National Library of Latvia
Riga, Latvia
July 2018
Riga in contrast to Bucharest has a lovely old town that did not suffer during the Soviet era (instead it got itself UNESCO listed). The library lies on the other side of the Daugava River. I got a view of the building while waiting a few minutes across the street to transfer to a bus to the airport. I rather enjoyed looking at the building from the bus station. You see the doors and then the building, sloping upwards, like waves on the sea. It’s a great look for a library. I posted a photo of the building as I saw it from the bus stop on social media to which my mother responded that it looked ugly.
Unlike the library in Bucharest my time at or really outside the library in Riga was cut short by the arrival of the bus. I ended up sitting with two American students on mission for the summer in the city who were also on the way to the airport to pick up a friend. We had a very enjoyable conversation about the importance of travel.