Yekaterinburg: Surprisingly Pleasant City, Though it Could Just Be the Hotelby Randi / July 7, 2017
June 29 – July 2
Dear little baby laptop diary,
I titled this post after one of the most random Broadway plays I’ve ever seen, “Three Days of Rain”, with Julia Roberts making her lackluster debut, Paul Rudd just being our universal boyfriend, and a not-very-famous Bradley Cooper, whom I knew from Alias and was super excited about. Who knew that in a few short years he would be the biggest star of the bunch! Anyway, it was a kind of boring show, and that’s all I remember, which is a shame because I am currently on a train with two days and two nights left to go, and I would like to be thinking about a play instead. How is it going so far, you ask? Let’s just say if I didn’t want to talk so much about Broadway whenever I had the chance, this post would have simply been called Three Days of Pain.
Dear little baby laptop diary,
I titled this post after one of the most random Broadway plays I’ve ever seen, “Three Days of Rain”, with Julia Roberts making her lackluster debut, Paul Rudd just being our universal boyfriend, and a not-very-famous Bradley Cooper, whom I knew from Alias and was super excited about. Who knew that in a few short years he would be the biggest star of the bunch! Anyway, it was a kind of boring show, and that’s all I remember, which is a shame because I am currently on a train with two days and two nights left to go, and I would like to be thinking about a play instead. How is it going so far, you ask? Let’s just say if I didn’t want to talk so much about Broadway whenever I had the chance, this post would have simply been called Three Days of Pain.
After our 24 hour stay in Yekaterinburg – our lovely, fancy-hotel-staying-to-reward-ourselves-after-the-24-hour-train-and-to-treat-ourselves-before-the-3-day-train stay- we boarded The Train. This would be our longest train journey yet, longer than the baby-sized sleepers we’d done so far, longer than when we took Amtrak from Chicago to San Francisco and thought we were so brave. I want to slap old me across the face. Amtrak was luxury. We had a tinier cabin but it was just the two of us, and man alive if I ever slam Amtrak bathrooms again, remind me of where we are now. I would kill for an Amtrak bathroom on this train. We boarded 10pm Thursday, as I write it is 2pm Friday, and we get off this Snowpiercer on SUNDAY at noon. SUNDAY. From boarding THURSDAY! Guysss I don’t know if I’m going to make it. Well if anyone is actually reading this it means I made it, because there’s no wifi so I have to post this after we disembark on that magical day (and actually, after I post all the other posts that come chronologically before this because that’s how I want to do it), BUT STILL, who knows how changed I will be. Who knows if I will still have the same likes, the same dreams and passions, the same hair or if I tore it all out in a ravenous fit of cabin fever unchecked by all the Ativan Caki gave me (thank you Caki)? Will I even be human? Are we human or are we dancers? It’s already starting, see.
Oh dear sweet little baby 8 pound 6 ounce newborn infant laptop, don’t even know a word yet…
We boarded last night and found an empty cabin, which was nice so we could put all our stuff away without bothering people already there (this train started all the way back in Moscow). A very clean surprisingly non-smelly older gentleman (our first non-smelly gentleman in the whole country!) joined us, and he was fine. It was a lucky roommate to have! He was a history professor who was very nice and we chatted for like a minute before we all went to sleep. Perfect! Unfortunately, it was short-lived. The train made approximately 25 stops during the night, during which I started thinking about how excited my brother is for the new “Murder on the Orient Express” movie (me too what a cast hooray for Baby Leslie Odom (I decided to call everyone who is a ‘Jr.’ just ‘Baby’ instead, shout out to Baby Robert Downey)) but then of course I started THINKING about Murder on the Orient Express and how I’m as close right now to that situation as I’ll ever be and these strangers are always in our cabins and everyone smells bad and has knives because we all came prepared with days of food and the appropriate cutlery and I was like don’t let anyone stab anyone tonight Dame Judy! So then I couldn’t sleep for a while. I finally started to maybe get closer to sleep, despite the rocking motion of this train being worse than the downtown trains of the NYC subway the ones you cannot possibly try to surf hands-free during else you’ll fly into the opposite end of the carriage, and much worse than the tube with all its own dragon noises and bumping and creaking and omg. But then, at 4am, our friendly cabinmate got off at his stop. Lucky guy was only on a train for 6 hours! That’s nothing! Then, unfortunately, it started. The kind of cabinmates I had feared started coming in our room. Our first new cabinmate was a smelly Russian man about our age who immediately took his shirt off and let the smell fester even more. I was on a bottom bunk, Husband was on the top, and Shirtless Youth was on the other top. Then a few hours later after another frighteningly jerky stop, our next cabinmate arrived. He is maybe in his 40s, maybe 50, and he is a giant flesh person. He is just a giant sack of human. This is a tiny f-ing cabin and either his endless flesh or his even worse stench is EVERYWHERE. We can’t put our legs down to sit on my bunk because his are there. We can’t breathe without breathing in his b.o. He is scratching right now while humming. He scratches his uncovered skin (he’s wearing shorts and like a belly shirt) and flicks whatever comes up all while humming, Guys. I’m trying to be strong and brave and grateful. I am grateful that he doesn’t smell like smoke. That’s literally all I got.
