Whatever about the standard of my english on this boards

...I taught english in Riga recently one year . Im sure your bank card will work. All my pieces of plastic worked fine there.
A bit of advice is ...
Be aware of being overcharged in bars and clubs. Riga is full of con artists trying to get you to pay their bills.
There are beautiful women hanging around the bars and clubs there paid to dance and pretending to appear 'available' but they are working on commission for every drink they can get you to buy them. They will want you to buy them a drink and every drink you buy them is charged at Irish rates and they get what is for them a hefty commission out of that. Some will even hook up with you and want you to bring them to a club where they get a cut of the entrance fee.
So wise up to this. No authentic latvian girl will want you to buy her a drink. She will have too much self respect.
It took longer than you will spend there to find out where the 'real' latvians hung out. Before this I ended up in respectable looking and normal looking night clubs in the basements of hotels such as Voodoo lounge full of women all trying to part you with the price of a drink. Dont do it !
Remember ...they are secretly working on commission and wont admit it.
Also a good percentage of the population are Russian and there is a lot of tension between latvians and Russians.
You really have to keep your wits about you there.
But mainly watch what you spend . I was surprised at how expensive it can be there. Before I went I thought the further east the cheaper everything got.And this is true about some things but the language is so different that its easy to get stung which is why its good if you have actual real latvian contacts like I did going over.