Oh Sweet Sweet Hostel

Riga, Latvia has all the old world charm of a medieval village with the modern day elegance of the world's busiest cities. It was in this place that I found myself on Wednesday night, having just flown in from Dublin, Ireland. My suitcase - having conveniently come out onto the carousel as the second to last - in hand, I wandered over to the the nearby atm. I pulled some cash and was sent into anaphalactic shock($1 buys me 0.45 Lats. not cool). I then went over to the information booth and asked how to get into the city. A pretty young Latvian woman who spoke good English told me of a good hostel to stay at and how to get there. I was to catch a certain bus outside on the street that would take me to the center of the city and close to the hostel.
So there I was, a stranger in a strange land on a strange bus with strange people who spoke a strange language going to a location I did not know. Upon recognizing the described stop to get off on, I got off the bus and began wandering the streets of central Riga looking for the hostel - it was about 9:30pm. After some 2 hours, and all sorts of discrepant directions from young Latvians with basic English skills, I came to the hostel.
This wouldn't have been so frustrating had I not spent 2 hours lost in the streets of Dublin earlier that day. I had a 9 hour layover in Dublin, which gave me some time to explore the capital city of Ireland. Needless to say, that city is whack. Street signs are few and far between, the streets meander this-way-and-that, the street workers - who you assume speak English but are barely intelligible to an untrained American ear, making me feel like a fool! - were almost no help at all, and...to make things worse, there was a thick fog making it hard to see anything all culminated to make my Irish experience less than desirable (sigh). But, I have been there! Ha!