I thought the unwritten but definite rule of these cabins was that whoever is on the top gets to sit on the bottom bunk on their side during the day and use the little table for their meals. Each side keeps to themselves. I begrudgingly learned this on our first long train when Husband and I both had bottoms so the woman on top of mine sat on my bed a lot. I learned, great, that’s how it’s done, she can’t prepare her food and eat up top. OK, I got it, sorry I gave you a bad look. But this morning, after I exercised outside our door in the hallway (there’s a bar running down the hallway of our cabin, it’s tight but it’s enough space to do barre exercises like I’m a GODDAMN BALLERINA and lots and lots of squat variations and calf raises. No one was up when I was out there so I also got out my resistance bands and worked my back so darn happy about that I think I’d go insane if I was cooped up here and couldn’t at least try to work a muscle), I came back to sit on my bed and read and Shirtless Youth was sitting on my pillow by the table making his breakfast. Like. NO. You get the bottom bunk and table part from the guy BELOW YOU. That’s the rule!! Omg! I guess he literally couldn’t because the Giant Flesh Ball Man was oozing out everywhere you turned and they couldn’t both sit on that bunk, but still, that’s not my problem man! I waited outside and did more calf raises and then when he got up I claimed my spot back and haven’t left since. Except to pee in the literal pits of despair. These toilets are so grimy and sludgy and I’m spending so much time in there because I pee a lot and Husband and I brought 15 liters of water on this trip with us and I have to drink it even though I fear it’s not enough for three days. That’s for two people! (We each carried a 5L jug and had three 1.5L bottles between us and I also had about 1/2 liter left in another bottle. Hey I guess that is 16L maybe we will make it.)
OH MY GOD Giant Flesh Ball just went to the bathroom and came back shirtless and is now putting deodorant on while sitting next to me I am going to vomit. OH my god Shirtless Youth is also still shirtless and just got down from his top bunk by jumping onto my bed with his smelly feet right on my sheets, right next to my physical body. He was just ‘cleaning’ his grundle with his towel I cannot believe this. GFB Man is still humming and now is drumming his fingers in rhythm the whole time on the table omg I am going to LOSE MY MIND.
Oh wait. Oh my god they both seem to be getting dressed! And not in their smelly sleep clothes, in real clothes with buttons and things! Ahh praise Jesus are they disembarking? Did we reach their stop? Or did we reach my melting point? We don’t stop for like 30 minutes I cannot wait to see how this goes! I’m so nervous and excited and scared that I’m getting my hopes up! Are they going?? Will our new neighbors be even worse? Even smellier? Even more in my personal space? Why do men think they have the right to my personal space? I guess we will see what happens in 30 minutes when we stop at some combination of letters I already forgot. I have to go pee before they lock the bathrooms at the stop (they get locked at every stop because, well, because everything ‘flushes’ onto the track, so at least it’s a civilized reason). We will see what happens.
Oh my god she already locked the bathroom! We don’t arrive at the stop for another 30 minutes this is INHUMAN. GFB Man is brushing his crumbs from his side of the table towards me and the computer. That’s just swell of you. He’s still humming. Shirtless Maybe-Not-So-Young Man is now shirtless again, despite having dressed himself five minutes ago, so I have less hope of his departure now. He’s also sitting on his top bunk with his feet hanging off pretty much in my face (it’s tiny room) and they smell so bad my eyes are tearing. I’m also equally frightened that if they do get off, our newbies will be even worse. What if THEY reek of smoke? Ughhh that would be worse. And we have TWO FULL DAYS LEFT. Two more sleepless nights. Two more days of having to time my bathroom breaks between frequent stops. Two more days of constant Purell because there’s no soap in the bathrooms. Two more days of using precious bottled water to brush my teeth and wash my face because the train water would give me cholera. Two more days without contacts because no way I’m touching my eyes. Actually that last one is good, my eyes need a break from contacts.
