After one of my shorter bus journeys I arrived in the energetic city of Riga. Naturally I gravitated to the bar in my hostel, known as the Aussie pub, serving 14 local Latvian beers... Met this portugese guy running the shooting tour, who introduced me to the group that cracked the tour out that day. This included 4 Dutch guys and an Aussie. After getting the taster option and giving all 14 brews on offer a go, six of us went on to a Latvian restaurant, who were dishing out serious portions. We got a starter recommended for 4, for the 6 of us and couldn't finish it. Unfortunately we'd already ordered the mains and one of the Dutch lads had 1kg of pork coming his way! After this we went back to their hostel where I signed up to the shooting tour for the following day and we dragged a few more people out to a Cuban cafe which is one of the more lively bars.

Woke up just in time for the firearms. Unfortunately the Portugese guy who ran the tour had left for Tallinn that morning and a Spaniard with far less conversation was his replacement, and it was just me on the tour. The shooting itself was decent, though I didn't know what a makarov was, so only knew it was the pistol package when the Russian who got the guns out dropped 4 pistols on the table in front of me. Don't let the pic fool you, they just let me hold the shotgun after my pistol action...

That evening the Dutch guys and the Aussie and I went over to Cinnamon Sally's, a hostel that none of us are a part of but we'd heard of a bar crawl - word spreads. We walked through a Maccy D's to reach a lift that led to their hostel. we thought we might not have made it on time as couldn't hear anything but went up, took our shoes off and were given some slammers. An hour later we headed over to the first bar. After a 20 minute walk we were at the bar we'd just come from, in my hostel. After the Aussie pub we went to a few of your typical Latvian bars which were decent.

Next day went to Old Town, the castle and the freedom monument and hit the standard touristy sites. From there it was back to the hostel where I met a scouser and we got involved in the beer pong that had just kicked off in the basement. Never knew how many rules there were to the game, it got pretty technical to say the least. Somehow the body clock sorted me out the next morning and switched on at 7, so I made my 8am bus for Tallinn!