My flight was delayed, so I barely had any time to walk around Riga. But I managed to dash over to the market in the old airship hangars. It's got such a great atmosphere there. I really liked it.

A lot of guidebooks recommend checking out Silkītes un dillities while you're there, but it didn't seem particularly special to me. But the market itself is awesome :)

The flight on the first of the month wasn't exactly lucky: we landed 2 hours and 40 minutes behind schedule. A really frustrating delay. Just 20 more minutes late and the airline would've compensated me with 250€ (that's European law for you). But instead, I got to suffer for free.

I actually found the reason for the delay pretty amusing — an expired Russian visa belonging to one of the crew members. According to the airline rep, everything would've been fine if the guy hadn't left the plane, but he stepped out to check something on the outside. That's when the zealous border guards caught him 😅 (Do they really stand guard at every gate?)

airBaltic spent two hours negotiating to free their employee from the hands of these valiant guardians of the border. In the end, they let the guy go — it was just a fine, nobody went to jail. So hey, could've been worse.