Latvia and Finland
 

I'm planning on going to Latvia then onto Finland late August. I already want to do AK47 shooting in Riga but that's about all I got planed, any suggestions?

I'll be staying near Tampere in Finland with couchsurfers so most my time will be taken up in Finland unless anyone can make a suggestion.

Where are you staying in Riga? Friendly Fun Franks I imagine. I stayed there for a while (like 10 days or something) cuz i lost my passport in riga. I don't know if there's anything better in riga, but i really didn't rate frank's. it was just full of fuckin scouser(sp) bachelor parties. yeah frank pretty much only hires attractive ladies to work there and yes you get a free beer upon entering, which was needed cuz i went in the front door of the building and got lost walking up and down staircases, go in the back. the best part about franks is its like not even a block from a great bar, pulkevedis something. It translates to "nobody writes the colonel" or something along those lines. and across the street from that is a cool little cafe called john lemons although it looks like a mafia front. the clubs in the centre of town were nice, tons of hot broads, like tons, but they were kinda a little to classy for us backpackin bums. one of my buds got tossed from a club for sittin on some random couch. we were at pulkevedis like every night instead, sweet dj, cheap beer, what more can you ask for. Oh and I didn't try the AK47 thing cuz it was kinda expensive (30pounds), but i heard it wasn't that great just for your info. I can't really recommend too much to do in Riga because I was there for the World Hockey Championships, but I also didn't really find much to do. We wandered town alot, the central monument is pretty cool and they do the changing of the guards or whatever at it. Theres some cool building in the old town, really close to frank's. We went into the occupation museum right next to frank's. It was ok, I mean, Latvian's have kinda been screwed more than I realized, but it wasn't worth going to in it's own right, unless you have time to burn. I imagine the little waterway they have going through the centre of town will be kinda cool in august. theres a market there during the day and people are rafting and stuff on the river. anyways, looking forward to seeing what you think of riga because it was one of the very few places I didn't like, but it could be because of losing my passport, canada losing at the worlds, and even the fact that the worlds were going on, it could have skewed my view of the city because everything was set up for the hockey crowds. oh yeah, and let me know what you think of pulkevedis.