While I wait on my ability to pee and breathe from the smelly guys maybe leaving and cry from possibly worse new cabinmates, I will tell of all the food we had to buy and bring onboard for 3 days. No meals are included in our ticket and the dining car is very expensive, but also I think they have zero options for me anyway. Husband will check it out later or tomorrow I’m sure (we can’t both leave, someone has to guard our stuff). So in Yekaterinburg, we found a few giant supermarkets that were very expensive (they had no cheap supermarket, so weird! No little bodegas like have been all over the rest of Russia either). We found lots of good treats and bought a lot, but considering it’s three days worth of food for two people it’s probably just right. We bought jars of white beans in tomato sauce with some veg in there, which I’m sooo pumped about. Like mamma ‘taliano looking stuff, I hope. We also found vegetarian grape leaves in a can, another tomato sauced bean thing in a can, and lots of bread. And we brought that fantastic Russian staple, instant kasha! Sooo good. I used to think kasha was just a part of that disgusting Main Line Jewish dish of kash’ n’ bowties but aside from that it’s actually really good. And good for you! Along with cucumbers, tomatoes, and pickles (probably not the best idea because they smell, but if people don’t care how their bodies smell why should I care how my food smells), and more apples and orange, we are set. Plus we found a lot of chocolate in Yekaterinburg so happy dance. And cookies! Every city we’ve been in so far, I’ve scoured ingredient labels and found one package of accidentally vegan cookies. Never the same one, so we’re on our third try. The chocolate chip ones in St. Pete’s were still the best, but the cinnamon ones in Moscow were very yummy too. I will report back on these weird blueberry puffballs I found! I hope that when we eat all this stuff I don’t have a Meg Ryan in “French Kiss” train moment (LACTOSE INTOLERAAAAANCE who knows it? best movie ever I pretend Kevin Kline won his Tony a few weeks ago as a belated gift for “French Kiss”).
quick cooking kasha! |
this chocolate bar is ALL OVER the country !! accidentally vegan wooohooo |
these amazing Trader Joe’s finds are gonna get me through! Brought two bags! |
found these amazing dehydrated veggie crackers at Veggie Bro in Vladimir (go back and read about it if you missed it last week!) |
There are good things. I got to have an instant Quaker oatmeal packet for breakfast today, which is (I’m sorry) one of my favorite foods and one of the easiest things to make because of the samovar in our carriage (every carriage has a samovar of endless (god I hope!) hot water, so anything instant is good). We also use the boiled water to clean our dishes and stuff. I read “Between the World in Me” already, which was wonderful, “The Days of Abandonment”, which I actively despised (sorry Kip), and David Sedaris’s new diary-entry book, which is better in short bursts than all at once. I also reread dear sweet Nora’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” because it’s the best. I have a lot of podcasts on my phone, and I could listen to at least half of one Gilmore Guys (or five regular length podcasts) before my battery dies. Also, there are really nice Dutch women with two little kids down the car who we are talking to a bit. They smell fine. It’s a treat.
Well, back to reality. The two smelly guys did indeed get off. But we immediately got two new Russian men who…I’m not yet sure, but I think they might be worse. They’re meaner, that’s for sure. When they came by, I said hello (in Russian) and smiled and they didn’t even blink or glance at me just threw their stuff on their bunks and went back out. WTF. A few minutes later, Husband did the same thing when they returned and again, no eye contact, no utterance of any kind in our direction. Stupid Russian jerks! Fine don’t talk to us, that’s good for me. But they smell a little smoky, which better not get worse. I’m promising myself two things: If they ‘magically’ get smokier (meaning they’ve smoked on the train, which is not allowed), I am going to say something (I am able to say ‘you smoked? where? not allowed!”); and if they sit on my bed at any point I am putting my foot down and getting super scary and yelling “NYET! that is your side, and this is our side.” I think I know how I say that. They know each other so that makes it easier. I hope it doesn’t come to my having to yell in very poor Russian at men I have to sleep next to for at least one night. Their phone noises are on, too, which is a big no-no, and just as the icing on the cake, their phone noises are incredibly loud bits of very bad songs.
Dear little baby laptop, lying there in your ghost manger, just watching your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learning about shapes and colors…
Guys! The men all left super quickly and we had the cabin to ourselves for dinnertime on the second night! Then an army man joined us and was so well behaved and organized (and made his bed immaculately in 8 seconds flat, we were very embarrassed about how ours looked after that). He smells fine! The Dutch family down the hall has become our friends, and they are vegetarian so we are going to all meet in Mongolia (where we all end up for Naadam) at Loving Hut! And there’s a Danish girl (not to be confused with The Danish Girl) about our age who is now also our friend and we will probably see in Mongolia! Things are looking up in Duloc! Oh man it all really depends on your cabinmates, I guess. Well but the constant bathroom locking is terrible, especially for me, so that is really rough. But with decent, nonsmelly roommates this whole train thing might actually be…fun? Okay obviously I need a nap since I’m clearly losing it.
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Moscow, Russia: A Bustling City of Landmarks, Police, and Barricades
I honestly still don’t know how I feel about Moscow. We spent four days there, and saw all the things we wanted to see in four days, and I just feel like I don’t have a handle on the city. There’s a lot going on and every area feels like a different city or even country. The center is really fancy, with every high fashion design house and jewelry company represented on polished streets. But 10 minutes outside the center, and by the train stations, it looks like how we’d imagine Russia at the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s all very incongruous, and not being able to grasp the correct mood of the city made me feel uneasy. Although, it could just be because of the P.O.S. hostel we stayed at!
