On Monday June 29th, our bus ride to Riga was uneventful. It was four hours and 15 minutes. We traveled on small roads surrounded by fields going through small towns. The roads seemed very small for the bus size that we were on, but it worked. We got into Riga and instantly fell in love with the old town, the cobblestone streets and the architecture of all the buildings is very unique and different from one another. Luckily we are staying in old town so it was only a 10 minute walk from the station of course dragging our suitcases over cobblestones is not the most pleasant. We quickly unpacked then grabbed dinner at an English pub. The World Cup is going on right now and it seemed like every bar had TVs facing out on the street so people could watch the games while sitting outside or walking past. The sun doesn’t set till 1030 right now so late dinners and walking around afterwards feels like it’s evening time.Tuesday, June 30 we decided last minute to sign up for a food tour, which was a lot of fun. We learned different traditions of the Latvian people and tried some unique Latvian food. Although some were braver in our group than others! A few things we liked were the cold beetroot soup, Latvian peas (which are dried then rehydrated to eat) and a special drinks called black balsam a liquor they make here and I’m not even sure what’s in it. But I liked it. Afterwards, we each did our own thing for a while. Paul had some work to do. I wandered around venturing outside of old town and seeing more parts of the actual city of Riga, which I loved. Several parks and just great architecture on all the buildings. Plus they have dedicated bike lanes everywhere. Since I was not super adventurous with eating the Latvian food during the food tour I was still hungry so I grabbed a GF bagel sandwich at Big Bad Bagels, which was delicious. Later that evening we went out to a Himalayan restaurant for dinner which is just Asian fusion really. I got a small dall lentil soup because I wasn’t too hungry after my bagel sandwich and the boys enjoyed some Asian chicken of some sort. Paul had a salad. We had passed a bar previously that had people outside playing chess so Kyle wanted to go back and see it, when we walked up to it, he was looking at one of the chessboards and somebody ran out from inside and asked him if he wanted to play. So we left Kyle there to play chess which he’s been wanting to do for a while. As we were walking, we heard some loud cheers in one of the squares so we went over and they had a big screen up playing the World Cup and Norway had just scored. Paul and I watched the rest of the game there and Braydon ditched us and went back to the hotel. It was fun seeing the camaraderie of everybody watching the game outside on a big screen.Wednesday, July 1. We ventured outside of Riga and went to the beach. It was a 30 minute train ride away then we strolled down a mile long street decorated with flowers and trees and shops and restaurants leading to the beach. No sooner had I gotten my shoes and socks off, and we walked down the sand to the water so I can put my toes in the Gulf of Riga, which leads to the north sea, it started to rain. It was also our coldest day yet so our beach trip lasted five minutes and then we started the walk back but found a café had lunch played some cards, sat outside under awnings and watched the seagulls in the rain. We grabbed some ice cream in the rain afterwards and made our way back to the train. Quite pleasant really. That evening England was playing in the World Cup so Paul wanted to go to an English pub, well the one we found the food was terrible, we ordered nachos which came out as fake Doritos and a gross guacamole like spread. We decided to go somewhere else to watch the game. We went to a bar that Paul and I had visited the night before since they had a great outdoor space and a few TV’s, it was called Two More Beers. The England win cinched the night for us.