Riga, Latvia

Latvia is a country that is part of the Baltics, and was formerly part of the Soviet Union. Kevin, my manager and I had little problem taking a taxi to the hotel. Most of the flight was IBMers. There are 100s of IBMers at this top notch Central and Eastern Europe sales meeting. We had a chance to walk to "Old Town," the original medieval city with many buildings from the 1100. There were quaint small alleys and cobblestones. You will see photos from the park we passed along the way. We were cold and hungry after the walks so we went to a pub and had a great meal. We debated if the thick stone walls with old beams and picnic tables with dovetails and no hardware were real (originals) or created in the last 50 years. Kevin had a local beer (which was not too good to me) and i had Rioja. Prices are pretty good. For a snack we had roasted potatoes, eggplant with fresh mozzarella and walnuts, and another dish that was called something like cheeseburger but was like a lamb empenada -- it was awesome! (Good thing we are doing a lot of walking!) We met the telecom team for dinner at a very nice old-style Russian restaurant. It was great to see some old telecom friends and many folks I work with frequently. We started with Beluga cold vodka (it is suppose to be the best). For dinner I had stroganoff (because I thought that woudl be a cool thing to have locally). I was wonderful -- sliced tender beef with a few beets and pickles over yummy fried potatoes cakes with a pink beety-sour cream sauce. Went back to the room to crash and wake up the equalavent to 12AM local time to eat and go to the main tent.