“Venus in Fur” on the West End: It’s Sexual and Violent (Like Game of Thrones!)by Randi / October 26, 2017
Chinqui! After the nonstop action of our previous few weeks in Kyrgyzstan, a few days in Almaty provided the easy, relaxing tourism we needed for recovery and rejuvenation. I know what you’re thinking because it’s what I thought too: “No way you’re talking about Kazakhstan being the easygoing part of this trip.” I know! Mah wife! Against our (unfounded) expectations, Almaty was nice and perfectly boring. For the first time in a long time, it felt just like your average cosmopolitan city, with nice cafes, restaurants, buildings, and even recognizable brands. It was clean and modern and was the first place to remind us of London since Shanghai. Yep, Kazakhstan is just like London.
We breathed a sigh of relief (but not too deeply; the car exhaust/pollution problems in this region are big in this city) at getting a leisurely day to sightsee at our own pace. We decided to follow a walking tour around the city from the website Caravanistan, which was very helpful but took us literally six hours to get through. Granted we did stop a lot (at every single good looking grocery store; more on that later), but still, damn, what a town! We started at Republic Square, which was about 40 minutes from our hostel when you factor in how incorrect all my advance food-findings were (HappyCow is only as good as we make it, people!). At Republic Square we found the very very tall Independence Monument, which features a pretty f-ing badass man riding a flying snow leopard. HELL YEAH you fly that magical snow leopard into the SKY, Golden Man!
Great success!
Look at that stupid kid statue in front of you riding a regular old horse! HAHA LAME CHILD.
The Independence Monument stands in a big official looking square, with government buildings and the former Presidential Palace. Also nearby is the monument to the 1986 December Uprising, which is said to have been mostly students protesting decisions of Gorbachev. But there’s so much misinformation, as with everything out of the Soviet Union, that no one can agree on whether it was a protest for independence or just against his latest decision, whether it was planned or spontaneous, whether 200 people participated in the uprising or 40,000 (get your shit together USSR), or whether only a handful of people died or whether the death toll exceeded 1,000. FFS the Soviet Union really didn’t like facts. The statue below, honoring the uprising, is called Dawn of Liberty, because a few years after the uprising, Kazakhstan won its independence from the Soviets – even though they didn’t seem to want it. Apparently in 1991, 94% of voters voted to stay in the Soviet system? but then just months later they were granted their independence? What the crap was going on over there! Kazakhstan was the last country to gain their independence from the Sovs whether they wanted it or not.
Gypsy! Give me your tears!
We turned to walk down Dostyk avenue, which previously was called Lenin avenue. Still in the land of Lenin avenues and statues! Never leaving! There we saw the Arman Cinema with this amazing relief on the outside, facing the street. And yes, it’s connected to a Burger King. I know, it’s confusing to hate the sight of gross fast fooderies while also being excited to be in a place with names you know.
this suit is NOT black
In this area we found the statue of Tulebaev, a composer. Now that we’re outside of Republic Square and its municipal buildings and its concrete, you’ll notice how so much of Almaty is green and tree-lined. It feels like the whole city center is a park sometimes! There are bike paths and foot paths, so many fountains, and so many trees. A-nice!
Wave good bye to your clock radio, asshole!
I really liked the below monument to Zhambyl Zhabayev, the Kazakh folksinger. He played the dombura, which is not a Japanese food, and only sang in the Kazakh language. He lived to be just a week shy of 100 years old, which is pretty amazing for anyone but especially for someone born next to a river by Mount Zhambyl (which he was named after) while his mother was fleeing an attack on her village. I don’t think anyone seeing a baby born at the most inconvenient time in the most inconvenient place in the middle of such horror and tragedy stopped and said hey I bet that baby lives to be 100, or past 4. The internet has no reports of fun nicknames but dammit if he was never called Zhambalaya I will be so mad.
I had not come to Hollywood to fight with a man dressed as Hitler.
I was also a fan of the statue to Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian artist and writer. I like that his name is in the plural. I write many Taras! I like that he was Ukrainian and I found nothing relating him to Kazakhstan anywhere on the internet. But most of all I like that his statue is so f-ing weird. Why did they just make his face come out of an amorphous blob? Is it because he isn’t Kazakh? They being prankers?
I like!
