New Orleans Travel Guide: Who Dat?

      Who would have guessed that the most vegan-friendly city in Europe was the city with some of the most horrific, heartbreaking history? It sort of makes sense, that as Berlin continues to rebuild, it forges a new path with more compassion and understanding not just for all people but for all living things. Those Germans though (that one’s for millytweet). 
     The majority of my posts about Berlin will be about this crazy surge in veganism, but first our city guide will focus on that horrific history and the importance of paying your respects to it when in Berlin. There are some absolutely wonderful museums about World War Two that I’ll go over. Also, Berlin offers some really fun tourist attractions, including one activity that was without a doubt the most unique, crazy, and fun thing I’ve found maybe anywhere (infra). 

First, you know how I love finding fun street graffiti in cities. On Oranienburger Strasse, near the synagogue, we came across the well-known Tacheles Art House, which housed various kinds of artists and fun people after the Berlin wall came down. Also, ‘tacheles’ is Yiddish for ‘straight-talking’ which is hilarious. The commune is now virtually empty because a bank owned the building and evicted all the artists because obviously hordes of free-thinking people scare banks. I’m pretty sure no one knows what to do with the building now. 

You wouldn’t necessary think that Berlin boasts lovely green space but it does! People were hanging out and strolling through the parks. Ahnice.

I recommend making an appointment online to visit the Reichstag so you can climb up the fun mirrored tower and have a fantastic view of the city. You have to go through security upon entering. The Reichstag is like the Parliament building; it’s where the German bundestag/parliament meets. There’s actually a meeting room in the basement under the tower, so you can see through the glass floor right onto your representatives as they vote. Something about transparency this time around.

    One of our favorite museums in Berlin was, to my great surprise, about life during the Cold War and not about a dancing video game that boys I went to high school with enjoyed. The DDR Museum (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) shows what life was like in East Germany before the wall came down. The exhibition includes everything from the daily life of citizens and what they eat to and how they rebelled. It’s an interactive museum so I was never bored. You can even fake-drive an actual model of the car that East Germans could have. Like that one car they could have. It was a piece of shit to say the least. Anyway, the various corners of the museum house tremendously interesting information, including the pictured bits about the punk rock movement, how military action was jammed down children’s throats at a young age, and apparently how fun naked beach volleyball was. They also sold a cookbook of recipes that people would have made during the separation, which I don’t see anyone buying, ever. 

The important museum-going place in Berlin is helpfully called Museum Island, which houses five wonderful museums, including the must-see Pergamon Museum. The Pergamon boasts the famous Pergamon Altar and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, which we bought a paper model of at the gift shop. The Pergamon altar is an enormous stone room, pretty much, and can probably hold 100 museum visitors easily. The enormous building was originally on an acropolis in the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor; it was transported from Turkey to Berlin. The altar has friezes running along the walls depicting events from the life of the founder of Pergamon, as well as the battle between the Giants and the Olympians. 

The Ishtar Gate, which you probably recognize, is a freaking jaw-dropping structure that was originally a gate to the inner city of Babylon from 500s B.C., ordered into existence by King Nebuchadnezzar II, who had the unique of honor of having one of the first crazy celebrity baby names. It was dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, the Babylonian version of Aphrodite. The gate in the museum is a reconstruction, but it uses the original gorgeous blue and gold glazed bricks. 

The Pergamon also houses this beautiful Orpheus Mosaic:

And the museum teaches us, as all good museums should, that a popular Jewish word for an idiot or jerk is also the German word for Jews’ favorite thing. 

     Oh, so it is recommended in guide books to go to the top of the TV Tower to see a panorama view of the city. But it’s expensive and crowded. Instead, go to the Park Inn in Alexanderplatz and pay only a few euro to go to the roof. You get the same amazing view of the city but you get the TV Tower in your pictures! Awesome! 

    Crazy signs like the above were lining the staircase up to Panorama 37, and when we got there this random amazing bear was waiting for us. The bear and signs were probably the best part, because as you can see, Berlin’s skyline is not exactly beautiful, at least not in this direction. And also it was often overcast. No big deal, it’s still the greatest city, just maybe save your rooftop viewing parties for like Italy. 

