Here is the street outside the apartment -- Meistaru Iela. It is one of those narrow streets that I have talked about. It doesn't look like much, but this small stretch gets lots of pedestrian and car traffic.
As you can see, it's not a pretty area at all. In fact, the outside of the building is downright ugly. We have a double door we go through, and to unlock it, we have to push the numbers 3, 5, and 8 at the same time.
Once you get the door open, this is what the entryway to the building looks like.
It sort of looks pretty in the picture, but it's not. See the door at the right? This is what you see when you go through it.
Again, the picture makes it look nice, but the only thing nice about it is the shape of the ceiling. I have no idea what it was used for when it was built. Now it's the entry to the parking area behind the building. Parking is at a premium in Riga. You just can't pull up to the curb and park. If your building doesn't have a special parking area, you're out of luck. Here's the parking area behind the apartment.
Our apartment has a reception desk in the first room you enter. Our tour guide thinks that maybe the apartment used to be used as a spa. That makes sense, since our landlord now has a spa in a nice hotel. Anyway, here is the first room you enter when you open the door.
There is a small table over to the right, and Don is playing on his laptop computer. Believe it or not, he finally has gotten used to it and seems to actually enjoy playing around on the laptop. I didn't think he'd ever be willing to work on a laptop, but when we came over here it was either that or nothing, because he hates my Mac.
Off of this first entry room to the left is a set of double doors which lead to a big bedroom. The TV is in there. We have found quite a few stations that are in English, so we can keep up with world events. The problem is that the only place to sit and watch TV is on the bed, unless we would bring in the kitchen chairs. (My clothes are laying on the bed, because we don't have enough hangers to hang them up on. We haven't found anywhere to buy hangers yet. I wonder if I could google that?)
Off of the entry room the other way and to the left is the kitchen. It is quite big. Our tour guide told us that hers is half that size. There is no stove -- just a hot plate. We went out and purchased a small skillet, because the only pan here is a huge pot, and Don needed something to cook his breakfast in. We also bought a toaster so that we could have some toast with our breakfast.
The refrigerator is at the end, and it is made to look like a wooden cabinet. Kind of neat.
Here are some pictures of the other rooms. The one that you pass through to get to the other bedrooms (with a flower on the wall) has a nice work table in the corner, but there's no light in the room. It has been taken down. I'm not sure what it was originally used for. It also has our closet in it.
Then we come to the other two bedrooms. One of them has a loveseat and dresser in it, and the other bedroom, where we sleep, has only a bed in it.
There are two bathrooms in the apartment. One small one is off of the main entry room:
The other larger one is off of our bedroom.
The shower is a freestanding one with lots of bells and whistles, but we haven't figured out how to make all of them work. We had a bit of a catastrophe on Wednesday, the first day we used the shower. When I got out after taking my shower, there was a 1/2" or so of water all over the floor around the shower. My clothes that I had chosen to wear that day were laying on the floor, so they were now completely soaked. We tried turning the water on again, but it no longer came out the spouts. We could hear it running, but we didn't know where. Our landlord sent a plumber in, and behind the shower a hose had come loose, which was causing the water to go all over the floor. It was an easy fix, thank goodness. We had now experienced a fire and a flood. I wonder what's next?
Over on the wall to the right of the shower is a towel rack. It's heated! It's nice to jump out of the shower and wrap this warm towel around you. This is a standard thing in European bathrooms. I wonder why it hasn't become standard in American homes?
Well, that is our apartment. With the exception of not having any place to sit, it is a big, roomy apartment, and we really like it. One thing about it that is both good and bad is that it is very cool. While that is wonderful when you come in after walking around in the heat, it is not so good when you hang around a while. It can get really chilly. We went out and bought a couple of sweatshirts just to wear around the apartment. There is a big heater, and we actually let it run for a little while in our bedroom one evening. With it being in the 70s-80s this early, we'll probably really appreciate it as we stay through June and most of July.
We have plenty of room for you to stay, so please consider joining us. The plane tickets are around $1400 round trip, and once you get here, all you have to pay for is your food. We'd love to have you and would welcome you with open arms!
As the Latvians say, "Uz redzēšanos!"
(Don't ask me to pronounce that one!)
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