Protein-Packed Cashew Butter Cups That Have No Business Being So G-D Deliciousby Randi / June 2, 2017
Recently, Husband and I spent a weekend in Madrid, and then two weeks later we returned to Spain for an extended trip through Andalusia, because whenever we go to Spain, we go back two weeks later. Not really on purpose, it’s just how our travels always fall and it’s weird but hey we like Spain. If we go to Spain once, we go twice, usually in the same month. But this part of Spain, the southern part, was new to us, although I did spend a weekend during college in Malaga at a resort I found on hostelworld.com for supercheap but I didn’t leave the resort the whole time so it doesn’t really count. Also I was alone at the resort, which was filled with Spanish families and lots of children and everyone stared me and it was the most awkward thing ever. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about that. We are here to talk about something that finally surpassed the awkwardness of that Malaga weekend: Easter week in Seville. See, we didn’t realize that Seville was the epicentre of Easter, not until we were smack dab in the center of the insane crowds and shocking costumes. I don’t know if you know this, but you know Jesus? Hoo boy, he’s big there. And Jesus Fever spreads at similar strengths throughout all of Andalusia, so while I’m just talking about Seville today, the rest of my Andalusia posts will feature similar levels of craycray bananapants.
I was really excited to go to Seville, not just because I thought Andalusia was the fairytale land from “Enchanted” (it’s seriously ONE letter off) so I thought I was getting into some kind of Neverland situation. but also, I always wanted to go to Seville, well, since 1998, when “You’ve Got Mail” came out. That’s where Birdie fell madly in love!! But it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure you know the unparalleled genius of “You’ve Got Mail” as well as I do but it’s always fun to watch (best at the end):
AHHHHHHHH oh no you’re fine i guess
Despite not meeting any fascist dictators (my trip to the USA was a month later), I enjoyed the sights of Seville very much, although the timing of our trip made things…interesting. Going during Easter week is not necessarily a bad idea; in fact, Husband loved all the Easter hubbub. I got a little tired of it but I’m still glad I saw things I would not believe if you told me. You have to be prepared to deal with endless crowds that could very well block you from doing what you planned to do that day. Numerous parades happened all day long, all week long, because instead of a measly Monday off to celebrate, Spanish people take the entire week off and probably the one after it too. During the parades and marches, people would cram into the streets like sardines to catch a glimpse of people dressed up…like Klan members. I kid you not. The traditional Spanish Easter costumes that even little children wore look eerily like what white supremacists play dress-up in. They came in ALL COLORS though, not just white. There was black, there was purple and magenta and green and lots of other colors I can easily name but can hardly get over. There’s nothing tying this traditional hey-zeus garb to the worst of American culture, and I’m pretty sure that Jesus, and Spain, came first before neo-Nazis and the American south, so it’s just an unfortunate coincidence if you’re familiar with the latter. As far as I know, the Spanish have no idea that their special costumes remind us of dirty diaper people so there’s no reason to tell them and tarnish what’s clearly their favorite time of year. Because lordy, do they LOVE them some hey-zeus. As Americans, we never got over the shock of seeing these costumes everywhere we looked, but it’s nice to see the pointy hats and not run in fear for your life so like let’s not bother them about it.
CRUUUUUCIFIIIIXUUUUUS REEEEX COELEEEESTISSSS
There were other costumes too, like these, um, executioner? outfits. In the rest of Andalusia we saw even more variation, including a Teenage Widow costume that I look forward to sharing with you in future posts. Seville had some of the densest crowds though, and the most participants, as you would expect since this was the center of it all. Like I said, we had no idea that Seville was Easter Capital of the World – can you imagine going on vacation and seeing these scenes the entire time? So nuts! It’s a good thing we expected Easter to be big in a hugely Catholic country; we just didn’t know it would be the entire week. Incredible!