Okay I’m mostly joking about the statues though. My real top sight in Almaty is, I think, the actual top sight in Almaty – the fountain based on the Chinese zodiac but bastardized by Soviet symbolism so it became just a wet circle of confusion.
King in the Castle, King in the Castle
It’s a great fountain, but at first glance you might just think the animal statues are of your standard choices. Especially if you know it’s supposed to represent the zodiac, you might recognize that oh there’s the lion, there’s a ram, there’s the…snail? Instead of cool things like dragons, the use of Soviet symbolism means we get things like the snail.
mah wife
The symbols used are thus kind of funny, kind of cute, and it makes the fountain even more interesting to know why there are such random animals featured.
Very nice, very nice! How much?
An important artwork for us to find was this mural (above) on the wall of a hotel (or office building) that was under significant construction. I hope they don’t hurt the murals! We wanted to find this painting because it represents us on our Silk Road journey! Okay maybe they were thinking more ‘actual explorers and adventurers from thousands of years ago’ and not two little whiteys but hey we felt pretty cool seeing it.
Everybody know it for girls!
We next moved into the war portion of our monument viewing. Above is the monument to two female heroes of World War II, Manshuk Mametova and Aliya Moldagulova. Manshuk was a machine gunner and the first Soviet Asian woman to receive the Hero of Soviet Union medal for bravery. She had been studying at the Almaty Medical Institute when the war began, and schools in various cities are named after her. Aliya was also awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal, for her work during the war as a sniper. Apparently she trained at an all female sniping school, which sounds incredibly badass. Does the US have anything like that or do they still not like having girlies in the military?
Below is requisite Eternal Flame, which we saw in every single place in the former Soviet Union. After that is the Glory Monument in Panfilov Park. It is dedicated to the 28 guardsmen of Panfilov. The 28 were a group of Red Army soldiers who fought in the defense of Moscow in 1941, and they all died in action. Most of them were recruits from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz regions.
sleeve of wizard
Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium
On one main boulevard was the lovely opera house, which was also under construction and it took several visits to get a picture without a truck on its front stoop. A poster on the facade informed us that the opening performance of the season was occurring the night we left. Cool guys.
all other countries have inferior potassium
Thought we saw literally all the sights, we mostly enjoyed strolling amid all the greenery and taking pictures of buildings we liked even if we had no idea what they were. I’m guessing the below is a government building though. I know you’re impressed by my deductive skills.
Although Kazakhstan a glorious country, it have a problem, too: economic, social, and Jew.
We spent more than a few hours in the A. Kasteyev State Museum of Arts, a really interesting and neverending mix of good art, bad art, weird art, blue art. I recall that it was a maze that I couldn’t get out of fast enough to find a bathroom (horrible set up!). I also recall that there was a scary weird robot sculpture out front, and a CREEPY AF painting of Baby Trump inside.
this is the future nobody wants
IMPEACH! IMPEACH THIS BABY!
Next up is this church, the Ascension Cathedral, I am pretty sure, and look! It’s also under construction! It’s made of wood (anyone else just hear Uncle Joey’s puppet?) and claims to be the second tallest wooden building in the world but it lies. It’s a wooden building of lies. Just kidding buildings can’t tell truths or lies. They don’t speak! But I bet this was the second tallest at one time but other things kept happening and this one stopped growing.
The church was built in the 19th century when the region was called Turkestan which is the cutest lil word. It’s had other serious reconstruction works throughout past 50 years so I guess wood doesn’t hold up so good.
You know what also doesn’t hold up to the test of time? Random things named after deceased royals.
It’s weird, guys. As is this:
Not really sure what’s going on with this building but the people behind it REALLY don’t know what ‘disco’ music is because it sure as hell ain’t Vanilla Ice or Shaggy. No idea what this building actually was because we didn’t dare return at night but man I’m still really curious. What designer got away with this?
Shall we move on to food? That’s always my favorite part! The agenda item I was most eager for was the Green Market (or Zelenyi Bazar), the big produce market where locals buy their goods and where tourists like me can find Kazakhstan’s famous apples. Yep, I didn’t know before this trip, but Kazakhstan is famous for apples! We bought lots of their most precious varieties and had apples for daaays. Spoiler: They don’t hold a candle to my fave, the Fuji apple, which I can’t find ANYWHERE anymore. Kazakh varieties (varietals? when do you use varietals without sounding like a dick) are a little grainier than I’m used to, and a little sour, making my eyes go phrmmmph.
