this is riga we're back in the baltics for part three of my four-part series from latvia
and estonia before we head to Tallinn in the next video where we sample some famously fruity Glogi
at a christmas market we're taking one last look around the latvian capital we've already
visited the beautiful art nouveau old town and investigated latvian history at the corner house
the former headquarters of the kgb this time we're checking out another UNESCO world heritage site in
riga the central market we'll see where locals shop will sample some local food and apparently
this video would not be complete without having a dance with a soviet ex-naval officer
so with that in mind let's get going
right good morning everyone and welcome back to another icy frosty wintry december 20 20
morning in riga latvia and this is my final video from riga before we head off to Tallinn
in estonia fingers crossed i can barely cross my fingers it's so cold
it'll be warmer there probably won't be and you know what i kind of love these wintry scenes in
december a lot of people say to me i should go to more beach locations no way love this and in this
video we are exploring a UNESCO world heritage site and it is the central market as promised in
one of the other videos we're checking out some of the food in riga i'm excited to explore let's get
going but before we get started i just want to share a funny thing i was trying to film
the intro bit to this video but then i realized the microphone was covered up so i couldn't put
that bit in the video but there was this guy what turned out to be an ex-soviet navy officer dancing
in the background it was absolutely hilarious what a shame i couldn't put it in the video
also in this video we're going to be looking at digital nomad life you know i'm a digital nomad so
i want to talk about some of the pros and cons of living and working in latvia and also really some
you know final impressions of riga so um let's have a look around right let's start by exploring
this outside area in the wind and the cold we've got lots of fruit and vegetables here oranges
are they tangerines satsumas tangerines and uh pomegranates there are berries and cherries and
things like that and nuts they're also over there um like things like souvenirs stuff like uh gloves
i have some new ones and those russian doll things what are they called again my shrut
cause no that's that's the that's the minibus um it's definitely not a babushka and this building
uh is a former well a collection of buildings it's a former airship hangar it was built in the 1920s
and this market has been in place since 1930 i believe it's wowzers and it's the largest
market like this in europe can you believe it so let's go inside and see what food we can find
oh there's a bird so it's not just um these buildings um there are also lots
of the warehouses and things that have been converted into you know other markets and
things like that so it's a bit of an interesting area actually because it's quite industrial
it feels like but it's open every day seven till six there is a day every month where they do like
monthly cleaning i know that because i was about to film here on that day and i had to change it
so we're in one of these buildings obviously there are a few of them and it's absolutely ginormous
it's quite cavernous that's a that's the word i think i would use to describe it you can just
imagine there being an airship in here back in the day and the sheer size of those airships
and what i've read is that each of these buildings are you know they have their their
own little thing so this one is the meat one i'm assuming because you can see all the meat
i've never seen so much meat in my life absolutely humongous ginormous
and um isn't shopping in the market so much better than shopping at a supermarket
you know i've been to a lot of markets like this before like in mexico where you know you could
just get things which are so much better value and better quality as well than shopping at a
supermarket and also you know particularly during this year you know this kind of
thing shopping at markets for your weekly goods can really support
the locals support local businesses i think that's truer than ever this year
oh right i'm in one of the other buildings now
and i've got to say the sheer size and scale of this place is immense there's no other word for
it incredible amazing or inspiring it must take so long to set it up in the morning crazy and i was
going to say um the interesting thing i'm noticing i said before another video about language in that
black men speak english latvian and russian and i'm getting a lot of older people speaking russian
to me today so i have to try and remember my Russian (various Russian greetings lol)
that's about it and i have seen some bits in here where i can get some food so um oh let's have some
in this building there's a lot of cheese so we've got lots of dutch cheese mozzarella you
name it but the thing i have just seen which i really want and i haven't had since minsk in
belarus it is zefir look at these babies i don't know if i can get a whole packet of ten of them
let's see how much they are okay oh yeah that's great oh two packet oh um can i just get the
there's two single ones oh the whole packet oh just one packet one packet yeah that's great
that's great hello i'm actually in shock there are 20 zefir in here and it's wait for it one euro
i thought she meant one euro like a single one but that's crazy 20 of them for a euro
so these i had them in mints because i said and they're so addictive and they're
very common in russia belarus and obviously in the baltics as well and they're like a
sort of it's kind of like marshmallow if you like but it's not marshmallow oh my god
i'm already feeling addicted to them again
as you saw there's a lot of different flavors i used to have like the strawberry one in mint
this is like orange peachy i think you can obviously tell from the color
but they're so soft and squidgy and they're just perfect for
a sugary snack you know after you've had a big meal or something oh they're lovely
this is the equally ginormous fruit and veg section apologies about my voice i've
got my mask on obviously we've got garlic oh other interesting items
oh it's like is that like coleslaw of some kind i don't know pickled items as well
millions of honeys in here as well different varieties i guess and interesting thing
you've also got like the honeycomb never seen that before massive big things of honey here wow
that'll last you forever now speaking of being a digital nomad one thing i must do
more of is come to places like this because i waste so much money going to supermarkets
convenience stores if you're a digital nomad you probably do the same thing even if you're not a
digital nomad how many of us just spend our time going to supermarkets because it's more convenient
but actually we should be coming to these markets you know it will save us so much money in one one
euro i'm still in shock about the zephyr okay the next building is a fish market omg you can
just smell the fish as you walk in it's overpowering oh look at that down there
beautiful oh love a bit of fish i'm coming out with all the classics today um look at that
quality fish in latvia
you can't get much more fresh than this because obviously riga is right on the gulf of riga
so there's plentiful seafood available for these market owners and um i just saw you know they've
got like uh like big tanks behind there what do you call them the fish sections where they have
