Flew from Copenhagen to Riga, Latvia. Nothing to it, except losing the hour in flight. The new-looking airport was quite nice. Took a bus to the city center and walked quite a ways to the hostel. So far, so good.
Hostel is the best I’ve stayed in. Young, interactive staff. It’s like they’re there to lounge and hang with the guests as much as check is in and take care of the day-to-days.
Watched a movie in the lounge and went to sleep. Room with 3 others. No problem.
Next day, woke up and went to John Lemon -ha!- for an omelet breakfast and for the foot-your of the town. A magazine printed a great guide, so I ripped it out and…
Stopped along the way for a pastry and a look at some of the local vendors. Thee are four old zeppelin hangars that now house GIANT swap-meet style shopping. Exch has a particular category: one houses arts and crafts, one vegetables, one meat and one fish. I’m not sure which smelled worse!
No one spoke English. Ok, my universal sign-language has gotten quite good.
Towards the end of the tour, stopped for some bread soup. Yep, not a misprint. It was cold, and delicious. Was served with some elixer made of got currant juice and some herbal extract thing. This is the standard Latvian warm-you-up drink and did just that. Man, it was like instant stomach warmth. …on with the your before dark.
Started to feel a little weird. Nothing big.

That night went out with all the other hostelers to the Jack Daniels bar…had orato spaghetti and a Jack/coke.

Feeling weird now.
By midnight, I was really getting it and, long story short, wound up getting vicious food-poisoning. No idea from what. No sleep before 6:30 am. Then only a couple hours. Pain was so complete that I couldn’t walk the entire next day. Canceled plans to do outer-city exploring. The people at the hostel could not have been nicer. Watched movies and the like for the whole next day. Perfect.
Note on this place: it’s really close to a bobsled track. Open to the public! Pulls five G’s apparently. No way, esp after being so sick. Also, there are caves and castles worth exploring. And, you can go shoot Soviet AK-47’s if that’s your thing. Classic. Welcome to E Euro!

Strong enough to barely tote the pack, finally left a day later. Still no food yet.
Made the bus to Nida, Lithuania.