In addition to the costumes, there were parade floats, gilded beyond belief with giant nativity scenes but for Easter, whatever you’d call those. These were some serious floats, and in the tiny, ancient alleyways of Seville, we often wondered how in god’s name they would make it through the narrow passages. I guess with god’s grace. Or by? I don’t know I wasn’t carrying the floats. The one pictured below was what we encountered one evening on our way to dinner. Needless to say, we had to pick a different restaurant.
this was precarious
But like I said, there’s plenty of Easter treats in all the other towns we saw in Andalusia, so let’s talk about what makes Seville particularly special. Its history as the cultural and financial capital of southern Spain means it has very important stuff to see. The river, which is either called Guadalajara or LaGuardia, divides it into Sevilla and Triana, and I wish we had more time to spend in Triana because it looked really nice. And crossing the bridge in the evening from one side to the other was so beautiful, and as in most European cities it was my favorite sight.
we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it oh we’re there |
I forget what this statue is but ME GUSTA MUCHOOO |
REAL ALCAZAR
In every city, there’s the big thing to see. Oh I gotta SEE the big f-ing thing! In Seville, it’s the Real Alcazar, not to be confused with the fake one because you say it ‘ray-al’ and it means royal. It’s the old Moorish palace with endless rooms and courtyards and gardens and fountains and really purdy tiled walls and it is really cool. Now this is the pinnacle of that Moorish architecture in Seville I was talking about. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site (I mean what isn’t these days) and the royal family still uses parts of it when they are in town, which is super weird considering there are hundreds of tourists at all times. The gigantic palace has lots of smaller palaces within it and lots of patios and special historical rooms, and I learned all about them from my audioguide but then forgot everything about them. But pictures!
oh look this is a courtyard a what a courtyard 
beautiful tile! 
this might be the Courtyard of the Dolls – or the Courtyard of the Maidens. It could be one of those. But can anyone really ever know |
this ceiling is INCRED 
Oh I remember the audioguide about this facade, the Facade of the Mudejar Palace! It’s clearly an example of Islamic art but its actual existence is a Christian thing |
And just when you think you’ve seen all there is to see while you’re inside, you find out that there are like acres and acres of outside gardens and maze-like paths and fountains and it’s so wonderful.
I think that is a statue of Mercury which would make this the Mercury pond!
I love maze-y gardens
From the Gallery of the Grotesques (!) you get a great view of a lot of the palace and gardens
THE CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE
this is a great picture
The other big f-ing thing you have to see in Seville is the Cathedral, which is the third largest church in the world, unless you are going by volume and then it’s the biggest, but like, what. Weird fact, Spain. Once you have seen Saint Peter’s, it is hard to get excited about other cathedrals, no matter how much water they can hold. But this was indeed a nice one. I had an audioguide here too but literally not one word stuck around. I believe it was built by the Spanish. OH and Christopher Columbus is buried there so you can spit on him.
THE JEWISH QUARTER
old timey map of the jewish quarter don’t mind the flash
OH YEAH now we’re talking! Well, we’ve been talking, because the Jewish Quarter is the main touristy section of Seville and includes the Real Alcazar and the Cathedral so you’re in it allatimes. This was actually the Jewish quarter during medieval times, in both senses of the word (the era and the slang of describing something as so stupid as to be archaic). Ferdinand III (not the one with Isabella) concentrated all the city’s jews in this area because he was so scared of their big strong bodies (lol just kidding) so he thought it would be easier to watch them out of the corner of his eye if they were all in one spot, and then he went to hell. It remained the Jewish Quarter until 1492, when the Alhambra Decree kicked all the Jews out of Spain. This decree came from the later Ferdinand, the one with Isabella, who by the way the Sevillanos ABSOLUTELY ADOOOORE, who were dicks. But Seville loves them, and seriously everywhere we turned there would be some monument or at least sign (and street name) for The Catholic Kings, as they called them. I really like calling them both kings but that’s where any good feeling ends. So the jews were expelled from their homeland as the universe decrees must happen every century, or they converted to Catholicism with their fingers crossed behind their backs so they could stay in their home. People are crappy. Anyway, you can learn all about the long, extended history of hatred for jews in the Centro de Interpretacion Juderia de Sevilla, the small museum in the Jewish Quarter that recounts all the horrid events. It’s not a great museum, as it is mostly lots of writing on walls so you just read and then walk to the next wall section and read more, but the information is put forward nicely. The staff will give you a map of the important parts of the ancient Jewish Quarter so you can walk around the neighborhood and see what happened to the synagogue (it’s a parking lot), the school (it’s a parking lot), the famous jeweler’s (parking lot).