I will look upon your treasures, gypsy!
We bought apples and pears and plums and oranges and more apples. So fun. Pro tip: Oranges outside the UK are super expensive. I remember in China I bought an orange once (a mandarin one!) and it was like 4x as much as the rest of the grocery haul. Ridic!
LIke all the amazing markets we discovered on our travels, the Green Market had so many wonderful looking goods that we just couldn’t buy and carry for weeks longer in our packs, like these spices. The vendors are always like ‘hey girl over here buy my goods!’ and I try to say ‘I’m so sorry I would love to they look amazing but I’m backpacking rn and I don’t have the room or the ability to keep them from exploding everywhere and also customs??’ but just with an apologetic look.
Across from the Green Market was the Rakhat chocolate factory, which I was suuuper excited about, but which was a big letdown. It was mainly a little shop overflowing with people pointing to bins of candy in bulk and saying how many grams they wanted. And there was no list of ingredients visible for any of the candies, all hidden behind glass. I asked a clerk about one and she said there was no milk but like how could I believe you if you aren’t checking the ingredients yourself, clerk?! And I’d have to ask about each one? Blergh. I would happily read endless lists of Russian ingredients but I don’t want to make a clerk in an overflowingly busy little shop do that for me. I found my goodies elsewhere. ALSO, all the guides I read beforehand said that this factory made the whole neighborhood smell like chocolate so I was beyond pumped for that but it didn’t even smell like chocolate in the shoppe! J’ACCUSE!
Okay so the ‘I have no room’ excuse might not be entirely accurate regarding the spices…they can be simply little packets, after all. And I definitely made room for less practical goodies I found at my favorite posh grocery store in Almaty, called Interfood. Oh MAN did we score some amazing accidentally vegan totally unnecessary treats.
DA RISO ITALIANOOO! Ok i think i’m out of Borat quotes
The Ritter Sport Marzipan is RG, and you can find it all over the world. I don’t think I like marzipan in other forms (probably because of Gilmore Girls) but it’s great in this. But the real exciting part of this crop of goodies is that box of Speculoos Creme cookies! oh MAN I picked up that box as yet another futile exercise in self-punishment, expecting it to be laden with milk products, but it was accidentally vegan! I wish I bought more of those but I could barely fit one box crushed in my pack. The Rakhat chocolate bar was decent and satisfied my chocolate craving. The other one (the gold) is a gift for someone, haven’t decided yet! Who wants it?
Manner are my favorite treats in the world so I was excited to find some milk-free wafer cookies of similar ilk. These weren’t very good (kind of tangy) but still, wafer cookies on any day are better than non wafers or something like that.
hehe they’re called Sultan waffles
But the best find in Interfood was this bag o’ Cat Tongues! Omg little cinnamon discs of pure magic. I would LOVE to find these again!
We found some great food in Almaty, although nothing matched our amazing Georgian dinner on our first night. My favorite was the little falafel joint a few minutes from our hostel, called Falafel Forever. It was GREAT! And so cheap! I love falafel platters. It’s my perfect set up – hummus, pita, falafel, and tons of fun roasted veggies and salads.
Across the opera house ( I think) was a Brooklyn-style burger place that Husband needed to go in, and luckily they had a really good cabbage slaw that I enjoyed. Of course I also had some of the great potato wedges and a fresh grapefruit soda.
For dinner one night, we decided to tourist it up and have our first Italian food in months instead of having more Soviet-era potato and cabbage dishes. We went into a trattoria called Del Papa right on the main square of a main boulevard (I wanna say near the opera house again) and got the best familiar dishes, including vegetable soup, a great panzanella salad, and a roasted veggie dish in amazing sauce.
Yum! So many good meals, so many apples, so many statues and stories! And SO much junk food in my bags! Shall we cap off our nice stay in Almaty with a shot of the sign hanging in the shared bathroom at Sky Hostel? Ok!
This is why I’m done with hostels.
Okay bye Almaty! Great success!
This is my country of Kazakhstan. It locate between Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and assholes Uzbekistan.
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Yekaterinburg to Irkutsk: Three Days of Train
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.
