Banks in Latvia

On my last trip I went to Latvia. This country, sandwiched between Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south, gave me a very strange welcome.
Read on to find out !

My first stop in Latvia was in Liepaja, a nice seaside resort that must be quite boring in winter but very much alive in summer. Many people in the streets, nice wooden houses on the outskirts and Jugendstill in the centre. I had a very strange experience in the bank. I wanted to change British Pounds into Latvian Lats and I went to the biggest bank in town. I gave some bank notes, and this clerk examined them carefully. I mean, real carefully, not by putting them under an UV-light or holding them to the light, but by stroking them and examining every little detail. And then she said: “not good”. I thought: “oh my God, they gave me counterfeit money in the Belgian bank where I changed my money”. When I asked her what the problem was, she showed me the corner of the bank note. It was slightly torn. So it was not good. I laughed a little bit, and gave her another note. “Not Good”. Somebody had made a little mark on the note with a pen….so it was also not good for Latvian banks. Luckily I had some brand-new bank notes with me; otherwise I would have been in trouble. With my new money I bought myself a telephone card to call my HC contact, Alpiniste. And there I encountered my second miracle of my trip. This time, her name was Jana.
Maybe you remember that in Lithuania you had to dial an ‘8’ in front of the mobile number. Well, I wasn’t sure if this was the same case in Latvia, so I stopped the first person I met and asked her what I had to do to dial this number. She looked at the number and told me: “I know this number. It’s Alpiniste’s number. It’s my roommate”. I could not believe my luck. Of all the people I stopped in this street, Jana turned out to be my contact person’s best friend AND flatmate.
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