Latvia

ACCOMMODATION:

I stayed at Cinnamon Sally’s hostel. Overall this is a fabulous hostel, but there was one major downside. First the good:

Super social & easy to meet people; organized social activities for the guests almost every day

Location was great – near the bus & train station, and only 10-15 min from Old Town. Grocery store across the street!

Bed was comfy, rooms were not cramped, & there were large lockers for your stuff.

Free breakfast that includes yummy fresh waffles! There were tons of toppings/spreads as well including my favorite: peanut butter!

A few different spots to sit with a computer and work or just chill & meet people.

Lots of volunteers & folks working so it was easy to get any questions answered.

Then the bad:

I found a bed bug in bed: When I went to bed at midnight, I felt something on my arm and grabbed it between my fingers in the dark. I thought “there’s no way it’s a bed bug but I’ll shine my phone on it anyway” Sure enough…. it was a bed bug 😦 Luckily it hadn’t bit me so I just killed it and went out to reception to get me a new bed. Here’s where I messed up, I let them give me a bed in the same bedroom

I woke up to more bed bugs: Cut to 2:30am and I wake up to me itching my arms…. I immediately fully wake up and grab my phone to shine the light, and yep there’s another bed bug scurrying around in my bed. I count 6 bites on my arms and back. Once again I kill it, but now there is now way I can go to bed. For one, the reception is now closed and two, I won’t even be able to sleep anyway. Now I get to begin the fun process of gathering all my things and going out to the common room to inspect every inch of every item to ensure no bed bugs got into my stuff. After much research about bed bugs, since this is the fourth time I have gotten them while traveling (1x in Naples, Italy in 2016, 1x in Gili T, Indonesia in 2020, 1x in Skopje, North Macedonia in Aug, and now Riga) and bed bugs don’t tend to carry any diseases so while the bites are itchy & annoying, it’s not that different than getting a bunch of mosquito bites. The thing you have to worry about is that they are incredibly difficult to get rid of and they are happy to hitch hike in your stuff all the way to your home (or wherever you are going next). Hence why it’s common to get them in hostels & hotels (since so many people are coming & going). Given this, after you find bed bugs, it’s incredibly important to ensure that they don’t continue on your journey with you , which inevitably means taking 1-2 hours to meticulously inspect your stuff and/or subjecting your bag to heat, since extreme heat or extreme cold are the only things that kill bed bugs. One technique often used by backpackers in hot places, is to put their bag in a black trash bag & leave it in the sun for a day or two. Well now you know way more than you want about bed bugs 🙂 Your welcome!!

All in all I don’t really blame hostels/hotels because they can do their best to keep bed bugs at bay, but travelers can just as easily bring them in. Given that, I don’t get mad at hostels for having bed bugs, but I certainly judge them based on how they handle the aftermath. I would give this hostel a 7/10 in their response. They ultimately gave me a refund on the night, free laundry & a new bed in a new room for my final night, but they were a little slow to agree to it and seemed to be slightly skeptical that I’d actually had bedbugs, even though I had photos… Definitely some room for improvement on how they treated me, especially since I’d had 2 hours of sleep!

Weirdly enough, I would still recommend this hostel but I probably can only give it a 7/10 because of the bed bug situation.

WHAT TO DO:

As always, I headed out on the free walking tour my first day there. I wrangled two Germans from the hostel into joining me and after the walking tour, we grabbed some snacks & headed to one of the many beautiful parks to soak up the sun.

I did a day trip to Sigulda to visit the Castle, do some walking in Gauja National Park, and see the highest and widest cave in the Baltics.

Lastly don’t miss Riga Central Market, Europe’s largest market & bazaar. It’s over 72,000 square meters (778,000 square feet), featuring more than 3,000 stands.

While I didn’t have time for it, another great option for a day trip is Jūrmala to visit the beach!

I also joined a gym that was nearby the hostel because they had a 3 day trial for 10 euros 🙂

Wow, oh, wow! Amsterdam was fabulous! It also marked the last of my solo travels. Megan, who I became friends with at Tufts this past year, joined me in Amsterdam after she attended a 6-week long study abroad program in Talloires, which is put on through the Tufts European Center. We met at the at soccer tryouts last fall (for the Tufts club team) when everyone at tryouts was going around saying their name, where they were from, and what position they play. It came my turn and I said “Meg, from Palo Alto (because no one knows Los Altos!!), and defense. After five others had gone, I was surprised to hear a new face say the exact same thing. I mean literally the exact same answer. Her name was Meg. She grew up in Palo Alto. She plays defense. It was hilarious. She later told me that she thought it was a prank and that all the seniors had figured out where different freshmen were from and pretended to have their name and be from their hometown. But obviously that wasn’t the case. Ever since bonding over our shared traits, we have been friends. We have been to concerts, done half marathons, and are now traveling Europe together!