We left St. Petersburg Wednesday night at 11:55pm on the famous Red Arrow sleeper train, Train #001, for Moscow. This was our first real leg of the Trans Siberian (or Trans Mongolian…or Trans Manchurian…we’re going to Mongolia & China so it’s like both/all/I don’t know). Oh we met some older tourists earlier that day or the day before who were Russian but lived in Miami. They asked what we were doing in Russia and we said “We’re doing the Trans Siberian Railway!” and the Russian Miami lady said “Oh is that a Jewish thing?” Like first of all what. Second of all what Russian person doesn’t know about their train system? Thirdly who says anything like that to 3 strangers who are combined only 1/6 Jewish? Was so weird! Who doesn’t know what the Trans Siberian is when you are IN Russia? So now every time we are faced with any sort of new thing we go “Oh is that a Jewish thing?” Amazing. So anyway, on our St. Petey-Moscow sleeper, we were in second class but it was the fanciest darn train I’ve ever seen. (What on earth is first class like!) I boarded with my teeth already brushed, my face already washed. I hurried to the bathroom in the train-provided slippers to take out my contacts and put on my pajamas, and then I was ready to snuggle into my clean white-sheeted bottom bunk when…our stranger cabinmate arrived! Second class means cabins of four beds, and we were three people, so we had a STRANGER! His name was Ivan and he was a Russian man, mid-30s I’d say. He was super nice and friendly and spoke enough English to get by with us, but that meant he was up for chatting AND he had a friend in the next cabin who came in and sat with us! On our beds ughhhh. It was after midnight and I wanted to sleep and I was so tired from all we’ve been doing and these two Russian guys were drinking and chatting for hours with the two American boys while I did the head-conk sleepy thing I used to do in Statistics. I mean trying to stay awake so strangers can drink and talk in your room after midnight when one of them isn’t even supposed to be there and in the best case you can only get like 6 hours of sleep and you have a HUGE day of sightseeing to do the next day isn’t exactly my idea of fun. But I’m weird like that.
Still, it was a beautiful train and a great experience – one which really spoiled me for the subsequent train journeys this trip, but we’ll get to that later. On this fancy train, they gave slippers and toothbrushes and little water bottles and breakfast cookies (not for me but still). Even though we didn’t get enough sleep, we were excited enough by our arrival in Moscow to charge through a whole day of stuff. We arrived at the train station which is in one of the not-nice areas and I was like oh hot damn, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We made our way to our hostel, which was luckily centrally located in the nice part of the city, so its location was 100% responsible for its high online rating. 7 minute walk from the Bolshoi Ballet, 15-20 from Red Square. The location was responsible for all its internet points, because it was a p.o.s. The teenagers ‘working’ there, and I use that word loosely, barely did anything at all. It was an ordeal to get them to do their job, like put toilet paper in the shared bathrooms. One of the guys working a few night shifts I think was just hanging around because he was the boyfriend of one of the actual employees. It was all very ridiculous and unprofessional. Speaking of those shared bathrooms, one for each sex, they each had one communal hand towel by the sinks. Those towels were not changed more than once in our four day stay. Husband said the men’s remained on the floor in a puddle the whole time. Worst of all, they didn’t have a water cooler or purifier like the last hostel did. We aren’t supposed to drink the tap water so we had to buy sooo much plastic. Ugh. All of this doesn’t even compare to how rude the other guests were. Loud talking all night, music, hell one guy was playing his ukulele at all hours and even though I really like the ukulele I think he put me off the ukulele for the near future. What a shame. But the winner was the guy who was skyping for three hours one night, seated at the small desk right outside our door. He had the loudest voice I’ve ever heard in my life and was a ridiculous person, talking about his views on Ukraine and how he wanted to protest something while in Russia and I was like omg you really are an idiot. When it got past midnight and we were still clearly hearing every painful word of his through our closed door, I went out and was like ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME? He moved to a standing wander outside the men’s dorm which I think went over with them equally well. I’m so glad to be done with that place (although I’m writing this from a tiny tiny train cabin shared with two strangers and what I would give for that private room right now.
The first thing on our agenda was to see Red Square, but Husband missed being away from work for so long apparently because the first thing we actually did in Moscow was meet his colleague at the Moscow office of his firm for coffee lololol. Really nice guy! I had two bottles of law firm water for free!