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OH THIS IS FUN. In the 15th century, you had to prove that you had no Jewish blood in your system in order to hold public office or be a member of an organization. It doesn’t say what kind of organization. Is that ALL organizations? That seems overbroad. Anyway, people are horrendous.
A much more fun thing to do in this area is to see a flamenco show! A popular place to go – for free! – is Carboneria, mostly because it’s free. You pay your dues by buying food (which is very much not good) or drink (same) but it’s all in good faith, no one watches or forces you to. Anyway, it’s a big cafeteria looking place that gets packed to the gills and a lady dances for a minute and then people play guitar, and then someone sings, and then maybe the lady will dance for another minute. If you can see anything, that’s great, but odds are you can’t see anything. It’s worth it to pay for a really good flamenco show if you have never seen it before. We have, so we kind of just popped in for 30-45 minutes and then said we came, we saw, we tired.
This was our view — after we moved seats to get a better view. Somebody somewhere is dancing.
PLAZA DE ESPANA
Plaza de Espana is without a doubt my favorite part of Seville. I guess I don’t love it enough to figure out how to get an accented ‘n’ up in there, but I do really love it. It’s a huge, gorgeous (slightly dilapidated but that’s part of it’s charm?) pavilion that houses government offices both in Spain AND the newer/subpar/NatPo Star Wars movies! Look I was standing where R2 was!
Despite the various joggers, strollers, and government workers present, the plaza feels sort of serene and special. It’s a beautiful place and I cannot imagine what it’s like for those people who go there every day to work. They probably hate being cooped up inside a boring office even more than most people because they know this lovely spot is just outside the door. We went early our last morning before we walked to the train station to go to (camp) Granada.
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FOOD AND LODGING
As for food, I had a long list of places but few worked out, either because they were closed for Easter or we literally just could not get to them because of parades. We pretty much just ate a lot of tapas in the tapas bars – the famous Seville-style gazpacho called Salmorejo was vegan-friendly as far as I could tell. Just like tomatoes and bread and oil pureed. Thinking about it now, I’m actually starting to gag because I had so much of it and got so sick of it, but it’s pretty decent. What is not vegan-friendly at most traditional places, that I was so upset about because I counted on it being my main source of food all week, is espinacas con garbanzos, or spinach and chickpeas. I KNOW. My fave thing. I had it once or twice and it seemed fine, but the third place we had it it was CLEARLY cooked in hot ham water. It was too good to be true to think that it was vegetarian at the super old traditional bars. Oh blergh. My favorite meal was the vegetable paella (pictured) I scored at a restaurant right outside our hotel on a sort of main drag. It was really delicious and I’m so glad I got to have paella!
One of the HappyCow places that did work out was the ridiculously named Coq and Roll Market. The man working was super nice and helpful, and I immediately ordered a great green juice. The best when traveling! Then we had a nice arugula and pecan salad and a hummus sandwich. We kind of got our wires crossed because we (thought we) asked for hummus with crudite, but the sandwich was good and bread is good and everything was good so no complaints.
One night, when we crossed the bridge into Triana, we chanced upon what I am guessing must be the Mercado de Triana, an upscale food market that was packed with cool people and blasting live music. They had all kinds of stalls, including one preparing vegetable-focused food like this delicious veggie pie. It had really olive oil-y (in a great way) tomatoes and eggplant and stuff on a crumbly crust and it was really good!
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But nothing beats the gelateria (I’m sorry, ‘heladeria’) we found close to that same bridge, a place called Giolatto! They had a whole section of dairy-free ice cream! And everything was perfectly labeled and they said on the sign that there was no cross-contamination, so that way they could advertise to those with allergies. Most importantly, the ice cream I had – dark chocolate and strawberry – was amazing.
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Yumm I wish I could have that ice cream (and the paella, if we’re wishing) right now!
Seville was full of chance food encounters that turned out to be brilliant, like how a lot of the regular gelaterias in town also had horchata, a sweetened rice milk kind of thing. Horchata is usually vegan, and amazing. I love it so much!
