My Run In with the Criminal Element

I had a minor run in with the criminal element. I had bought some jeans before I left but they were too tight on me. I was thinking about giving them away but someone suggested I might make some money by selling them on the street. I found a guy who offered me $20 American cash. I agreed and he handed me the cash. 

He had given me a ten dollar bill, a five dollar bill and four ones, so I told him that he had only given me $19. He took the money back, pulled out another one-dollar bill, handed the cash back to me with the dollar bills on top and left. I went to count it again and discovered that he had slipped the ten and five-dollar bills out from underneath the stack and had left me with just the five one-dollar bills. I felt so stupid at being had and I wished that I had just given the jeans away in the first place.

The Russians seem to think that good-looking people need to multiply their genes. Every time I showed someone pictures of Laura they would say how beautiful she was and about how many children she would have. One person even said we should have ten!

On our last evening at the hotel in St. Petersburg, the cooks prepared a special delicacy for us – tongue! I put mine in a napkin and later flushed it down the toilet. The toilet pipes are rather small there so I hope that didn’t cause any problems. The cooks said we were the nicest group they had ever had. One of them sang a special song for us and they also made a cake (which was horrible and watery but the thought was nice).

Leaving St. Petersburg, we took the train to Riga, Latvia. Latvia was much more European-looking than Russia, although Riga was rather boring compared to St. Pete. Wherever I go, I always like to try to get up to the highest place possible for the best view, particularly when I’m taking pictures. I spied a church spire in town I thought would be a good vantage point but it turned out to be too busy.

There was also another large, tall building I could see in the distance. It looked like the typical communist headquarter buildings that were in all the eastern European cities. I decided to go see if I could get up to the top of that. I had to walk through a huge outdoor market to get there.

When I got to the building, there was a lot of commotion going on with an English guy giving some kind of instructions. I asked him what was going on and he told me they were shooting a film. I asked him if he knew how I could get to the top of the building and he said I would have to ask someone in locations. I didn’t want to take the trouble to find out who that was so I just moved on.

We went to a Charismatic church in town that ended up being three hours long with lots of dancing and yelling and casting out of demons. We had a translator travelling with us who was not a Christian. She came to the service and was flabbergasted by it all.  

The Latvians had a lot of hatred towards the Russians. They have had quite a history of subservience to the ruling powers over the centuries - the Poles, the Swedes, the Germans and, of course, the Russians. There was still a lot of Russian military around but with perestroika, the Latvians wanted them out ASAP.

    Some couple taking wedding pictures in front of some palace



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