by James Fleener A product of the profit motive: Trilingual menu in Riga. “If you feel to be a cat…” (source: author’s personal collection, picture taken in Riga) On a cold and snowless February dusk, I found myself in Riga with a couple of hours to spare while waiting for a bus to Tallinn. I had been making rather brisk progress through the cities of Eastern Europe in my attempt to be a proper flâneur in Balzac’s sense of the word. I started in Prague where I immediately bought a train ticket for the latest night train anywhere else. With ticket in hand, and therefore lodging determined for the night, I spent the next 14 hours feasting my eyes on the streets of Prague. I strolled up and down Wenceslas Square dozens of times, imagining the events of the 1968 Prague Spring with sadness and the 1989 Velvet Revolution with consolation. After walking around Prague late into the night in snow bathed by the yellow street lights, I boarded the train t...