We also happened upon these absolutely stellar freshly made potato chips! I’m not a potato chip person at all – I would take tortilla chips over potato chips any day, all day, for as long as I can remember. Just not my thing. However, I would permanently change teams for these hot fresh amazing potato chips. Man aliiive.
Seville was full of chance food encounters that turned out to be brilliant, like how a lot of the regular gelaterias in town also had horchata, a sweetened rice milk kind of thing. Horchata is usually vegan, and amazing. I love it so much!
We also happened upon these absolutely stellar freshly made potato chips! I’m not a potato chip person at all – I would take tortilla chips over potato chips any day, all day, for as long as I can remember. Just not my thing. However, I would permanently change teams for these hot fresh amazing potato chips. Man aliiive.
freshly chipped potatoes!!! |
dance emoji! |
Probably our most favoritest fortuitous food experience was when we randomly found the Ines Rosales store. Ines Rosales is the famous brand of Spanish tortas – thin, crispy, super flaky pastry cracker things made with olive oil and usually sugar and cinnamon or other flavorings and they are addictive beyond belief. You can find them in London in Selfridge’s or a place in Borough Market, with a considerable markup. We are indeed addicted to them so finding their actual store was super exciting for us. And they had flavors we never saw before, from orange to cinnamon to savory thyme and rosemary ones! We haven’t tried the savory ones yet, I don’t know why. Since Seville was the start of our Andalusian adventure, this meant we were carrying around tons of fragile tortas the whole week! We took really good care of them though!
This is what the hotel looked like inside! So cool! But so hard to navigate correctly!
As for lodging, we stayed in the heart of the Jewish Quarter at the Las Casas de la Juderia, which was gorgeous if super confusing. From the front, it looks like a regular hotel off a main street, but it’s like 15 different buildings on this somehow huge piece of land in the middle of the city, and it’s hard to go through the winding little inner-hotel paths to find your correct building but it’s SO cool. It’s such a beautiful place, and they had a pool! I mean it was the coldest pool I have ever ever tried to go in but still, yay for pools! The wifi did not reach the rooms, which sucked, but that’s the only drawback. It’s a really cool place and it was nice to be right smack in the middle of everything in such a great city. I really enjoyed it and would definitely be willing to go back. I’m curious about how different it is when it is not Easter!
did not see Antonio no no too sexy too sexy!
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From Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan: In Which I Get in an Unmarked White Van And Live to Tell the Tale
After our 10 or so wonderful (well, like six were) days in Kyrgyzstan, we were due to find our way to Kazakhstan. If you’ve been following along this adventure for the past three months, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Oh they’re gonna take another train! Hah I hope this one is clean!’ Bitch I WISH there was a train! I wish we could cross the next few borders on our agenda by train instead of figuring it out ourselves when we don’t speak the language and the locals are insane! But no no no, Kyrgyzstan DOESN’T HAVE TRAINS. Didn’t you find it odd that I haven’t written about trains in a while? I know I miss it too. Well there aren’t any so deal. Our options for getting from Bishkek to Almaty were: private car (too expensive), private car shared with other tourists (still a bit expensive; hard to find other tourists willing to do this; hard to negotiate with the driver when we don’t speak the language well; we hate strangers), or marshrutka (the unmarked white vans perfect for kidnappings but instead used in this region for public transit mm okay). Well gird your loins because we chose the latter option.
Marshrutkas, little white vans used for public transport, are how everyone gets around in these parts. It’s all the rage! No it’s really the only option. We’d used them before in Mongolia and I want to say some places in Russia but those were to get to tourist sights outside the city centers, not to cross into other countries on fully day-long trips! I would have to pee SO much. But alas, it was the best option: tried and trusted according to other crustier travelers we met, cheap, reliable. Reliable as far as getting you there, I mean. Not reliable like having any sort of respect for departure times, oh no, perish that thought.
