riga

Second bus journey of my trip. 5 hours, €8, nice. I had made an email booking with a hostel before arrival. I walked into the wrong one! This was cool as it had luandry facilities (oh the joy), excellent dorms, a sauna! and a bar at reception. I was extraordinarily happy with my good luck. I met two guys there. Mike, a German who worked there and Eddie, an Aussie, who lives there! Riding the crest of the wave of my happiness (I had clean clothes again), I was soon over-indulging on the beers. Worse, drinking that spawn of the devil; jagermeister.

We went off to a cool var called 'Orange'. There I had a brief argument with some trollop over whether she'd allow me to buy her another beer. Have you ever heard something so ridiculous! Anyway, to get away from it, I went out into the courtyard and met some other girl. She invited me to another place. So grabbed my coat and off I went. At 4am I decided to leave but when I observed the coat stand had about 500 coats hanging off it, I made a decision to abandon my coat.

Now I need to say, that the two guys earlier mentioned, went to great pains to warn me of the potential for random acts of street violence. Perpetrated by guys in 'black leather jackets' for no particular reason. In fairness, one of the Lativan barmen at the hostel had got a kicking the night before I arrived by these sinister types. But there was a degree of provocation . He and his mate were called 'Lativans dogs' by three other guys. They responded 'f*ck off back to Russia'. The Lativans got a hiding for it.

So my decision to leave my coat was based on whether someone might think my hopeless search was in fact an act of thievery. I didn't want a kicking. I got a taxi and was charged the equivalent of €30 for a ten minute journey. Curiously, he was wearing a black leather jacket.

The next day was pretty awful. I was ill all day. That f*cking jagermeister sh*te. What was worse was I couldn't remember the name of the club I went to with the two nice girls. I could only remember that I turned right when I left the Orange bar and that the name of the club had a 'c' in it. So how on earth was I to recover the jacket. Sherlock Holmes, where are you? I got out of bed at 7pm and returned at 10pm.

I recovered my health on the following day and wandered around to see the sights. Some are pretty nice but mostly resembled all the other cities I have been recently. I bought a new jacket and hat. The highlight of the afternoon was finding a kosher restaurant and ordering all the things I used to cook back in the old days of Rabins Nosh Bar. Accompanied by vodka! En route back to the hostel I stopped off at a bar and Jesus Christ, you could cut the tension with a knife when I walked in and spoke. I looked for black leather jackets on the coat stands; none. Some bloke kept bumping into me, with no good reason, there were hardly any people there. I left after one gulp of beer, for fear!

On returning to the hostel, I joined the two boys for a beer at a nearby place and we attempted to locate the abandoned jacket. On visiting the third place, I couldn't believe what I saw. There it hung, lonely, singular on the coat stand with the hat clinging in the pocket. For two nights, it waited for me, in a place called the 'Jazz Club'! See, it had a 'c'! I fell over on the way home and busted my rib. Not broken, but very sore.

The lord giveth it, the Lord taketh away...