We passed some really literal storefronts as well, like the below left, my favorite, which doesn’t hold any information back. Also, the children’s carousel below right is super depressing. 

My favorite cathedral name probably ever is Berliner Dom because it means Berlin Cathedral but sounds better. You can climb up to the top, which is my favorite cathedral-related activity, and get even more pictures of the city from on high. When we were up there, I heard someone around the bend say “Philadelphia” and I screamed “Who just said they were from Philly!” And this guy came around to us and we chatted! He lived where I worked! Such a small world, and always smaller if you are willing to yell in public. 

Probably the hardest place to visit was the Topographie Des Terrors, the museum that shows, without holding anything back, what happened to all the various groups and people whom the Nazis persecuted in Berlin from 1933 to 1945. I learned so much I didn’t know about what happened to sick and injured people in various types of hospitals, including children with disabilities. It’s all really depressing and I couldn’t finish all the exhibits because it was just so difficult. But it’s really informative and I think it’s really important to go there. I appreciated that the exhibits didn’t mince any words. 

Right outside the indoor Topography of Terror museum is the remnants of the Berlin Wall, which has been converted to an exhibit showing more depressing information relating to the postwar era.

I definitely recommend that you go and spend ample time both inside the museum and reading all the information along the wall. But, you must plan to do something really happy afterwards. 

LIKE TRAP BERLIN!!!

We found Trap Berlin through TripAdvisor, because it was either the #1 or #2 recommended activity in all of Berlin. What is this random thing, you ask? It is a small room set up as a puzzle you have to solve before a bomb goes off. No joke. You and 2-3 friends book a time, and you go to a small room at the back of a café (information here) , in which six or so dark safes are stacked, locked, unmarked, and very little else is in the room. Aaaaand, GO! The clock starts and you have 40 minutes not only to start unlocking the safes SOMEHOW, but to use whatever you see to create clues and solutions. For instance, there is a small globe outside the safes to begin with. That’s necessary for finding one of the combinations. No joke. It’s legit crazy, so super stressful, and you have no idea what kinds of skills will be helpful. They say about 50% of participants actually diffuse the bomb (if they even find it – it’s in one of the safes. We didn’t locate it until very late in the game). My husband and I did it with our famous vegan friend Not Josh, so we had three fairly intelligent professionals with varying skills and abilities working together and it still felt like we were absolutely going crazy!

We also love going to the opera when we visit other cities, and the Berlin Opera did not disappoint. We saw one of my favorite works: Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore”, or in German “Der Liebestrank” which is not quite as lovely a title. The Deutsche Oper Berlin was a lovely venue and the company was incredibly talented. It was just fabulous. My favorite things about it were a) it was still performed in Italian thank the f-ing gods (when we saw “Rigoletto” in Vienna, they did it in German. It was horrendous. MEINE TOCTERRRRRR!) and b) while the audience clearly loved the performance, there was no automatic standing ovation like in America. Nice!

As for the Berlin metro system, it’s pretty solid. I wasn’t blown away by German technology and/or precision, as I fully expected to be, but I wasn’t disappointed either. The standout of the public transport experience was of course the sign at right. Beware of tricksters! That’s good advice no matter where you are or what you are doing. 

We also tried to go to Schloss Charlottenburg, the grand palace, but of course it was closed the day we went. No matter, the vast, beautiful gardens were open for strolling and stroll we did. We could have easily gotten lost in these many acres of ponds, bridges, paths, trees, and of course flowers. Luckily we didn’t. 

There’s so much more we did and saw, like the controversial (in construction) Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, a visit to the synagogue that was destroyed during the war and is now a wartime museum, a walking tour that included the site of Hitler’s bunker, and many strolls on Unter den Linden boulevard. You must really do all of the war-related tourism, and in return there’s so much fun stuff to do as well! Berlin really offers a great deal in terms of honoring the past and enjoying the present. 

We stayed at the Mandala Hotel in Potsdamer Platz, a very nice hotel in a great location that I recommend.

Tomorrow and the rest of the week we will look at FOOD in Berlin! Yay!