Red Square
GUUUUM
After dropping our bags, we immediately set out for Red Square. That’s the big f-ing thing to see, right? We wanted to see it straight away! (Look how British!) But the politzia had other things in mind. The entire area surrounding the Red Square was barricaded off and black sedans did what seemed like speed tests back and forth in front of the Four Seasons. People who spoke a little English said it was because that day marked an important day in Russian history, but I don’t know how the fake car chases help to celebrate it. With the entire central region cordoned off, it meant we could not get to the Red Square, St. Basils Tomb, the State History Museum, the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, GUM (the department store that was the subject of literally every practice sentence in our first semester of Russian – “Where are you going?” “I’m going to GUM!” “Where can I buy souvenirs?” “You can buy souvenirs at GUM!” – so it was what we were most excited about in all of Moscow, I think. Pro tip, you can’t actually get souvenirs at GUM; it’s a super swanky mall now with every expensive designer you can think of represented, plus endless ice cream carts. We’ve never seen so many people constantly eating ice cream as we have in Russia). Our entire Moscow list was suddenly unavailable to us! So we decided to use that unfortunate turn to go out to the burbs to pick up the rest of our train tickets from the company we used to book them. (You can book them yourself, but we are on such a specific schedule, and it’s summertime so the routes fill up, so we didn’t want to risk it. Also, so far all our trains have been full, so it was worth it.)So at least we got that over with, but we still hadn’t seen really any of the city yet!
State HIstory Museum
Later that afternoon, we decided to try again, but nope, barricades everywhere you turn. Luckily, one of the guards at the barricades (you at the barricades listen to THIS! no one is coming to help you to fiiiiiight you’re on your oooown you have no frieeeends <– literally the meanest lyric in all of musical theatre) was able to communicate to us that Red Square itself was now open, but the gates remained all around – except for in one roundabout area which we directed us to. A little more walking (we’re walking like 10 miles a day erma my po po feet)and we finally made it to what we came for.
Mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Red Square is impressive, mostly because of St. Basil’s Cathedral, the famous onion domes you know. It’s a lot smaller than we expected, but super gorgeous. We went inside immediately, and it’s surprisingly not a big hall like most other churches but is made up of tiny chapels and little staircases and alleys connecting all these disparate parts. I didn’t care much for the inside, especially after being blown away by the inside of the Church on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, but it’s still St. Basil’s and so famous and important so go if you want. The outside is where it’s at though.
One entire side of the square is GUM, one is the State History Museum (which Husband went to when I needed a morning off from museuming which was the best decision maybe I ever made), one is Basil’s, and one is the walled off border of the Kremlin, plus Lenin’s Tomb. We wanted to go to Lenin’s Tomb right after Basilypuddy but for some reason it was closed off. The guard said just ‘closed today’ and open tomorrow. The Tomb has very specific, short hours – just 10-1pm – so we were upset that we would have to fit it in another day. Guess what. It took four days of trying before it was actually open. “Historical days”, “Graduation”, more “Graduation” – guards over the next three days had all kinds of excuses ready for us as to why it was closed when it wasn’t supposed to be. So frustrating. When we finally got in, on our very last day, it was an hour and a half wait! 90 minutes in line just to see an embalmed body?
Not Lenin’s tomb but at Lenin’s tomb
Weird stuff inside guys
Oh that’s right, Lenin is literally displayed in a glass case (of emotion) like it’s an open casket at a funeral. He looks like he just died. They are embalming the crap out of him. It’s sooo weird. I knew he was like mummified somehow but I didn’t expect it to just be like ‘here, it’s a body like normal, except dead for decades’. I made several emoji faces during our hurried walk around the glass case (the many guards usher you along quickly (also no pictures allowed of course, would be too weird)) and I think the guards were laughing at me. It was so weird. I wonder if this was Lenin’s wish or if it was decided after he died. I hope his ghost isn’t like freaking out over being a tourist attraction. So weird.
Guarding Moscow’s Eternal Flame outside the Kremlin. Strangely this is a popular place for newlyweds to take photos – and indeed we saw some doing just that!
Inside the Kremlin – Cathedral Square
Another day was dedicated entirely to the Kremlin. Okay guys, if you are planning to go to Moscow soon and visit the Kremlin – which you should if you are there – know that it is an absolute shitshow to get in. Well, first of all, we had to change our designated day for visiting that due to “Graduation” a few times too! Moscow was entirely a city of barricades and police activity, always unexplained to the populace. I think it’s just the goings on of a police state, like they are constantly reminding the citizenry that they don’t have free reign, that the police are the ones with power and have the control here. It really seemed that way to me. Everywhere we went, we encountered barricades and had to replan. It was really annoying and one of the top reasons I wouldn’t want to live in this city. It was a constant onslaught of police activity and being told you can’t do certain things.
Senate building (maybe)
Garden in Kremlin
So, when we finally got to go to the Kremlin – it requires a whole afternoon – we were relieved, before we realized what it took to get in. First, you wait in the longest line for the ticket hall. Guess what, the main tickets are sold at separate windows from extras like the Diamond Fund (the crown jewels, which you want to see), so once you go through the entire line, you have to get in another line to get the extra bit tickets. This happens a lot. Luckily, I went to scope out the inside situation when we were still a good 45 minutes away from being inside the ticket hall (who knows how long from a cashier) and I noticed almost-empty ticket machines in the corner. We of course used those for the main tickets and we saved a good hour. Why was no one using the machines! Crayballs. And someone said you could buy Diamond Fund tickets at the actual building inside, so we hoped they were right. Like most big attractions so far in Russia, once you wait in the line to buy your tickets, you have to wait in another line to get in the attraction. This one was even worse than the ticket line, not because of length but because of tour groups pushing and shoving. It was another absolute shitshow. Russian queues make British people turn to dust. They just push and crowd and have no regard for anyone who may have been there first. So we forgot everything we learned in London and pushed right back. We made it to the severely backed up metal detectors and noticed that most of them were going unused as people just went through the central ones, causing most of the backup. Peeeeopleeeee.