Our hotel in Bishkek, the Futuro Hotel, offered free transfers from Bishkek to the Kyrgyz side of the border, about 45 minutes away, so we were happy to at least have that leg taken care of, even though it’s the easiest bit. Of course, a different staff member informed us, like, the day we were leaving that that freebie is not for guests staying there through their tour companies (NoviNomad had booked our stay). So that’s a big old pile of bullshit; someone remind me to drag them on TripAdvisor. So instead of our plan of freeing it to the Kyrgyz border point (called Kordai, which is super close to how you pronounce Kodaly, the name of Gavin Creel’s character in ‘She Loves Me’), we could pay for a taxi there and then get a Kazakh-only marshrutka or taxi the rest of the way to Almaty, or we could taxi to the Bishkek bus station and get a marshrutka from Bishkek all the way to Almaty. We didn’t like the thought of getting across the border at Kordai and then not having our transport figured out for the Kazakh leg – the cars and vans waiting on the other side could charge extortionate prices since we had no other choice. Thus! Marshrutka the entire way it is! This is where I would use that emoji of the face with the eyes bugging out all scared and what not.
After I cursed out the staff at Futuro for being stupid (just kidding I’m so polite irl), a taxi took us to the bus station in the center of Bishkek, along with another guest from the hotel. This other passenger was a Russian man probably mid-20s or 30s. We figured it’s a short ride and we might as well split the fare. How bad could it be? Guys it was so awkward. He asked where we were going and where we were coming from and we sort of said the long and short of being long(ish)-term travelers, and you know what his response was? “Are you rich?” I almost cracked up but come on who says something like that? I wanted to be like, “What are you, American? Only Americans think you have to be rich to travel” (because they don’t get any vacation time) (also hey soon Russians might all be given American citizenship for funsies so I guess I was right) but we just kind of said um no…? like…we’re normies but also that’s an inappropriate question? He was kind of scary though (are all white youngish Russian men??) so we didn’t say that last part. No etiquette lessons given today!
Once we got to the bus depot (it was for sure a depot and not a station, just like a mess of a parking lot with vans and cars jutting out in all directions and PEOPLE EVERYWHERE), we found a ticket window and bought two tickets to Almaty. I think it was the 10am marshrutka we bought tickets for. We were pointed to one of the white vans, which had about 6 little rows of seats (2 on one side of the aisle, 1 on the other) plus 4 seats across the very back. So this is a SMALL little van and there are seats for more than TWENTY passengers. Also the windows didn’t open and it was hot. Erma. We boarded (luckily this minibus situation had a little compartment in the back for luggage, not like our Lake Baikal shitshow) when there were about 10 people already onboard, and most of the seats up front were taken. I almost choked on the fear that we’d have to sit in that dreaded back row (girl I will THROW UP on you) (by ‘girl’ I mean ‘whoever is sitting in front of me in a slightly better seat’) but then I noticed two seats about three rows back that I thought were taken but had just a water bottle on it. I said omg let’s sit there and if anyone comes be like what water bottle I didn’t see anything (I know I’m a monster). Luckily no one claimed it.
We were told we had about 10 minutes so I went to the bathroom, stretched my legs, and tried to be okay with how dehydrated I was in preparation for at least five hours in a crammed minivan without fresh air. I was doing an okay job at calming myself but then I noticed that we were not leaving. We didn’t even have a driver visible in the vicinity. More and more people kept boarding – it got full. Twenty minutes past go time and still no driver. This one girl got on and off, on and off, talking to someone who maybe worked there but maybe was just a drifter? She was wearing a Mickey Mouse ear visor and we of course started imitating the Russian model on “New Girl” who said “why don’t you get in your spaceship like Mick Mouse” and that helped for a minute but then MORE TIME KEPT PASSING and we KEPT NOT LEAVING. Then two more people arrived and they were apparently this girl’s parents. I’m saying girl but she was like our age it’s not like this was an abandoned child (despite the visor). I was like well they’re not getting on our van anyway, it’s full. But no there was a thingy up by the driver’s seat that could be clamped down to make one solid row so the three of them crammed in next to the driver, who finally showed up. I was livid that we had apparently been waiting for 45 minutes (THAT’S RIGHT) for random people who could have just gotten on a different marshutka (there were like 1000!) instead of delaying ours that long but okay breathe. The driver backed out of his parking spot and pulled around to the main section of the lot, where you are supposed to drive. But instead. Instead he got out.
And he smoked.
I could cut a bitch.
Finally he got on and we left, about an hour late. It is very, very difficult for me/anyone who cares about anything to deal with this sort of chaos in things that could clearly be better organized. Z tried to calm me down by reminding me that our last train of this long trip would be going to Berlin. GERMAN TRAINS. That shit’ll be so on time it’ll blow your mind! Helped a little.