     Hello everyone! Today we have a special post about the very helpful book “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide”, by Caitlin Galer-Unti of The Vegan Word. The book has been out for a little while but Caitlin and I are both very very important people so this is more of a reminder to buy the book rather than new news. Not only am I going to share my thoughts, which you love, but we have a super awesome interview with the super awesome author herself, CGU! Caitlin Galer University! I ask the tough, hard-hitting questions that we all wished Megyn Kelly had the balls to ask, so gird your loins. Just kidding I ask fun questions. Also buy it here!

   Before we get to the interview and find out about all the drama that went down during it (zero drama), let’s talk about this book. I haven’t been so happy reading a book that felt like it was written just for me since I read the backstage account of the “Wicked” run in San Francisco called Unnaturally Green. If you are vegan and if you ever traveled, you will connect with this book (the vegan travel one, not the Wicked one) in many ways. And if you are vegan and want to travel ever again, this book has some great tips to make it easier and better. 

​   Right off the bat, the introduction will have fellow seasoned travelers quickly commiserating about the worst thing that happens when you’re traveling – finally getting to that restaurant you’ve been so excited to go to and finding it closed. Ew and oh no! Luckily, CGUniversity gives great advice for how to avoid such heartbreak. I appreciate how the book actually describes new-to-me research methods for finding vegan food in any location instead of just saying ‘use the internet, it’s all there.’ I know how important and how frustrating research can be for any purpose, so having new tips and tricks at my disposal is going to make such an important difference in this most important purpose of research, finding food.

   You’ll also be commiserating hard with her recap of a terrible American Airlines flight (is there any other kind) where not only did they forget her vegan meal, but they also LAUGHED at her. Guess what? American did the same thing to me! Well they didn’t laugh (CGU that is AWFUL) but they just didn’t believe me that cheese and eggs weren’t what vegan meant and tried to persuade me that I was the one mistaken. Moral, don’t fly American if you can help it. What a bunch of shittoboggans. 
     But most of the book is inspiring, and you will feel not only excited but ready to make your next trip a slam-dunk. Or you will be ready to slam-dunk it. How do basketball words work? I love loved how the book strongly suggests making friends with vegan and vegetarian locals. Honestly, I never do this and I really want to now. It’s clearly the best thing to do – these people will know where you can eat and where you can eat well, and they’ll know the best things to do in their town! Why haven’t I done this more? Why haven’t you? Another, very different, thing I never considered doing is making oatmeal in a coffee maker! Dude! That’s hilarious and also brill! I don’t even make coffee in a coffee maker (I don’t drink coffee) so I never really considered their usefulness to me. This is a game changer for places where your only other breakfast option is maybe a piece of bread with nothing on it, or, you know, if you love oatmeal, which everyone does.
     CGU offers lots of tips like these and more, all while maintaining an optimistic tone. I cracked up several times at her blunt humor. For instance, when responding to the common refrain we all hear about how we will ‘insult the local culture’ if we don’t eat their traditional foods, Caitlin points out the very true, very persuasive fact that ‘even non-vegans might refuse to participate in [some local traditions] – like bullfighting, child marriage, or stoning gay people.’ Cracked. Up.
     The only thing I wanted more of was how to deal with the non-food part of your travels, the activities in places where everything you can do seems non-vegan. I almost went on a trip like this, where the only things to do were like hunting and ice-fishing and bear-riding or something like that and decided not to go. But maybe I missed other things I could have done. But obviously that is not the intent of this book, which is a great help about the most important part of your travels – eating. Go buy it! Here’s a link! I get a kick-back! 

On to the interview!

1. First of all, I’m going to ask something that only I really will care about. In the book, you mentioned a boat hostel in Stockholm. About ten years ago, I stayed in a tugboat hostel in Stockholm! The Red Boat something? Did you stay here? Because that was awesome and I haven’t thought about it in ten years!!

CGU: That’s the hostel! Unfortunately I didn’t stay there though. It looks so cool though!  
(thus ends the questions I asked for personal reasons.)

2. Everyone knows you are a baller of a vegan traveler, but did you travel a lot (or at all) before going vegan? If so, how do the experiences compare? 