CANNONBALLLLL
Luckily, once you’re in, it’s fine, as long as you stick to the specified walking paths – the guards mean BUSINESS. Anyone who stepped off the path or crossed streets not at a designated crossing had loud whistles blown at them until they got back on the straight and narrow. There were constant whistles.
now that’s a cracked bell
Kremlin just means fortress, not government building, but Moscow’s famous government fortress has made the word stand for it as well. It’s a huge expanse of land behind those walls, with various Senate buildings, Congress halls, monuments of tanks and cannons…and like 8 cathedrals. It’s different to have most of your government grounds be cathedrals! But that’s what we’re here to see! Endless cathedrals! They were the things you can really go inside (of course you can’t go in like the Senate) so hooray for them.
We also were indeed able to buy tickets inside the actual Diamond Fund. These were some crown jewels, man. So beautiful. Of course no pictures allowed here either, but I distinctly remember my favorite thing besides the super giant diamonds. They had this brooch that was a bunch of flowers, made of diamonds and gold and jewels, that was so pretty. But the audioguide told us what made it even better – it was hollowed out inside so it could be filled with water and fresh flowers could be placed inside! I was cracking up. Can you imagine Catherine the Great wearing a flower brooch pinned to her dress that actually had water and fresh flowers inside?! I like to imagine that she bent over to pick something up and the water spilled out and some court man slipped on it.
Because you’ll be spending a lot of time here, it’s important to bring snacks. They have a few carts of various Russian foods like pireshok, I think, and I was able to grab a trail mix bag. But you can find better snacks on the outside. And bring plenty of water! It was a hot day. Actually every day so far has had moments of heat interspersed between mostly freezing temperatures and then incredibly strong rain storms. What is this weather.
outside Kremlin
Even though I’m already museumed out, it’s literally like the #3 thing we will be doing this trip besides seeing cathedrals and taking trains so I geared up for the Tretyakov gallery. They have a main building and a new annex that I thought sounded like it would be small but it was literally the biggest single exhibit I’ve ever seen. It was 20th century Russian art, charting every new movement that happened, and it took 3 hours to go through. When we were finally done, it let us out to a stairwell that led us into…another exhibit. JFC I was about to scream. It was worse than Caesar’s Palace for keeping you in and not letting you leave! I was in a Bunuel movie and I was NOT AMUSED. It was a decent gallery but come on that’s a lot of museuming.
On our walk to the gallery ahhh
On the way to it though, we found this huge fake ship statue of Peter the Great. This memorial is kind of hilarious and awesome. It’s so big! Its champion was the former disgraced mayor of Moscow so there are rumors that it will be removed but come on, you can’t get rid of this. It’s so fun.
One of the funniest things we did in Moscow was go to the Museum of Soviet Arcade Games! It’s a very happening hipster joint with tons of old arcade games from Soviet times. They are so sad you want to cry but it’s really adorable. They gave us English instructions and a bag of tokens and we tried to play them. Most were super glitchy and frustrating but it was so cool to try them out!
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Moscow also has some gorgeous metro stations. We walked mostly everywhere but Husband made a point to find the most beautiful ones. Our Russian teacher told us about them when she went between semesters. They were pretty cool!
The best part of Moscow was the Bolshoi Ballet, which I’ll write about in another post (theatre reviews! never stopping!) and a mostly vegan restaurant called Fresh that I’m obsessed with (food in another post too). Looking back, we did do a lot of fun things in Moscow, but it was all in this overwhelming sense of unease. It’s a city in a time of change, for sure, and it’s unclear what direction would be best for it (you don’t want that fancy center part to take over and price all the citizens out, but you also want it to grow financially). I definitely felt this unease and it prevented me from enjoying Moscow as much as I thought I would. Maybe it was all the police and barricades, maybe it was the city itself, maybe the hostel, maybe because I was surrounded by people eating ice cream and I couldn’t have any and it was so sad. I think some places you gel with and some you don’t, and that’s fine. Onto the next!
