You Are Not The Boss Of Me!

What is the business model with the iDea Store and the Apple store in Riga? Both I have visited attempting a simple purchase of a Leopard and Lion upgrade disc which would take 5 minutes in North America. I have my reasons for wanting a physical disc but that is neither here nor there. In both establishments one is presented with two employees at the counter, a male totally fixated on whatever was on the screen in front of him flanked by a female who was obviously assigned the odious task of dealing with the great unwashed and while she was genuinely attempting to be helpful was clearly unable to answer my question so was thereby forced to attempt communication with her fellow (male) employee who remained immersed in his screen. Like a rooster.

What was on that computer screen anyway? Apple company intranet investment stats? Pr0n? Those guys just flat out refused to take their eyes off it and preferred to communicate in grunts best translated as “app store, not here”. I could’ve changed my question entirely and received the same answer. I suspect it is simply that if you are not purchasing hardware product off the shelf they have better things to do. No "Genius Bar" here!

My suggestion is that Apple, Riga fire all the male managers or top tier (male) floor people and replace them with their female underlings who clearly understand the purpose of the store and the value of not pissing off the only customer in the establishment.


I'll never waste my time in these places again.

Cafe' Review #1

De Gusto Cafe', Riharda Vāgnera iela 16, Old Town, Riga;


The first in a series. I will be documenting my cafe' visits here as many establishments that I used to enjoy several years ago are no longer in business, much to my disappointment.


This one can be a bit intimidating to a fresh visitor due to it's fanciful interior but it is actually very comfortable and not at all pretentious. And certainly no more expensive than any other cafe' in the old town. In actuality it is a restaurant but I almost never eat out preferring my own kitchen so these reviews won't deal with the menu.


My wife and I have a routine, 100g of Balsam and coffee's along with a couple of pastries. The cost is almost always around 7 lats and unless markedly different I won't be commenting too much about that. The honey cake here was delicious and there was a nice selection of tarts and breads. Four tiny tables outside on the street if the day is nice but no guard rail or separation from the vehicles or foot traffic as the area is just not that big. My biggest complaint about the old town is the vehicular traffic. There shouldn't be any allowed. Delivery and Emergency vehicles only. There are too many monkeys hot rodding around the narrow streets like they own the place. My rant, I shall include one per review to break things up.


Fresh juice, free water and a WC for the needy but not necessarily paying customer type which is normal here. Don't try that in Venice folks!

But the back room is very interesting and not shown here to provide some mystery and a reason to visit with plates in the ceiling, and what must surely be a rarity. A cat sleeping on a heat register. Well, that isn't so rare in Latvia after all but this cat and heat register is made totally from felt and maybe the cat is in need of a little fluffing so as to get rid of that road-rash look but whatever. Maybe you should probably just focus on the 16th century furniture and take in the ambiance. Very friendly wait staff speaking Latvian/Russian/English and probably some other languages as well.

C5 Galaxy Leaves Riga?

Something shook my flat early this morning! It sometimes happens that there are tremors when a heavy freight train rumbles by but never like this. I was afraid the pictures would come off the wall.

The C5 probably won't be flying in and out of RIX very often and for that I am thankful. Since commercial flights have increased it has become very noisy and I live 10 km's from the airport. The train is bad enough, the addition of heavy air traffic makes for an additional annoyance.

Latvian Success Story

I don't usually hang around this site very much but it recently caught my eye, especially after the IMF's visit to this country last week.

I Pretend To Work & They Pretend To Pay Me

Actually I have no idea what was going on here on the corner of Gedtrudes iela and Avotu iela this morning. 

Back in Riga

When I last lived in Riga twenty months ago I had a blog which I deleted after I moved to Winnipeg, Canada. At the time I did not know if I would return so in retrospect, since I am back, it would have been nice to just fire the old girl up again. Nevertheless it is probably easier to just maintain the one site while making superficial changes to allow for location. Because who knows what the future holds?


It is a long way from Winnipeg to Riga in both space and time. A horrible and demeaning series of plane rides and security checkpoints that leaves you at your destination a broken person with serious jet lag. I've never liked travel by air, the class conscious and fascist nature of the experience leaves me in a cold rage that takes time to dissipate. But a serious regimen of booze, sleep, food & booze followed by more sleep and a morning walk on the Jurmala beach has helped to gently ease me back into the everyday world.


My first impression upon leaving RIX was how little things had changed. It was grey and raining just as when I left and the annual spring clean up hasn't yet occurred so the landscape along the highway was dirty and worn. But the region I live in was undergoing some serious water pipe upgrades that had the streets all torn up and caught me off guard since the train station public toilet and tool shed were still covered in the same graffiti that has been there since before 2008, made up primarily of improbably huge penis' and ugly, inarticulate "tags". The station itself was freshly painted however and the perpetually drunk maintenance worker who appeared to stand outside the normal flow of time having been there so long as to have become a permanent fixture much like the rusty lamp pole he is always standing under informed us that the graffiti would be painted over this summer. I'll believe it when I see it.


And so it begins! I look forward to my second attempt at understanding this city. Countries are too big for me to chew on. Cities I can deal with.

Cat Hostel

Just received an email from my wife in Riga. If you have been to Rome or any place in Italy actually you will know about their reverence for cats. Apparently there are now "Cat Hostels" in Riga where shelter is provided and the cats are fed and taken care of by government decree. I mean, fat cats are a point of pride in Latvia but this is pretty neat I figure!