The Baltic Republics are quiet countries located between much larger and louder countries. Their history in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania was at times saddening. They were caught in the center of power and land struggles; conquered and controlled by their neighbors; and stepped upon many times by different cultures. Nonetheless, these people are extremely generous and our time in these three countries was educational and fun.
We visited a few other small towns on our way to Tartu, where we stayed with a Hungarian girl who was attending the university there. This girl was absolutely fanatic about Estonia. She spoke of it as if she loved it more than Hungary.
In Latvia we visited Riga, the capital, before heading to the south-western coast. Riga has a very beautiful city center. The architecture is almost like the main square is surrounded by ginger bread houses. It's almost reminiscent of the beautiful buildings in Brussels - almost.
On the coast of Latvia, we stayed with a young woman and her boyfriend. Originally, we were supposed to stay with her sister, but something came up. In the end, it turned out perfectly. This woman took us on a tour of her town, and down to the beach. She told us so much about the history of Soviet times in the Baltic Republics, but it was all very negatively skewed. In our travels through former Soviet and block states, we have discovered that young people are all very negative about "communist" times, and people who actually lived in those times - whatever their political affiliations - are often more neutral or even nostalgic. Older people tell stories about having only one banana their whole childhood, or even their mothers fighting with other women over a pair of stockings, but they often leave out the negative sides that the youth seem so absorbed by.
(An odd thing relating to the beach we visited with this woman: many months later in a museum in Berlin, we saw a photo of people being executed on that beach. Part of the story that woman didn't know.)