall refrigerated cabinets containing meat, fish and cheese. I even saw a batch of fresh (ie still alive and flipping around) fish wheeled in. Around the edge we found a multitude of tasty treats and I posed as a local eating my grilled cheese and cauliflower bread stick and drinking the worst coffee I’ve had outside of London while standing up in the small eating area. That’s how the locals do it.
A stroll around the Russian Market became a daily event. The food was great, bettered only by the hats. Squish bought himself an authentic Latvian hat. So authentic that people kept trying to speak to him in Latvian!
The final scribble on Skippy’s list from the Serbs (apart from Club Essential, which I’ll get to in a moment) was ‘Do the Shooting’. What does this mean? A poster on the wall at the hostel answered my question: FIRE AK-47 IN SOVIET BUNKER. 35 lats. That’s about £35. The best £35 I’ve ever spent!!
A short tram ride with our guide for the day, Loren, and a short walk brought us to a thick metal door hiding a stairway down into an underground concrete bunker. At the bottom of the stairs we were faced with a gun shop. Guns, guns, more guns and some nasty looking knives. It was like walking into a scene in a movie just before the escaped prisoner tests out some weaponry and then shoots the gun shop owner and casually strolls out onto the street determined for revenge at all costs. I signed a form absolving the shooting range responsibility if I shoot myself in the foot or get otherwise injured. I think it also had a clause that stated ‘no Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes.’
A grumpy looking Latvian man with a bushy moustache and a cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth picked up an AK-47 and gestured for us to follow him into a sound-proof room. On the way Loren gave each of us a set of blue ear muffs. Inside we were told to stand back behind the red line on the floor. There were a few seats up the back, 3 small tables in the middle of the room and 12 paper targets at the front of the room. Each target was in the shape of a James Bond look-alike pointing his piddly little excuse for a gun at me. The grumpy Latvian guy turned around from one of the central tablets, “One person.” And beckoned the gamest among us to step forward.
Maysie, without a second thought, confidently strode forward. Trust a bloke who’s worked on a mine in Queensland for the last 4 years to have no nerves about firing a gun at a piece of paper. Maysie reached the table, was handed a glok pistol and given one simple instruction; “target number 1”.
I didn’t like the glok. Every shot seemed to make it leap up and try to smack you in the forehead. The second round with the AK-47 was better. There wasn’t as much kick as I thought and I managed to hit the target with a few shots. Finally, the pump action shotgun! My paper James Bond target wouldn’t survive this.
Back at the bar in the hostel we proudly compared our target sheets. I scored 135, which was about average across the group. Someone scored 150, but I can’t remember who that was. Does it matter? Not really, we shot guns, in a Soviet bunker and all had a great time.
A large and bubbly crowd had gathered in the hostel bar in readiness for Thursday night at Club Essential. Casper led us through the old town and into the queue for the club. He was a bit concerned about the rowdy Irish guys on the stag do, but we all got in. Except for Squish. Latvian hat: good, Squish’s runners: not so good. In the morning we’d find him acceptable shoes at the Russian Market and he could go to another club the following night.
Inside the lighting was typical nightclub blue. Just like the toilets in McDonalds on Collins Street. The music was pumping and the local girls on the dance floor were loving it. A couple of vodkas and we’d be out there too. A good mix of cheesy tunes and chart tracks kept us dancing until the early hours. Then it was home, via a small dumpling shop.
We decided a day trip from Riga was a good idea. So we jumped on a bus to Sigulda. It was a cute little town and we ambled through the nearby national park. Finally, at the end of the day, we found the bobsled track. It was closed, and didn’t even have ice on it. But they did let us climb to the top and run down the track. Great view from the top. And I can tell you it’d be bloody scary going done the track at pace!
Saturday 29th September was AFL Grand Final Day. And for our viewing pleasure Frank’s Friendly Hostel was putting on a party. All of us, except Squish, woke up early and made it down just in time to see the end of the pre-match entertainment (when are the bringing back Angry Anderson and the Bat mobile?). A quick bellowing of the national anthem and it was game time. The hostel bar was full of a motley crew of mainly Australians and Latvian friends of Australians with a few left over Irishman from the stag weekend. Fortunately the Irishman were more interesting in having a smoke in the smoking room across the corridor than the AFL. The cast was completed by a man in the corner proudly donning the navy blue and white hoops of Geelong.
The cats came out on fire and blitzed Port Power early. They dominated play, but missed some shots at goal which gave Port some hope. The second quarter was all Geelong again, and by half-time it was “how far the cats?” 2nd half the boys from Geelong went right on with the business and won by a record grand final margin. Not the best game in the world, but it was good to watch some AFL footy again and the toast with vegemite served up by a couple of Franks mates were a welcome change from dumplings and goulash soup.