Liepaja

My short weekend trip to Liepaja was a lot of fun. What an interesting city. It is located on the coast of the Baltic sea and is about a three hour trip from Riga. The city used to be the main military base for the Russians during occupation. Andris told a lot of stories to us about his childhood and the area that was the base at that time. It was pretty interesting. We went around the city on Friday. Unfortunately it was raining so we decided to go bowling. That was a lot of fun. Of course, I was the ultimate champion. :) We hung out for the remainder of the evening where Andris and Alona stayed. It was quite nice and very cool because it had a communal room which was very old and rustic. Jeff and I later went back to our hotel room to get some rest and see the rest of the city.
We first went to the beach. It was amazing. The sand was so soft, the weather was perfect, and there was amber on the shore line everywhere. Jeff and I were so excited that we searched and collected on the shore for quite some time. I now have my own personal collection. Hopefully they don't take it away at the airport. The rest of the day was spent doing odds and ends. We went to visit the prison that was actually featured on a US show. It supposedly is haunted. We didn't go it, but it was small and not so creepy on the outside. We then went around the military base where many buildings were abandoned and old. That was a bit scary. We also had the privilege to meet Andris' mom. She was very sweet. She fed us a great lunch. The building in which they lived in was very different. The only running water they had was their sink and it only produced cold water. This is why Andris loves washing dishes now because the water is warm. :) They only had a communal bathroom which they shared with the rest of the building. It was located down the spiral staircase in the hall. When they were growing up, if they wanted to bathe they had to go down to the building and pay money in order to do it, so they only did this once a week. Man, I couldn't imagine living life like that knowing how life could be lived.
All in all it was a very cool trip. Liepaja is probably the best city to visit other than Riga because of all of its history.