Riga

Flying into Riga this morning was beautiful. It was the first snow in both Stockholm and Riga, and last night it snowed all night starting around midnight, although by the time I left for the airport in Stockholm at 5:45 am it had all turned wet and slushy and rainy. But in Latvia it snowed all morning and part of the afternoon, true snow for hours before it turned to rain. The stretches of snowy pine trees by Arlanda, so dark green they are nearly gray, were very stark and pretty. And now, Latvia. From what little I have seen, the old city is absolutely gorgeous, with such elaborately detailed and ornamented buildings, so much art nouveau, and it was quite a contrast from the drive from the airport. The effect was definitely magnified by the white-grey sky and the snow, but it was very, very Baltic/post-Soviet feeling. Dilapidated buildings and crumbling walls mixed with factories and shiny new glass buildings, an SAS Radisson billboard that was so old it was completely illegibly faded next to a gleaming new Ermengildo Zegna billboard, and all of these incredibly beautiful pastel Scandinavian-style wooden buildings, with those familiar yellows and pinks and greens, but totally faded.

On the agenda for tomorrow: the Occupation of Latvia Museum, the Latvian National Museum of Art where there's an exhibition of young Latvian painters called Candy Bomber that sounds cool, St. Peter's Church & the Dome Cathedral, the bizarre "black cat house," all the art nouveau/jugendstil buildings, etc. Then I'm going to see an American movie at the multiplex in nearby Coca-Cola Plaza. On Monday morning I am doing something very cultural and going to a spa for a facial/sauna.

Museums I think I might skip: Latvian University Museum of Computing Science, and Latvian Fire-Fighting Museum.

Now I'm in my cozy room watching Musharraf declare martial law in Pakistan, and soon Jake will broadcast the latest Office episode to me via Comcast On-Demand and good old Skype, but if I was really brave I would be down in a casino playing poker with the children of Russian oil tycoons.