Madeira, Portugal (Part 2): Funchal Vegan Food, Lodging, and More
As discussed in the previous post, Madeira, the little Portuguese island off the coast of West Africa, is an amazing little paradise of mountains, gardens, and overall pleasantness. In this post, we are getting down to what matters: the vegan food, and the hotels. Although the remote location means the extreme vegan ballerness of mainland European cities hasn’t reached Funchal yet, there are still lots of good options and cute restaurants to check out. And as far as lodging goes, we stayed in THREE different hotels over this trip! Okay, one was in London and one was not planned, but you’ll see! We had an incredible time in Madeira and you can read about all the sights and stuff to do here.
yep this was taken during a break in barfing. (‘oh it’s pronounced bar-fay’)
My top restaurant recommendation is Coracao (pretend it’s a squiggly c!) Vegano, which has been around, and vegan, since 1973! Amazing job guys. The food took a minute but we had just flown in and we were super hungry so it probably seemed longer than it really was. Before we share the food, look how adorable the restaurant itself is!
Since like I said we were so hungry, we did our usual thing of ordering too much food. We ordered a wrap, a thing called Vegan Lust, and sushi. So yeah, the offerings are eclectic, like lots of vegan cafes, without one clear vision or cuisine. But who cares!
First up, the vegan plate of lust. It contained crispy chicken slabs (is slabs not a good word for food?), bacon slabs (again I ask but what is a better way to describe it?), and salad. It was fine! I love salad and the various vegan slabs were fun.
Next up, the wrap. There’s only one wrap option, the Crispy Wrap, and it has crispy vegan chicken with veggies and salad inside. I loved the filling and wish the wrap itself was sturdier; it fell victim to the disease that kills most wraps – sogginess. Ugh I love wraps so much but haaaate when the wrapping gets too soggy I might dry heave just thinking about it. There is nothing else in the world where suuuuuch a tiny change in status makes me go from loving it to literally barfaying from it. But anyway, it wasn’t as soggy as other wraps I’ve seen in my day, so it was pretty good.
Lastly, sushi! Or what they call Shingen Zushi! It’s a fried tempeh roll and it was DERN GOOD. Man I love tempeh sushi. I want this again! So the food overall at Coracao (squiggly!) is decent, but it’s a must go because it’s kind of a Funchal vegan institution. And it’s rare to find an all-vegan place! I think this is the only one in Funchal, actually. And I adore that they are not shying away from announcing themselves as such or wimping out with referring to some ‘plant-based’ bullshit. Look at the entrance!
Just in case ‘vegano’ in the name wasn’t enough! Love it.
The next restaurant we tried that is worth sharing was called Copaki, which is a little farther down the coast, closer to the Contemporary Art Museum. They aren’t vegetarian but they have a veggie/vegan menu that is really great. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong thing, like I can’t even believe I ordered it. I had the choice between deep fried aubergine (eggplant), braised tofu (omg want), lasagna (what!!), or fajitas, and like a G-D MORON I chose fajitas, momentarily forgetting that the main component in veggie fajitas are bell peppers and I FORKING HATE bell peppers! What was I thinking? I think I was distracted by the prospect of guacamole. Ughhh I had to eat so many red peppers and they make me nauseous.
first of all that’s not fajitas
Best (not) of all was that the ‘side of vegetables’ was more bell peppers. I mean. So don’t be like me, because I think if you ordered something that there’s a chance of you actually enjoying (e.g. not your least favorite veggie??) then we are all good at Copaki. Still can’t believe it. Luckily, I had some other dishes and they were great. Hard to mess up, but great.
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Ours had mushrooms on top! Approved!
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
what brand of soup are you
But guess what else! They had a nice vegan dessert, can you believe it? I was expecting nothing more than fruit plates or fruit sorbets, but here they had a vegan puddingy flan type thing with candied puffed wheat bits on top. NICE!
Overall, it was a nice meal, and Copaki is a little more upscale than Corasquiggle if you are looking for a date night or something.
We also stopped by Gigi Sumos one day, a juice bar chain that is on HappyCow and says it has vegan bagels and salads too. Well, they don’t really. They can make a salad vegan by removing all the stuff in it, and they don’t have vegan salad dressings! I asked the staff, but you say you offer vegan salads; how can you do that if you don’t have vegan salad dressings? And you know what they did? They offered me MUSTARD or SWEET CHILI SAUCE. Like, both condiments straight from their bottles, undoctored to be palatable as salad dressings. I mean I chose the sweet chili but DAYUM.
even with avocado it’s sad! and look more bell peppers
Luckily, after that unfortunate stop, we went to the MOST BEAUTIFUL land of produce – Mercado dos Lavradores! This famous market is a must-do for tourists. It’s a giant building full of food vendors. The main hall is vegetables and fruit and nuts and spices and dried fruit and all kinds of good stuff, and there are restaurants and hot food vendors all along the sides. Because it’s so touristed, the produce is expensive, but you can get INSANE stuff. This is where I found my most favorite avocado of all time. You ready? She ready.
Look at those gorgeous things! Do you see the giant avocado? We bought that one that is standing upright – it was bigger than my face. Luckily our travel was intra-EU so we got to bring it home! It made a lot of guacamole. Okay so because it was so big it was kind of bland, but I don’t care, it’s so cool. If it were a rocking chair it would be a stop on a long-drive through the American West.