CGU: I’ve done more travelling since going vegan but I did travel quite a bit in my pre-vegan days. I’m a lifelong vegetarian so all my pre-vegan travel experiences were of vegetarian travel. I went all over the U.S. with my family as a child, mainly on road trips. I don’t know exactly but I think we visited between 40 and 45 states! I also went to Canada and 7 countries in Europe as a vegetarian, some of which I later visited as a vegan. 
So, I’ve visited a few places as both a vegetarian and a vegan and can directly compare. And honestly, the main difference is I eat SO much better as a vegan traveller!

     It does involve a bit more upfront planning – now instead of reading a guidebook, I find myself looking up vegetarian and vegan restaurants in advance of my trip and reading reviews. It means I never end up at just any old tourist trap – not that I ever set out to eat at tourist traps, but I definitely didn’t take very much care in choosing restaurants prior to going vegan, and would often just eat at the first place I saw. And sometimes the result was some pretty dissatisfying meals!

     For example, I remember eating at several bistros in Paris in my pre-vegan days and being told the only vegetarian option they had was chips and a side salad. We actually ate pretty awful food the whole time we were in Paris. I’ve been back many times since then as a vegan and I’ve eaten so well! Although Paris has historically had a bad reputation for vegan food, it’s improved a lot in recent years and I’ve had some great food there, from vegan fondue at Gentle Gourmet to a burger at East Side and even an all-vegetarian bistro experience that was miles beyond my experience eating vegetarian at a non-vegetarian bistro. 

3.  The advice in this book will definitely help in avoiding such situations, but how do you cope in those rare times when everything goes wrong, you can’t find food, it’s pouring rain, you’re lost, you’re homesick, you’re actual sick — aka, the amalgamation of travel nightmares? 

CGU: I had pretty much that in Beijing and I just allowed myself to feel really sorry for myself. I had a really bad flu, and coupled with the pollution had developed a hacking cough. It was raining and I couldn’t find a vegetarian restaurant which wasn’t where it said it would be on Happycow (this is why I suggest in the book that you always double check the address and even call in advance!), and I was nearly an hour’s walk from the nearest metro. I was hungry and angry and I just sat down on pavement and cried. I got all the frustration out with my tears and once I was done I actually felt a lot better, and was able to pick myself up and go back to the only vegetarian restaurant I’d been to previously and was able to locate easily. I got myself some takeaway and went back to my hostel to have an early night. Then I found a vegan on Meetup.com who arranged the vegan meetup in Beijing, sent her a message and she suggested a traditional tea I could pick up for my flu – within a couple of days I was feeling better!  

4. You’ve recently moved to Barcelona! How cool is that? I went to Barcelona for a week in 2006 but haven’t been back since; I really can’t wait to return! Where did you live before and how did your traveling prowess help with the move?  

CGU: Barcelona’s such a great city and it’s really improved for vegans in recent years! The first time I visited was in 2011 and there weren’t many vegan options but the vegan scene’s really exploded in the last few years and now a new veggie place seems to open every month.

         I moved from the US to London in 2008 and lived there until moving to Barcelona last summer. While I was in London I had the chance to travel around Europe a lot so I got pretty used to finding vegan food all over.  

5. How does Barcelona’s veganness nowadays compare with your hometown’s? What would be the first piece of advice to you give someone traveling to Barcelona? 

CGU: Hahaha – my hometown is in the middle of the cornfields and fields of cows (in the summer when the wind blows the whole town smells of manure) in the Midwestern US so Barcelona is about a hundred times more vegan! Actually, I hear there’s a vegan restaurant in my hometown these days so it’s made some progress (just goes to show you veganism’s growing everywhere!!). 