the live fish and you know they you can still see them gasping for their last breath but
you know that's a good a sign of you know good quality fresh fish look at that right i'm really
happy because i've just picked up these you'll see what's in the bag in a second from the place back
there and one of them is a typical latvian dish and also estonian i believe um yeah let's tuck in
now i have a bit of a confession to make i've already been to tallinn i had to film these
videos in the wrong order because this place was closed like i said when i wanted to come
and the reason i say that is because in that video i mentioned about something i'm having now
in the future in the past is so confusing anyway we have some fish and seafood so i have um like a
piece of bread with uh salmon and onion just take the onion off i don't do onion um and also these
things um it's rye bread so rye bread is very common in latvia um and i think they are sprats or
some sort of small fish with egg on the top lovely let's tuck in right love a bit of salmon tonight
just normal bread not rye bread that one's rye bread
what can i say it's salmon but the one i really wanted to try was the sprat with the egg
yeah i'm not sure about this i've never had it before but we'll see and it's got
rye bread as you can see it's like a dark red and um rye bread is so common
in latvia you know dill cardamom seeds i think i've said that before
oh good it's fishy obviously but the bread the rye bread is quite strong as well
um oh i like that oh it's got a bit of an aftertaste love that really strong yeah rich
and salty very salty you feel like anchovies you know
that's a surprise love that
right okay we're back home and this part of the video is for those of you that know me and
also those of you that are maybe thinking about becoming a digital nomad maybe you're already a
digital nomad and you're looking at new potential places to go to the thing i'll say first about
riga is i've been here for five weeks so obviously i think it's quite natural that i would see the
positive sides and i haven't necessarily seen the negative sides yet and that's definitely
the case if you're latvian watching this i'm sure you'll be able to reel off an endless list of
things that are crap about riga things that you hate about riga because i could do the
same for london because i was born there i grew up there and i lived there for over 30 years so
absolutely you see the negatives when you've been in a place longer and with um japan serbia and
mexico places where i've also spent quite a long time you know i'm talking you know more than three
months up to six months and even longer in some cases i felt that there so initially you have
that feeling of oh wow it's amazing but then as time goes by you almost become like a local
and you start to experience those negatives so despite that i'm gonna base this off my
five weeks in riga and there is a train going past let's get the train passed come on come on
han right the train's gone firstly wi-fi i read before i got here that the wi-fi in latvia is one
of the best in europe and i'm not being funny but that has been the case obviously i've only stayed
in one place so i don't know if it's across the board but download speed was about 100 mbps upload
speed about 20, 25 which is brilliant latency no problem at all so if you do skype calls or
zoom calls you won't have an issue with lagging or delay that sort of thing the second thing
is about food and um i'm not just talking about restaurants or whatever or local food i mean you
know ingredients that you get from a supermarket because obviously as a nomad you do shop you do
cooking at home top-notch you know just like in most european countries you know you can kind of
get the same items the same brands things like that there are a few differences in latvia but
on the whole great variety great range um great quality you know that's one thing about mexico
that wasn't the best uh sorry mexico i'm a totally entitled millennial i'm not a millennial i'm too
old but yeah sometimes in mexico i found that just the quality wasn't great the variety wasn't
great in supermarkets but also you know food wise it's because of the same brands etc it's just like
what i'm used to growing up you know what i mean and the third thing having you know
things that you expect to have as a human being like a washing machine and hot water and heating
it sounds terrible but again you know some coaches i've been to before they're just not for me in
terms of living i can stay there for a couple of months great like mexico but i can't stay there
for a long period because it just doesn't suit me um as an entitled millennial nomads person
so overall rigor i've loved it um based on those five weeks got no complaints at all
except the fact that you can't buy cigarettes at the weekend because of covered at the moment how
ridiculous is that but the thing i'll say uh you know i mentioned japan mexico and serbia
with each of those as much as i absolutely love those countries they're three of my
favorite countries in the world without a doubt with each of them in terms of living there
there was always kind of one thing that was like a deal breaker japan it was language and the fact
that even if you spoke a bit of japanese it was difficult to make friends with people because
people can be a bit closed off mexico washing machines can someone please buy a washing machine
in mexico it sounds silly but after a long time living in a place it really has become an issue
and i just realized you know people in the middle of africa don't have washing machines david sort
yourself out and serbia you know there were no complaints about serbia with the except the fact
that it's not in the eu um meaning that you can't stay there well at least in my case i can't stay
there for more than 90 days in any 180 day period that's not gonna be much of an issue anyway going
forward because of brexit thanks english people but with latvia i've not experienced any issue at
all it's very comfortable you know i feel like i can have a normal life again and the thing about
latvia is that it's not necessarily been the travel aspect even though i've covered a lot of
great sort of things to do in these videos that's not the thing that i miss will miss the most about
latvia is the fact that i'm able to have a normal life here i'm in my fifth year of being a nomad
it's the thing i want above anything else i've come full circle if you know what i mean and
um it was it's somewhere oh my god i don't know what that was it's somewhere that i'd absolutely
come back to to live long term you know i've good relationship with this airbnb host maybe she'll
let me stay here for a long period i don't know but brexit is the other problem um which is why
i'm pursuing getting polish citizenship obtaining polish citizenship so um thanks for watching these
riga videos as i said we're going to tallinn and the next one in estonia where i've already been
um and i will just say give you a sneak preview talon is amazing and christmas is coming it is
a bit of a christmas eve video so i hope you enjoy it i've enjoyed being in riga i will be
back here again in the future thanks for watching and i'll see you next time catch you later and
it's minus seven celsius which means it must be time to film a video can we get to the helipad
but like you know one of those computer games where you have to run around like an abandoned
hellhole area and shoot people this is a russian orthodox church his
alexander nevsky church wow look inside
there
you