The ride to Kordai wasn’t too bad. The van dropped us off at the start of a long pathway towards the customs building. At one point on our walk, there was a counter with little forms to fill out – our customs declaration, I guess. I say I guess because it was in several languages but not English, so who knows what I signed off on. Fortunately a kind Greek person who does this route a lot (I don’t know) helped us fill out our forms. We had to do Kyrgyz exit customs first, which was very simple and straightforward. We got in the ‘Not locals’ line. Then we got into the main hall, where I witnessed two incredibly disturbing things. One was the giant welcome sign in the hall that read: “WELCOME TO KAZAKHSTAN. GOOD LUCK.” what the EVERLASTING TUCK?? good luck? why do we need luck? what’s going to happen to us!! So, so disconcerting. The other was the state of the hall itself, which was the site of one of my probably top 5 most distressing attempts at queueing. There were tons of windows with agents, but people didn’t know how to spread out so that you could join all the various lines. There were just mobs of people up at the front of the hall, and then there was so much line cutting and it was hard to see where to go omg it was a messsss. We got in a particularly bad jumble masquerading as a line but it was near the Greek person in case we had an issue so we stayed. It was easy though; we made our little ‘we’re just poor hungry tourists’ faces and got stamped through. On the other side was Kazakhstan! But more importantly – a toilet!
I really was only about 50, 55% sure that the mashrutka – with our bags – would be there when we got out but there he was! About 15 minutes after we got out of the building, all our fellow passengers were out and we were ready to drive for hours through Kazakhstan to Almaty, the best city that used to be the capital but it got too crowded so they moved the capital thinking that people would want to go to there but of course no one did because Almaty has STUFF and good stuff at that and Astana like doesn’t. Literally Astana was an empty pasture when they made it the capital in the ’90s. I’m sure now they have like buildings and roads but Almaty is still better. So I’ve heard.
Oh man I was thirsty! I am so eager for regular life when I can drink all the water I want and then have access to toilets. We had a stop about halfway through, somewhere between 90 minutes and 2 hours. It was this big Kazakh version of a rest stop, with a restaurant, shop, and public (paid) toilets. One Kyrgyz girl from our van paid for my toilet! I didn’t even know and then the lady motioned to say it’s taken care of. How nice is that?! Sometimes people are nice! There is no better gift you can give me than the gift of a bathroom break!
Almost everyone went into the shop and bought ice cream bars – it was hilarious, like we were on a school trip. Mick Mouse saw we were clearly not Kyrgyz or Kazakh and ORDERED us to try this one kind of ice cream, her favorite. I was like oh I don’t eat dairy Mick Mouse. Mick Mouse started talking to us and not just ordering us to buy things and it turned out she lived in Berlin! We love Berlin! We told her as much. She said some other things but I was distracted with how badly I wanted ice cream and how fitting it was that I probably wouldn’t be able to find vegan ice cream until we indeed get to Berlin.
Finally we got to Almaty, at about 4:30pm. Oh man I was so hungry. The station was under serious construction so we were dropped off kind of far from the actual entrance, which was not great because obviously I had to go to the bathroom as fast as possible. And just as fun, once I got to the station there was no sign for the toilet so I had to ask this random babushka in a cafe and she said it was around the back of the station and underground. Not a great start, Kazakhstan! Then we had to find a taxi to get to our hostel, Sky Hostel, our first in a while but one with strong ratings. Also every hotel in Almaty was weirdly expensive (it’s very surprisingly cosmopolitan!) so this hostel was our best doable option. With our packs and all our crap, we walked up and down the street asking cab drivers how much to go to the hostel neighborhood, and they all said WAYYY more than we were told it should be, because why wouldn’t they, we were ignorant tourists with all our luggage who needed a ride! Extort! We went up and down, back and forth in the heat and our state of exhaustion and each driver we found gave a higher price than the last. Finally we said f this, f it all, because guess what we found out?
Almaty has Uber.
I KNOW!
