Riga Hostel

My best friend and I stayed for 4 nights at Riga Hostel at Marstalu 12 in Old Riga (the website on here is NOT the Riga Hostel they are talking of--the site is for ALA which is really far away from there and more costly!). It was simply AWESOME. There's a picture widely spread of a party around a table--that was the birthday of Christine, an employee there that we'd contacted about helping us around town (she was HAPPY to, despite it being her 20th b-day!)... well, we stayed there, first being offered the top floor (the quietest one, private, too) then taking a 2nd or 3rd floor dormitory style room (because I'd been in a mountain climbing accident and couldn't yet handle 6 flights of stairs). It was comfy, safe, secure (our luggage was locked up, and we had no bad vibes about the place--people of solid character running it)... anyway, they let us be part of the birthday party then even took us to the club they celebrated at, getting us in for free! It was nothing short of awesome--they really want to let their guests have whatever kind of fun they're into, and they told us all about the stuff to do around town. It was also really cool that they had this bench on the stairs that was for staff member catnaps so that they could all basically live there and have 1 active, 1 resting staff through the less busy hours. Like I said, make sure the one you check into is at 12 Marstelu if you want to go where I did... the rates were astonishingly low (8 euros a night per bed) and there was an abundance of tea, coffee, etc... What's more, a total stranger who worked there offered to get us anything we needed from the store... I needed milk, and she brought it to me! She actually didn't even take my money when I paid her back, so you can imagine they got a very very nice tip when we left. I missed them so much--if I'd known Riga was so fun, I would definitely have stayed there a whole week, even though it was winter--it was such a wonderful place, and December didn't even feel very cold! Seriously, they were fantastic. I hope they are still as wonderful as when I was there so that the whole world (literally) can experience this fun, hip place to comfortably get your zs before seeing the beautiful old town (which to me was the greatest place to be in Riga!)