     Barcelona’s really vegan-friendly today so my advice would be to start familiarising yourself with the vegan restaurants here! I’ve got a lost of the vegan dishes you absolutely must-eat in Barcelona and I’m actually working on a vegan guidebook to Barcelona right now (you can sign up for updates on the book plus get my list of Barcelona’s best-kept vegan secrets here). The vegetarian and vegan restaurants in Barcelona are pretty concentrated in the centre and the alternative neighbourhood of Gracia, so you’ll run into most of them just walking around, and if you’re seeing the main tourist sights you’ll never be too far from one! While there aren’t as many veggie places as in London I’d say they’re more concentrated here in Barcelona so you’re more likely to stumble across them. For example in my neighbourhood, Gracia, I live within 10 to 15 minutes’ walk of an all-vegan supermarket, vegan bakery, vegetarian bar, a vegan deli, plus a couple of vegetarian and vegan restaurants and countless small health food shops.

6. Part of being a good traveler is having respect for other lands and cultures, buuuuut, if you could change one aspect of a place you’ve been lately, what would it be? 

CGU: Apart from making everyone vegan? 😉 I’d say I’d get rid of the ham here. Barcelona’s really good for vegetarian and vegan restaurants but I’d definitely get rid of all the jamon (Spanish ham) if I could. People eat way too much of it, they put it on absolutely everything, rendering otherwise vegan dishes non-vegan, and there are giant ham legs hanging from ceilings all over the city – so gross!  

7. Do you prefer traveling alone, or does it depend on where you’re going?

CGU: It depends who I’m going with! Haha. I generally prefer travelling alone, because I feel like I see more.  I get really distracted when I’m talking to someone and don’t really pay attention to my surroundings. Plus sometimes when you’re travelling with another person or a group, you end up in a little bubble and don’t interact with locals. However there are some places I haven’t been that I’ve heard are generally safer to visit with someone and I’ve saved those to travel to later….Now I just need to find someone I can travel with without wanting to kill them.  

8. Do you collect souvenirs or something similarly tangible on your travels? When I was younger, I strongly eschewed souvenirs and claimed I was ‘collecting experiences’, but now I’ve started buying personal souvenirs to remember those experiences. My stance fully switched. Have you completely changed views on some aspect of your traveling? 

CGU: I tend to spend most of my money on food so I never have any left over for souvenirs! However I do fairly frequently end up buying some item of clothing that I forgot at home, like a scarf or gloves, and I always enjoy looking at it later and remembering where I bought it.  

     I used to try to spend the absolute lowest amount of money on travel I could (like so many 20 year old backpackers!), which often meant taking a flight at some ridiculous hour of the morning. I always insisted that was absolutely fine and I’d never pay extra for a flight, but now I have completely changed my mind and I’d much rather pay extra to not have to get up in the middle of the night to catch a plane!

9. Name three people that you wish would buy your book, whether you know them or not. What do you hope they will gain from it? 

CGU: Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero, because they are my vegan heroes and their book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World made me go vegan. I’m sure that Isa and Terry are vegan travel pros though so they probably don’t need it!

     And then this is cheating a bit because it’s not a specific person but  I’d say anyone who is vegan but struggles with travelling.  I’ve heard so many stories of people eating non-vegan stuff on their travels (like this) and it makes me super sad!  I usually end up reaching out to them and offering them a free copy of my book – which is probably bad for my bottom line but I think it’s way more important to make sure that people are informed about finding vegan food on the road. (this is a cheater answer I really just wanted to know if you knew any celebrities just kidding really nice answer 😛 )
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10. If an anonymous benefactor wanted to bankroll one month of travel for you, where would you go and what would you do? Is this a place you’ve already been?

CGU: Ooh! If an anonymous benefactor’s reading this (hi! 😉 ) I have this dream of doing a vegan Lenten tour of Eastern Orthodox countries. In the Eastern Orthodox church, devout followers eliminate meat, dairy and eggs (though sometimes not fish) for Lent and for other religious festivals during the year. I found out last year during a trip to Romania that these countries become incredibly vegan-friendly during this time. Most restaurants offer vegan Lent menus, even in really unexpected places like fast food restaurants. I’ve heard in Georgia Dunkin Donuts does vegan Lent doughnuts! So one of these days I’m going to plan a road trip through Eastern Orthodox countries during Lent so I can report back to everyone on vegan Lent delicacies. I’m just waiting on that anonymous benefactor… 🙂

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That’s all folks! Go buy “The Essential Vegan Travel Guide” and have better vegan travels! ​