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Baltics trip
Day 9 - 24th May - Sigulda, Latvia (Part 2)
It seems, in the Baltics, that it's culturally acceptable to ask strangers on the street for cigarettes and not smoke them immediately.
Next, we went to see some old caves.
The failure of "Do Not Vandalise" signs. The oldest we saw was from 1971.
Small cave: Maza Ala
Next was the big cave.
Very screwed-up story.
"LEGEND ABOUT THE ROSE OF TURAIDA
During the Swedish – Polish War the secretary of the Turaida castle called Greif found a baby girl near to the Turaida castle. She was half-starving and almost dead. He adopted her, baptised and gave her name Maija. She grew up and was a beautiful and honest maiden. Victor Heil, the gardener of Sigulda, fell for Maija. In the evenings they met in Gutmaņa cave.
In August 1620 Maija got a message from Heil where it was said that she had to come to the mentioned cave in the afternoon because he was going to be busy that evening. Maija went together with the Greif’s eight years old daughter Lenta to the cave.
In the evening Heil ran to Turaida and let know that Maija had been killed. Lenta also had not returned. The local judge got the news already the same evening and in the next evening he arrived in Turaida.
Heil was suspected as a murderer although he was known as an honest man. The Lord of Turaida Shildheim who was ill then let the judge know that he should pay attention to two Polish army deserters Jakubowsky and Skudrītis. They had been in service for two years in Turaida and were known as drunkards and imps. Skudrītis had visited the Lord of Turaida and wanted to give a testimony about the case.
Skudrītis was called to the court immediately. He told that Jakubowsky fell in love with Maija just after he had arrived in Turaida. Three months ago he had talked to Maija and had promised to marry her. She refused and told him she was engaged to Heil.
Jakubowsky was a very angry man and longed for revenge. Then he explained Skudrītis his idea. He wanted to lure Maija to Gūtmaņa cave. Both of them should rape the virgin there. Jakubowsky was the one who had sent the false message. Both had run to the cave and hidden in bushes.
When Maija had arrived, Jakubowsky placed himself in front of her and has told his evil intention with bad words. The young girl had tried to resist but Jakubowsky was very strong and threw her down.
Then Maija bagged him to let her free. For that she would give him a magic scarf that protects man from all injuries. If he doesn’t believe it, he can try to strike her with his sword. Jakubowsky had his sword with him and he stroke in a moment. Maija fell down and blood started to come out of her neck. At that moment Skudrītis heard scream behind him. It should have been the small Lenta.
After the murder Jakubowsky got very upset, ran into the forest and forbade Skudrītis to come close to him. This morning he has found him hung in the forest.
The guiltless Viktor Heil was let free immediately. Skudrītis had been in prison just for four months because even Heil and Greif asked to let him free."
More information about Gutmaņa cave, the biggest cave in the Baltics. The oldest inscription now is from 1667.
The biggest cave in the Baltics is kind of like the biggest farm in Singapore
Inscriptions. The latter is the more accurate colour.
Inside. One guy went to drink the water, but I wasn't a local (or a Malaysian), so.
On our way to Turaida Castle, we saw a wedding procession stopped by a witch:
It was an extremely long trek (some of it uphill) to the compound with Turaida Castle.
There was still quite a stretch left, when we saw this sight. We briefly considered running up the slope as a shortcut, but decided against it.
Rose of Turaida memorial (refer to screwed up story earlier)
Turaida castle, with the best condition of the three in the area. It dates from 1214 but what we see is restored.
Main watchtower
We climbed the main watchtower.
River
The place also had some exhibits on its history and that of the area.
Knights on a "tapestry"
Teutonic Knights in Livonia on the attack
Crossbow copy
18th century sundial
"At the present day, Turaida is one of the most extensively studied and best preserved monuments of medieval architecture in the Baltic"
Again, this is like saying that Singapore is the most civilised country in Southeast Asia.
Dungeon mockup
I was looking at this "tapestry", when my Sixth Sense noticed a *wrongness* about it. After some staring, I sensed what looked like wax figures of 2 women behind it, and tried to stare harder to figure out what they were wearing, when one of them said "hello".
They found ceramic bottles with the "Bitter Wasser" brand at the site. Hah. No pisswasser, unfortunately.
Bricks with animal footprints.
Bailey
"Batter" (sloping base) for castle defence. Stones dropped from above would bounce off the batter and hit attackers.
Blurb about the well. For some reason I didn't snap the well itself.
We then took a bus back to the terminal.
CCTV in bus terminal. This was notable because you had to pay 10 sant in entrance (gah!) fees and for the sign about a CCTV (so people didn't wreck the toilet?)
Cappy brand fruit juice is not bad. Apple/Pear was very good, and Peach/Melon not bad.
Thanks to the cable car not being in operation we didn't have time to visit Cesis. Oh well. So we took the bus back to Sigulda.
We'd seen Playboy in Lithuanian and a few softcore magazines in Lithuania. We didn't see similar materials in Latvia, but the bus driver hung a card with a topless blonde by his seat.
The bus driver was crazy. Despite the outside temperature being a very pleasant low 20s, he turned on the bus heater, which was just beside my feet, so I wasn't able to sleep on the way back. He certainly got me hot and bothered.
"Military Quality" stewed hen and stewed beef in a Riga supermarket. Maybe in Russia "military quality" is a mark of excellence, I don't know.
MFTTW: i think they have access to fresh meat in russia lah
Me: with worms right
MFTTW: ..........
how come got german words
it's leftover from ww2 issit
Cute pig
Since a lot of people and sources had recommended Cili Pica, we tried it. It had the most number of pizza varieties I'd ever seen:
Mincemeat
Deep Pan
Pork
Beef
Chicken, Seafood
Vegetarian, various
Various
Heinz stay clean cap
Cili Soup. It was literally (American) Cili soup; one of the few menu items living up to the "Cili" name.
Meza (sour cream, dill but no potatoes [HAHA]; it's under Deep Pan pizzas), Olympica (the one with nothing on top; it's under mincemeat pizzas) and Mafia (Beef)
Their idea of stuffed pizza was a normal pizza with another layer of dough on top of it. Gah.
We were bored so I took some pictures of my hair:
Split ends. I find that it's impossible to get good split end pictures on Google Images, so here're some.
Cream pie
Curd with raspberry
"Food supplements
The Special cosmetics
The Special goods
Functional food"
Night scene outside terminal
We then hunkered down in the terminal to wait for the overnight bus to Tallinn. We patronised an Internet for a while till closing time came and we were chased out, and policemen took our place (?!). I swear it's a conspiracy: they close earlier so the policemen can while away their time.
Lo and behold, the bus was operated by Eurolines, my favourite bus company. The bus left on time this time, but the driver turned on the aircon and heater at the same time. Wth.
Quotes:
[YC while waiting for the overnight bus to Tallinn: I wish we had women] I wish we had women. [Me: Do you want LDPVTP here?] I said women... the only thing LDPVTP... the only thing LDPVTP has in common with most of the female gender is all the negative traits and the XY chromosome. [Me: What positive traits do women have?] Chioness. That's about it. [Me: That means most women are chio] ... chioness and a vagina... and to make things worse for women, not all of them are chio. (XX)