Day 21 (27 June): Crossing the Baltic
I spent the morning today in Riga, perusing the Latvian History and Latvian war museums. I also wandered out into the newer parts of Riga outside of the old town and actually did not find them all that different. The buildings still looked nice, the shops were of the same type, etc. Neither of which was very impressive, but worth going to since they pretty close to being free.
In the afternoon, I boarded a flight for Stockholm, since it turned out to cost 1/3 of what an overnight ferry would have cost. Arriving at the budget airline airport, which was actually 100 km north of the city, I boarded a bus into the city and got a nice glimpse at the Swedish countryside. Upon arriving I walked around the city a little and began to get my bearings before going to sleep. The Swedish countryside has to be some of the most amazing I have seen anywhere, rolling fields of grass with wildflowers everywhere and the occasional rock formation. The city of Stockholm might also be the most beautiful city I have ever seen as it is made up of several islands with bridges connecting them over small rivers. No matter where you look there is water somewhere. It is also one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen, without a spec of graffiti, sign of homelessness, or anything else that could be construed as being dodgy, even near the bus/train depot.
Economic observations of the day:
1) Ryan Air has the dumbest luggage weight restrictions I have ever heard of. Your checked luggage must weight less than 15kg. Mine weighed 15.5 kg, so they wanted to charge me 60USD to check it, when my flight only cost 30USD. They also told me I could take something out of my bag and carry it with me on the plane. The best options were either a wet towel or smelly sneakers. I am not sure how carrying either of those onboard is good for the airline or makes other passengers happy, but I obliged and did that instead of paying an extra 60USD. I understand that the rule is in place to save fuel by making the payload on the plane lighter, but if that is the case they should make all passengers get on a scale and weigh them before selling tickets, since fatter people cost more to get from point A to point B on a plane.
2) Price shock! Stockholm cost nearly 10x more than Riga does and they are less than an hour flight from each other. While they do not share a land border, the difference is even more striking than crossing the border from San Diego into Tijuana. What makes it even more interesting is that Latvia at one point was under Swedish control.
3) The percentage of that population that is blonde haired, blue eyed was much higher than I expected, but so was the number of Black people as well. It turns out that Sweden has immigration policies that are fairly generous with letting Africans file for asylum there.
4) The middle eastern influence could also be seen a little in Stockholm with a couple of random kebab shops but not as many as in Eastern Europe or as in Latvia. Europeans on a daily basis are clearly more exposed to people from the Middle East than we are in the US, which might explain part of why US tensions with the Middle East run so high.
In the afternoon, I boarded a flight for Stockholm, since it turned out to cost 1/3 of what an overnight ferry would have cost. Arriving at the budget airline airport, which was actually 100 km north of the city, I boarded a bus into the city and got a nice glimpse at the Swedish countryside. Upon arriving I walked around the city a little and began to get my bearings before going to sleep. The Swedish countryside has to be some of the most amazing I have seen anywhere, rolling fields of grass with wildflowers everywhere and the occasional rock formation. The city of Stockholm might also be the most beautiful city I have ever seen as it is made up of several islands with bridges connecting them over small rivers. No matter where you look there is water somewhere. It is also one of the cleanest cities I have ever seen, without a spec of graffiti, sign of homelessness, or anything else that could be construed as being dodgy, even near the bus/train depot.
Economic observations of the day:
1) Ryan Air has the dumbest luggage weight restrictions I have ever heard of. Your checked luggage must weight less than 15kg. Mine weighed 15.5 kg, so they wanted to charge me 60USD to check it, when my flight only cost 30USD. They also told me I could take something out of my bag and carry it with me on the plane. The best options were either a wet towel or smelly sneakers. I am not sure how carrying either of those onboard is good for the airline or makes other passengers happy, but I obliged and did that instead of paying an extra 60USD. I understand that the rule is in place to save fuel by making the payload on the plane lighter, but if that is the case they should make all passengers get on a scale and weigh them before selling tickets, since fatter people cost more to get from point A to point B on a plane.
2) Price shock! Stockholm cost nearly 10x more than Riga does and they are less than an hour flight from each other. While they do not share a land border, the difference is even more striking than crossing the border from San Diego into Tijuana. What makes it even more interesting is that Latvia at one point was under Swedish control.
3) The percentage of that population that is blonde haired, blue eyed was much higher than I expected, but so was the number of Black people as well. It turns out that Sweden has immigration policies that are fairly generous with letting Africans file for asylum there.
4) The middle eastern influence could also be seen a little in Stockholm with a couple of random kebab shops but not as many as in Eastern Europe or as in Latvia. Europeans on a daily basis are clearly more exposed to people from the Middle East than we are in the US, which might explain part of why US tensions with the Middle East run so high.
posted by Traveling Brian at 1:59 AM
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