Riga, Latvia

Saturday, January 23rd 2016, 09:40, Berlin-Schönefeld International Airport, 30 minutes prior to departure of Ryanair flight FR2599 to Riga, my roommate and I run into the terminal building, rushing through security as fast as humanly possible, only to arrive at the gate at the very minute they announced boarding for our flight. We took a few quick selfies and boarded the plane. For me it was unbelievable, what had just happened, I boarded the flight to my 30th country. At 18 years old, I have managed to tour the world enough to say that I have been to 30 countries (A map can be found here, and will be updated as my life goes on). It was also an honor to be able to do that with my dear roommate, because traveling in twos is always more fun.

Landing in Riga was pretty special, as we flew over the baltic sea and then approached the mainland where, of course, the runway was located. We got out of the plane, got bus tickets and made our way to downtown. As a little treat, I got us a Junior Suite in the city centre of Riga in a four-star wellness hotel, so we did stay in style, as far as the experience of the city goes. The whole day we spend walking around the city, whilst we spend the evening in the spa of the hotel, heating ourselves after the -10°C maximum temperature that day. Needless to say, the Soviet Winter hit us hard.

What I liked most about Riga is that the historic downtown differs so much from other cities around the globe, as I can't really compare it to Western Europe, because it looks nothing like Prague, Paris, Rome etc. However at the same time, it doesn't look anything like Moscow or Belgrade either, so it's not Eastern European either, which leaves me puzzled. I'd say it's a mix of both, as there are Catholic and Orthodox churches around town, and they're all really beautiful. Also, in the historic centre, you don't really see many scars of Riga's Soviet past, for that you have to take a stroll to the Latvian science academy, which looks like one of the Seven Sisters Skyscrapers in Moscow.

My roommate wanted to get the Soviet look (also we were freezing) so we got ourselves these hats with the fur on top. (In Russian they're called Ушенка) The funny thing though was that we believed that you can buy them in souvenir shops, whilst you can just get them at any random store (H&M, Reserved etc.) in any shopping mall. We completely forgot that what seems so special to us is completely normal to them, so we went ahead and pulled off the Latvian style.

As far as my knowledge of Latvia goes, it's not as Latvian as one would expect, according to statistics, around 45% of people in Latvia are ethnically Russian, almost half. Thus, Russian is widely spoken across the country, which was good for me, but I did get some stares when speaking Russian in Riga. In general, the country seems to be very culturally tied to Russia, despite its independence, just due to the sheer fact that so many Russians live there. Most of the times I'd ask whether a person at a counter was speaking English or Russian, they'd usually tell me both. They would say it in Russian though. Only one woman aggressively answered English, so I concluded that she was Latvian. My stay was unfortunately too short for me to find more about the situation in the region, but I will definitely do my research and my traveling in the future.

Photos:

City Centre of Riga

The Daugava River (completely frozen) 

Me on a huge Eastern style square

My roommate in Latvian winter wonderland 

Russian-Orthodox Church

Riga International Airport / Ryanair to Berlin

Catholic Church

Latvian Science Academy

Me with my Soviet-style fur hat before flying back to Germany

Can you find love online?

Dear readers,

Nowadays, we tend to shift everything that required us to do something or go somewhere into the online world of the internet. If you want to travel, you can book your flight, hotel etc. online, and you don't even need to go to the travel agent in order to book anything. The advantage is of course, that you can do everything yourself from the comfort of your own home, but sometimes you have no idea who sold you the trip, or who organised it for you. Same goes for books, clothes and basically all other products since Amazon's got you covered with basically everything. With the introduction of social media, we got a new handy tool for staying in touch with people. Our friends can be as far as we want and we will still have the option to message them for free, we are connected unlike ever before. Don't think that I am one of those who thinks that social media is making us anti-social, because I believe that it depends on the person if he/she uses social media so much, that it makes the person anti-social, in which case social media is not to blame, but the person who's misusing it. I mean, if a person is addicted to heroin, who would you blame? The addict or the substance? Think about it.

As activities such as shopping have moved online, so has dating also found it's way on the internet, with online-dating sites warming up the field, and then speed-dating apps (Tinder and co.) just taking over everything that we knew as dating and re-defining it in the modern era. Today you don't even have to leave the house to meet someone, you can just swipe right and hope to get the opportunity to talk. Some sites try to be more accurate by letting you create a more specific profile, I personally think these have the highest success potential in terms of actually finding something serious. In the end, it always depends on the person. There are different reasons for joining online-dating sites. For me personally it's just for the experience and then to see what may be, but others have different motives and that's fine as well. You might not find love nowadays, but finding sex has become so much easier. I would say that cheating has also become easier, but then again, if someone wants to cheat, they will do it, whether it's easy or not, because the intention is there.

As of now, I can't really say if online dating is really a good or a bad thing, and I think that one can't really properly just because nowadays everyone is on these sites, and no one uses real life meeting anymore. It's becoming increasingly difficult to date outside of the internet because our lifestyle has changed. Young people go out less, the number of social contacts a person has been steadily decreasing, and especially in developed countries, careers are put first. Society is focusing on cutting time wherever possible, and a result people are taking dating with them like everything else on a smartphone, so you only go out with people you think you're compatible with. It's a messed up system, but as it seems that's how it works.

The thing that bothers me the most about online dating is that some of the guys I've met online have lost all sense of manner. I have never been judged so quickly by a person in real life like I have been judged by people online. Since I don't have muscles, and since I don't like my body, I don't take off my shirt for pictures, and I refuse to do so, but apparently my body has become an important issue for most guys out there who want to date me. Looks have never mattered so much and if you don't nail that first online impression, you're screwed. We might be stuck with online-dating, yet we can rid ourselves of idiots who believe that they behave how they want to get what they want. After all, we are all human.
Having said all this, I hope that you can agree with some of the things I said, feel free to leave your opinion in the comments and until next time.
Sincerely Yours, Stefan.