I don’t have a picture of the next coolest find we made in the Mercado, but I remember it vividly. A few vendors stopped us and made us try pieces of a special Madeiran hybrid fruit called – I shit you not – ‘ADAM’S RIB’. Making things even more interesting, it’s a hybrid of pineapple and banana. And against all odds it sort of reminded me of custard apple! It was more fun than delicious but it still was good enough for us to buy a few. SO FUN.
Okay, that’s it for food in this post. Sadly, we didn’t get to what many say is the best restaurant in Madeira for vegans, Restaurant Olives, but maybe next time. And there’s some happy news: the next Madeira post will be a fancy restaurant review, a part of the Vegan Michelin series!
LODGING
Funchal is the kind of place where you really will want a baller resort to stay in. Without sandy beaches, you’ll want to swim in a nice pool. Also, this isn’t the kind of city like Paris or London where you want to spend as many seconds as possible seeing all the sights because there’s never enough time to see it all (‘there’s no time! there’s NEVER ANY TIME!’). That’s not the vibe here. You’ll see some stuff like I shared in the previous post but you’re gonna want to relax in the hotel. Also, the hotels get the most beautiful beachfront so the views are amazing. We did a lot of research trying to find the nicest place that was still a value for money, and we decided on the Porto Bay resort. Porto Bay actually is three different resorts, and if you stay in one you have access to the amenities (restaurants, gyms, pools, tennis courts, kids clubs (so many families), mini golf, &c) in all three, so it was a great decision. They have the Cliff Bay (which I think is the most expensive), the Porto Santa Maria, and the Porto Mare. We chose the latter. And we liked it, and we loved it.
one of many sun bed areas
This was the view from inside our room.
What’s out there, you ask? Let’s go see!
Oh it’s just one of the FIVE pools at the Porto Mare alone! While I of course swam in this one just to have done it, it wasn’t super hot to make it my regular pool. Luckily, some of those five are indoor. If you know me, you know I love an indoor pool, like to a weird degree. Look how beautiful these options were!
That one was so big it snaked its way to be part outdoor pool. SO FUN.
There were also jacuzzis and steam rooms all over the place. And while the gym was a little hard to get to (down to the basement and then up again sort of?) it was a pretty good gym! My only sadness about this stay is that there were tennis courts literally outside our wing but we didn’t play.
The food at Porto Mare was pretty good too. As with all hotel buffet breakfasts, there was tons of cereal and fruit but nothing great on the hot food side. But, they had Alpro yogurt! So it was overall a win.
Now I bet right now you are thinking, if you loved this place so much why did you say you stayed at a different place? Well, Madeira can get crazy winds, and so it wasn’t a huge surprise that our flight home to London was cancelled because of them. EasyJet transported our entire flight from the airport to a hotel that was much, much better than I expected of EasyJet (I expected a trash motel). It was called the Pestana Ocean Bay.
It’s that green bit. Not the nicest place, but still pretty good. Checking in the entire flight took hours, sadly, as the hotel was not ready for such a madhouse. We were originally given a basement room but it had ants (omg maybe it was a trash motel and I forgot) so I went back to reception and demanded we be moved, and we got a much nicer room on the top floor! Awesome.
We were all given tokens for the dinner buffet, which was fine. Nothing special but they had enough dishes out in the giant buffet that were veg. We talked to some fellow passengers (ack) and wondered when we’d be notified about our rescheduled flight. The email came late that night: they were putting us on a flight the next night/morning at 1 AM!!! ONE. AM. And since this is Madeira, most of the people were supes old! This sucked. We’d get in to London at what, 3-4 am? And back home no earlier than 5am and have to go to work? No no NO this will not stand! Luckily, they offered money back if you chose not to accept their shitastic rescheduling, so we refused and booked a NORMAL HUMAN TIMED flight with British Airways. We still had another whole morning to explore though, so we walked along the beach and the caves near this end of Funchal.
Okay so that’s two hotels; what’s this talk about a third? Well our flight out of London was at 7am, so we decided that rather than getting up at 3 or 4 am beforehand and hating the world on our first day in Madeira, we’d sleep at the airport and only dislike the world on our first day. We stayed at the YotelAir in Gatwick Airport and you know what? It was super fun and comfy. It’s a pod hotel, meaning the rooms are tiny little compartments and you feel like you’re on a submarine or something. (Or an overnight train!!) But it was clean and comfy and even though everything was a weird purple haze, it was great! Nice bed too.
ahhh so similar to our train journeys!
There are buttons to bring the bed down for sleeping!
The check-in process was so smooth, maybe the smoothest at any hotel ever. The staff was super nice. And it was weirdly fun to be able to change into pajamas and then go out and shop at the airport Boots and stuff!
So except for the aforementioned fancy dinner, that’s it for Madeira! I hope you consider it for a future vacay, especially if you are old or have kids. I hope to go back someday! Oh and here is a look at my favorite Funchal graffiti:
Send it to your friends named Sam and have a good day!