Amsterdam is the first city of six cities we will be doing together- and it was a great one to start with, although it did start a bit rocky as Megan took the wrong train from the airport and ended up in the countryside in a town called Hilversum before she was able to get off and board the right train back to Amsterdam. She did eventually make it to the hostel and we had some delicious Asian fusion for a late dinner.

Our first full day in Amsterdam was sunny and warm! A nice reprieve from the cloudiness and rain I experienced in the U.K. We started our day with a walking tour around the city and walked past the narrowest house in Amsterdam! The reason houses in Amsterdam are so tall, but narrow is that back in the day taxes were determined by how wide your house was! So if you wanted to show off your wealth, you would build a particularly wide house. If you were stingy (like my dad 😉 ), then you built as narrow a house as you could!

Narrowest house in Amsterdam

We then had lunch at Il Panorama. We sat outside on a canal and had amazing focaccia with grilled vegetables as a starter! Next we were off to the I AMSTERDAM sign. Don’t worry, we took a lot of pictures 🙂

M is for Meg!

Meg + Megan

Megan

After some wandering around, we arrived at Foodhallen for some dinner. Foodhallen is a food hall with upscale eateries inside. It seemed to be where a lot of working professionals went after work. To finish off the day, we had some delicious Belgium waffles!

Meg with her sushi at Foodhallen

Strawberries + Nutella

The next day was primarily spent on a bike tour of the countryside! We got on our bikes and rode like locals… or like a group of herded tourists in matching ponchos. Although we hit some rain, we still had so much fun. We stopped at a windmill and a farm that makes cheese and carves clogs. He was one of three traditional clog makers left in The Netherlands.

After the bike tour we took a few hours to rest before heading out on a tour of the Red Light District. It was fascinating to learn the history of the area, along with how it has evolved into a legitimate and legal business. We heard about the tax, health, and safety implications of being a sex worker. Women have to apply for their business license at the county hall, just like every other person applying for a business license. Altogether, it was cool to understand how the business actually works.

The next day we took a train to a town called Utrecht. We had heard from a few locals that it was a cute town so we decided to check it out. It was definitely worth it if you have a few days while in Amsterdam. It’s only about 20 min. away by train so it’s easy to visit for the morning and lunch, which is exactly what we did! We walked around the town, which isn’t too large, and then found a nice Italian restaurant next to one of their canals to eat lunch. Overall, a really fun town to visit for a couple of hours.

To finish off the day, we went to dinner with two Canadians and a brother and sister from Alabama where we watched Portugal play Wales in the semi-finals of Euro Cup. We both enjoyed hanging with the four of them, although it got a bit awkward when the Canadians brought up Trump… Luckily, the topic switched quite quickly. Unfortunately, Wales lost 2-0 and Portugal advanced to the final. After the game, we all headed back to the hostel and Megan and I packed up our stuff as we were leaving at 7am the next morning.

Amsterdam was definitely one of my favorite stops so far (along with Galway and Edinburgh). Meg and I dubbed it “one of the most Instagrammable cities” we had each been too. The canals made for a beautiful backdrop around every single corner. Some examples:

Also, neither of us smoke weed so we decided to focus on other things Amsterdam had to offer, but we did see the first Coffee Shop and some other fun weed related things!

First coffee shop!

For all you cannabis lovers out there!!!

After Amsterdam, our next stop was Stockholm… but the cheapest way to get there was to have a layover in Riga, Latvia. We embraced this by leaving the airport and spending the afternoon exploring this Baltic country (about 5 hours).

First stop was Centraltrigus, a food market that occupies 72.3 thousand square metres of space and has over 3000 trade stands. We walked around and snacked on some fresh raspberries for about 1.50$. SO CHEAP!!

After walking around the market and the rest of town, we found a delicious lunch place called Street Fries Kitchen. It was sooo good! Megan had lentil and avocado salad and I had a ham, cheese, and egg crepe. Definitely one of our favorite meals so far!