Yes Uber is problematic (worst board of any modern company?) and I would never use it in regular life if I had a choice, which I can’t imagine not being the case, but when we were stranded on the side of the road during our first hour in Kazakhstan and it was cheaper than the cabs were asking? Yes please! It was a super nice car that came, too.
The hostel was a little weird – Sky Hostel is located on the 11th floor of a regular building. Like you have to go in and take the ONE TINY BARELY WORKING elevator to reception on the 11th floor while regular workers and other citizens are using it too to get to whatever else was in that super shady building. So ridiculous. Luckily the hostel itself was fine. The girls (seriously children) working reception were completely inept but we were used to all that by now. Our room was on the 10th floor so we had to walk down the flight of stairs to get to it – the stairs that didn’t exist in the lobby and don’t actually take you to the lobby. The stairs are just from like floors 10-13 for the hostel use and blocked off below and above! So weird. Luckily the room was fine but the view from the 10th floor landing, hoo boy:
Such a lovely city! We were excited to go explore.
Okay, not really that night so much for exploring. We were exhaaaausted! But we were excited to finally eat that day. There was a promising Georgian restaurant with several locations, called Daredzhani. We went to the closest one to the hostel, about a half hour walk away (felt like hours). You know how we feel about Georgian food! It always saves us when we are in random locales and super hungry. As a vegan, I can count on finding interesting dishes at Georgian restaurants, including plenty of vegetables (always important when traveling) and amaaazing bread! Georgian fluffy breads are the bee’s knees. Well, Daredzhani kept up the tradition. SO good! The staff was incredibly friendly and the hostess spoke perfect English. We asked if by chance they had an English menu and she was like, um yes of course we do this is ALMATY. So things were definitely going to be a lot easier and more comfortable here than we expected when we planned to visit Kazakhstan! Almaty reminded us most of London than any other destination of the summer had.
But we will talk more about the city itself in the next post. The rest of this one is just going to be about our fantastic dinner!
I don’t normally like to drink anything that isn’t water, but Daredzhani had really fun lemonades on the menu. We tried the green and the red. Ha I don’t remember the flavors but they were good! But the food is where it’s at! As we are known to do, we ordered WAY too much and it was all great.
My favorite thing was the salad – they said it was spinach but it was stronger, like kale, which I loved, but I guess that’s just spinach in Kazakhstan maybe, with a tahini-like dressing I think made from walnuts, plus scattered pomegranate seeds. Such a perfect and simple dish! The vegetable soup was also simple and good, nourishing in a basic way rather than exciting, but we needed some of that! But the cauliflower dish in the background was the shizzz. I don’t know what that sauce was, but it was magic. I think it was nut based, as many Georgian sauces are, and it was like spicy but not hot and I don’t know it was sooo good. It was a chef’s special that night and I wasn’t going to order it because cauliflower is les boringles but Z wanted it and I was like fiiiine and then it was the best ever.
I adore how well they used nuts. This eggplant dish above had a walnut paste and pomegranates. It was great! Another staple we always get is lobio, a kidney bean dish served hot or cold. This one was hot (so the better option) and nice but needed some salt. I mixed it with some of the magic cauliflower sauce and it was phenomenal.
And of course the bread with its perfect rip-off handles. My fave.
So we didn’t really see any of Almaty on our first night but we had a wonderful dinner after an all-day ridiculous adventure crossing from one stan to another. After we get some much needed rest, we’d have two days to see all the sights in this promising city.
Kashgar, China: A Vital Oasis on the Silk Road Both Then & Now
So far on our Silk Road journey, the historical evidence of the oasis towns’ roles in the past was there if you went looking amid the modernity – in Dunhuang if you went to the Mogao Caves; in Turpan if you went to the ruins; in Urumqi if you…closed your eyes and imagined it. In Kashgar, however, you’re immediately transported to the ancient times of the Silk Road at its peak just by stepping foot in the city bounds. As soon as we got off the train, we knew this place was special, considered the pinnacle of a Silk Road exploration today for dern good reason. Given how dusty and old-fashioned and straight out of the history books it is, my fondness for Kashgar is surprising to say the least (I hate dust!). But when you see how unique a town it is, how deftly it combines the cultures that converge geographically at its location at the crossroads of central Asia, it’s easy to understand why I loved it.
