It was an early start - especially for me as I had to pick up NL, JH and JP before driving to John Lennon aiport for our early morning flight to Riga. We arrived at the airport at 4 am and remarkably even though JP had been up most of the night he was not that much under the influence.
The first couple of pints were the awful Carling. I abstained but the other three decided to start as they meant to go on.
Norm and I spent most of the time asleep on the flight except when we were interrupted by the irritating announcements for scratch cards and crap cans of Carlsberg for £4 for 33cl. I wouldn't drink that if it came out of Cheryl Cole's minge but JP bought 2 cans and almost threw up the contents after just one sip.
We landed in Riga without mishap and JP quickly grabbed a taxi to take us to the fantastic Hotel Konventa Seta in the heart of Riga Old Town. The exchange rate is currently around 75 Lats for £1. The taxi ride cost 9 Lats.
Twenty minutes later we'd booked in and had to find a pub to watch the United v Aston Villa Carling Cup Final. Normally we don't venture into the ubiquitous Oirish / English bars but if we wanted to watch the match....
The first pub we found was Alus Seta on Tirguna Ilea. I'd been in this place 6 years earlier and rated it highly. It didn't disappoint.
It serves traditional Latvian food, kebabs, roast tatties, a variety of stews plus salad. All were tried over the five days and were highly recommended by each of us.
The beers were Ventspils Lazavas at 1.30 Lats and JP tried a Kiss cider at 2 Lats. Over the next few days we also tried Aldaris and Uzavas Gaisais (pale unfiltered lager type beer), Aldaris Zelta and Uzavas Tumsais a dark unfiltered beer. The background music was apparently traditional Latvian Folk music. It didn't bother me but JH found it annoying.
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