So we’ve just concluded our last full non-wedding-event-filled day in Latvia. We slept in (again) in the morning (still coping with jet lag a bit I think) and met up with Jim for lunch at a little place called Cafe21 that we had walked by yesterday. We went in and sat down (I admired the interesting decor, lots and lots of crocheted things, made the comment it was the “brothel of crochet”) and the waitress told us they did not have menus in English so we told her to pick her three favorite meat dish and we would each have one of those. When we got our food it was actually three of the same dish but that was alright since it looked quite tasty. It was a thin pork filet with a cheese-based breading that was then pan seared to golden brown goodness. It was served with crispy butter sauteed potatoes and cole slaw, yum.
After lunch we met up with Laura, Robert, Laura’s brother and Robert’s dad and Laura and Robert went off shopping and doing wedding stuff and the rest of us went souvenier shopping in Peter’s Market. I ended up buying a pretty amber necklace to wear to the wedding tomorrow since I forgot to pack any jewelry. Then we walked to the beach and just as we went to stick our feet in the water it started to pour so we ran back to some nearby trees and waited out the rain shower. Even though we didn’t get to stay long I was amazed by the sand at the beach, it is so fine and soft and white, very pretty and nice to walk on. After the rain stopped we headed back to the city center, got some ice cream, then some coffee, then headed back to the hotel since everyone but Jeremy and I were getting picked up at 1730 to go to the rehearsal and to help decorate the church and reception hall.
After we parted ways Jeremy and I ended up taking a nap then went to dinner at the hotel restaurant, Oskar. It is quite a fancy restaurant and the food was nicely presented. I had a bowl of carrot, ginger and lemongrass soup and for my main course had pan-seared cod with gnocci in a very rich dill cream sauce, very tasty but the sauce was so rich I wasn’t able to finish all of it (Jeremy had an ostrich steak which he had no trouble finishing).
We finished dinner around 2130 and decided to walk around a bit and try to take some more pictures since it was still light outside (and good fun twilight for photos). It has been intetesting as a photographer here, I don’t feel as comfortable here taking pictures as I have in other European cities. I think it’s the feeling that most of what we ate seeing us not “touristy” so it feels extra out of place to be bringing out my camera, so this has resulted in not taking nearly as many pictures as I normally would. We got some good shots of lights reflecting onto the canal, then walked back towards the market to try and get photos of the two churches that are on the edge of the square.. Interestingly, Liepaja at night is rather deserted, so after getting down there and not having seen more than five people in the last five minutes, and no one around the square, we concluded it was probably best to not hang around and take pictures so we headed back to the Amrita.
We got back to the hotel around 2215 and got a text from Jim that he had just returned from rehearsal stuff so we went next door to the bar where we had a round of beer and Jim had dinner (pork filet and potato pancakes with mushroom sauce) since he hadn’t eaten dinner yet. We got the rundown on the ceremony and all the decorations from Jim (lots of flowers, nice blend of American and Latvian traditions for the ceremony itself) and it sounds like it is going to be a beautiful event, can’t wait.
Tomorrow we are going to get up early and play tourist and go to Karosta (if we can figure out the bus system) before getting picked up to go to the wedding at 1430, fun stuff 🙂
