R is for... Riga and Rum and Coke

It is the third phase of AtoZ and I am unable to write. I must post a write-up beginning with R nine hours from now, and it makes me anxious that I haven't even thought about what I am going to pen down. Writing should not be that hard right?

At the same time, this AtoZ has made me happier than I would have been in this lockdown. I wake up wanting to read different blogs, spend my day thinking about what I will write, and sleep after publishing the post of the day. The process reminds me how much I love writing and how I should be spending more time on it than I do.

Anyhow, for the last one hour I’ve been sitting with my laptop in front of me but cannot write a word. It happens to all of us. So, I thought about sharing my experience in Riga from 2018. Remember, I started out with writing Travel stories this month? Ha!

I had never heard of Riga in Latvia. I had not even heard of Latvia in Europe. So when the Baltic cruise offered this port stop, me and the Boy were excited to explore a lesser known destination. However, we were disappointed by what it had to offer. We picked up the map of a hop-on-hop-off bus tour and decided to explore the spots by walking.

Within a couple of hours, we had seen a square, a museum, and a palace. We walked along a stream and that was it. So we decided to do what we enjoy most – sit in an open café, drink cocktails and watch the world go by.

My favourite go-to drink is rum and coke, or Cuba Libre to the more alcohol-educated community! I had one and then another one, and then I was set.

To the alcohol uneducated, set means happy high. It means the most boring thing starts to look fun. It creates a buzz in your head and then you begin to create a buzz around yourself. I love being set. Anything more than set is something I cannot stand, I will explain the stage beyond set in another post!

So here we were in Riga, a town that had created some decorative bears representing every country in the world, to make each cruise visitor happy. Beyond that, there were no photo opportunities, nothing spectacular about this dead city.

But rum and coke makes everything better. After me and the Boy were a tad runk, we both started our walk again. Only this time, we sang hindi songs at the top of our voices. The fact that at 4 p.m. most of the cruise visitors were already back on the ship and most of the town dwellers were seemingly asleep, helped us be invisible even at a high-pitched volume.

I am a big believer of state of mind. This experience re-enforced my belief that you can be happy and satisfied if you want to be. Riga remains one of my happier destinations and I credit that to rum and coke!