In 22 years I've always spent my birthday in Portugal. I'm not counting my 18th birthday spent in Andorra which ended up being the worst birthday ever and one I kind of would like to forget about.
Before starting the trip around Europe, I always knew I would spend my birthday somewhere that wasn't home, but I always thought it would be in a more familiar place like in Italy or the UK. Never have I thought about turning 23 in Latvia, or any Baltic countries what so ever.
Before starting the trip around Europe, I always knew I would spend my birthday somewhere that wasn't home, but I always thought it would be in a more familiar place like in Italy or the UK. Never have I thought about turning 23 in Latvia, or any Baltic countries what so ever.
I ended up celebrating my birthday twice. Going to the best place in Riga, Folkklubs Ala Pagrabs, with the two portuguese girls I was travelling with and a bunch of people from the hostel. We ate amazing grandmother's meat balls, drank beer, went to a bar to drink daiquiris and finished the night listening to some terrible voices of people singing at a karaoke bar. And here we saw the drunkest most hilarious guy giving the funniest performance ever, and I spent my midnight listening to him sing the longest most terrible song ever!
The next day I woke up feeling weird and sick and my only wish was to stay in bed all day. But being my day I had to force myself to go out and enjoy the day. We took the free walking tour - which wasn't free at all-, and wandered around the city, which was surprisingly bigger than we all thought.
By night, what was suppose to be a three people dinner, turned into a group of ten, and we went back for more grandmother's meat balls and a 5L jar of Latvian beer. It's funny how at home, planning a birthday dinner tends to give me a headache and this year I didn't even had to plan anything, people just wanted to join us and have a good time.
We finished the night at a Cuban bar in the Old Town because it was shots night...perfect!
So, thinking I would spend my birthday this year alone, I ended up with an international dinner table of three Portuguese, one French, a Korean, a guy from Chile and other from Germany. How cool is that? I don't think I could have asked for anything better and from now on I'm making it a tradition to spend my birthday in a new country away from home. I wonder where next year will take me!
So, thinking I would spend my birthday this year alone, I ended up with an international dinner table of three Portuguese, one French, a Korean, a guy from Chile and other from Germany. How cool is that? I don't think I could have asked for anything better and from now on I'm making it a tradition to spend my birthday in a new country away from home. I wonder where next year will take me!