{"id":1878,"date":"2014-02-04T23:08:18","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T23:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/?p=1878"},"modified":"2014-12-08T11:40:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T11:40:54","slug":"supermarket-dogs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/?p=1878","title":{"rendered":"Supermarket Dogs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Amidst a supposed tidal wave of Baltic immigrants hitting our shores in January, out East, Latvia<\/a> reticently prepared its self to join the Euro. My rudimentary fiscal understanding is that the Eurozone<\/a> isn\u2019t actually the best gang to be in any more. That was certainly the vibe I got from the locals as I landed in Riga with a fist-full of euros.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was in Latvia to document their transition from LAT\u2019s to \u20ac\u2019s for Bloomberg News<\/a>. I was aided on my trip by my valiant driver Arnus, a 70 year old, former priest who whizzed me over cobbles and ice more like a teen with an ASBO.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First stop for Arnus and I was a local market (an old Zepplin hanger<\/a>) where he helped by fending off a scary looking old women who was brandishing a herring and far from keen on having her picture taken. I put the hostility down to the impending currency change. In December they were accepting both Euro\u2019s and LAT\u2019s.<\/p>\n

A far more cordial environment was in the supermarket next door. Now, I can\u2019t explain it and it certainly wasn\u2019t set up but… people, yes more than one… were pushing their pets around in shopping trollies. Baffled, I left.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My packed itinerary also included a press conference with a Mr Valdis Dombrovskis… who was in a state of no mans land himself… he had just stepped down as PM after a Supermarket roof collapsed and killed 54 people. He was now being subjected to a weekly press conference to the assembled media (myself and two others). Having watched a man deliver a speech in fluent Latvian for a hour, I asked him to pose for a quick portrait, which to my surprise he did. Albeit in the very serious manor his position dictated.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having slid and shivered for 3 days in equal measure, I blew my remaining LAT\u2019s on cheap Vodka at the airport. Surely the most fitting way for my crumpled notes to end their days.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

All images in this post are available from Bloomberg News<\/a> or their partner Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amidst a supposed tidal wave of Baltic immigrants hitting our shores in January, out East, Latvia reticently prepared its self to join the Euro. My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1878"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1971,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1878\/revisions\/1971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonalden.com\/site\/staging\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}