Thinking Allowed: Medical tourism in Riga

Biologically I am one eighth Latvian so it was exciting that we got to visit the city my grandfather's family hailed from. Our week in Riga was full of exploration, festivity, and clinic visits. Riga charmed all of us. It is a small beautiful city along a river. The old town is charming and ringed by a loop of parks and a canal. The new city is quiet and walkable and scattered with parks and hip shops.

Riga felt Scandinavian to us in many ways but in other ways was its own unique blend of its history and its newer push toward Scandinavian culture. The children were still recovering from the Armenian genocide museum so I visited the museum of occupation on my own. Without kids I was actually able to read the museum signs and look at the images. World War Two was awful for much of Europe but I have to say that it was particularly bad for the countries taken over by Russians, then Germans, then Russians. Especially as when the rest of Europe was recovering from world war two they were still being subjugated to the special rules and treatments of the KGB. I did a tour of the KGB headquarters in Riga and it made me feel glad I didn't have to live under Soviet rule. After a week learning all about Latvia I can say that my grandfather's family were lucky to make it to Canada before World War Two.

Now that Latvia is independent and free they revel in their own culture. We were in town for the Ligo Summer solstice festival which is one of the most important holidays of the year. We were treated to a festive and decorated old town with markets and traditional dance and music performances. We enjoyed crown watching as each natural crown seemed to be made of more and more elaborate plants. The main part of the festivities is an all night bonfire which we decided we would have to experience at some point when we don't have a toddler. Second best though was celebrating the solstice with a long kayak of the canals and river of Riga. We all agreed we needed more time to explore Riga and Latvia so maybe one day we will return for an encore visit.

Between all the exploring and celebration we somehow managed to fit in four medical visits in our six day stay. We are now very familiar with the Riga children's emergency room. This was possibly a new family record. Although to be fair three of the visits (one to a clinic and two to the ER were mostly due to the complexity of getting a rabies vaccine for a baby in a country that doesn't have any rabies.) Alas, the fourth visit was a true emergency and Zadie is now getting very good at doing things with one hand while her burned hand heals. She says she will never drink tea again but I am sure with time she will change her mind.