Easter in Riga: Latvian National Museum of Art

When I am in a new city, I tend to visit the local art museum. This allows me to see and get a glimpse of the local art. I did the same when we were in Riga, by visiting the Latvian National Museum of Art.

Book Review: The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

I finished this book quicker than I expected. Somehow, it was a page-turner, yet there were also areas which made me scratch my head.

They say that this book is one of the most remarkable, visceral pieces of literature to emerge from the onset of the Holocaust. What sets it apart from many other works on the era is its staggering immediacy: Boschwitz wrote the novel in a frantic four-week fever dream immediately following the Kristallnacht pogroms of November 1938. Because it wasn't written decades later with the benefit of historical hindsight, it captures the psychological terror, confusion, and eerie social claustrophobia of that exact moment with the terrifying accuracy of a live broadcast. And perhaps this is the dimension that made it a page-turner for me, but at the same time, I find it rather hard to sympathise with the main character. After all, Otto Silbermann seems to only care about his money, all the way to the very end.

Easter in Riga: Art Nouveau Museum of Riga

One of the other things we visited in Riga was the Art Nouveau Museum. This is the only museum in the Baltic states dedicated entirely to the heritage of Art Nouveau (known locally as Jūgendstils). Opened in 2009, the museum provides an immersive look into how the wealthy residents of Riga lived during the height of the movement at the beginning of the 20th century, a period when roughly one-third of the buildings in the city center were designed in this ornate style.

No Flights Booked

Somehow I am in a rare period. Most of the time, I have a flight booked for sometime in the future. But somehow, nowadays I have been planning trips that use the train instead, and so I actually have no future flights booked for the time being. This is a weird feeling, I have to say.

Easter in Riga: House of the Blackheads

We visited perhaps what is arguably the most recognizable landmark in Riga's Old Town. Located prominently in Town Hall Square, the House of the Blackheads is celebrated for its opulent architecture and a resilient history that mirrors the story of Latvia itself.