Cork, Ireland: Lovely Little City with Great Vegan Food
Apparently Cork is a city; I had to look it up because I was about to call it a little town (it’s a quiet village). But it’s a lovely little place and an easy town (village) (city?) to see when visiting a wider swath of Ireland and especially en route to the countryside (which is the best part of Ireland). I was there for the weekend recently to speak at the Indie Cork Film Festival, an annual autumn event that I recommend going to if you’re in town. Hooray for independent film and lovely Irish people who pronounce it ‘fillum’ (LOVES IT). I was also there three years ago (!) during a visit to the countryside of County Cork and so will be mixing information (food) about both trips herein. Try to guess which info is from which trip! What a fun game!
Gray and rainy along the River Lee
First of all, arriving in Cork from a city like London, especially a city with a giant mall-airport like Heathrow, is adorable. Cork airport is a wee bebbeh, which means the lines at the car rental desks will probably include your entire plane. And if you are going out of the city, you need a car. So just budget time accordingly.
It’s about a 15 minute drive from the airport to the city center, which is situated on the River Lee, which separates into two channels for a lil bit and creates an island in the middle (like the Seine!) and that island is the busier city center. On the way you’ll pass the tallest building in the Republic of Ireland, The Elysian. No pictures because driving (I mean I wasn’t driving (‘ohhh, I don’t druive’)but it’s hard to get a picture of something when you are moving). Apparently it’s an apartment building and it has an Aldi on the ground floor, which is nice for people who don’t like going outside. NB that it’s not the tallest building on the island of Ireland; that’s in Belfast, which is Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, which is in trouuuuuble.
Pretty colors on a rare sunny day
So now you know about the tallest building and the independent film festival and the Ile de la Cite but of Ireland and you’ve seen pictures of the river which is very nice to stroll along and so apart from visiting a few cathedrals if you want to, you’re done with Cork! I wasn’t kidding. Tis a babe! It’s a very nice place but it’s not exactly a tourism hot spot. And yet I’ve been twice! And yes once was for work but you know what, it’s a pleasure to be there – especially as a vegan. The vegan scene is getting very exciting there, and so we’re going to talk food for the rest of this post. Coming from Philly and London, two beyond incredible vegan food cities, I might seem a little silly for raving about wee Cork’s wittle vegan scene, but it was able to tick all my boxes (ice cream, healthy food, avocado toast) and more importantly it shows signs of a strong base to keep it active and growing.
First stop, the Quay Co-op.
Okay this picture might be giving away what trip it’s from
The Quay Co-op is a vegetarian institution in Cork, a workers cooperative that was established in 1982 (older than me!) to serve as an alternative community project, a collective effort for feminists, environmentalists, LGBTQ, and other groups and people. Like vegetarians! Now, it’s a vegetarian restaurant, an organic shoppe next door, an in-house bakery, but still a place for radicals and rad people in general to mingle and mix and be. And eat!
Assorted salads my favorite thing!
It was a cold and rainy day (naturally) when we went to the Co-op, so we shared soup and bread (classics really) and two mains. I ordered the mix of all the assorted salads (I love assorted salads!) with two mounds of gravy-covered…mounds (probably a nut roast kinda thing) while Husbo P ordered the shepherd’s pie.
I REALLY LOVE SOUP. AND BREAD.
you know like food mounds
that cauliflower is looking at me because I don’t want it unless it’s making a cheesy sauce
Everything was pretty good! It’s not life-changing food or anything but it’s solid and inexpensive and the people were friendly (like everyone in this town really). This is really the place you go because it’s an institution and the vibe is uplifting.
yay inclusion and nice people!
Next up is one of my faves that I wish was my little local cafe, 143V (which I am going to assume refers to the old-school way of saying ‘I love you’ because that sounds nice). 143V may be a little outside the city center for some visitors (it was pretty close to our hotel though (see below)) but it’s worth a visit. I adore the menu, and it’s just an adorable little place. Although it wasn’t rainy, it was a little chilly so we did that thing of sharing soup. It was a simple tomato soup and it was really good! Then Husbo had the Southern burger, which is a seitan ‘chickun’ burger and it was great. I had the Oasis bowl, which is usually a falafel salad but they were out of falafel but I was actually glad because I just wanted a big ass salad but not really falafel, so I ended up getting a big ass salad (they added beans). All of it was great! They also have a lot of fun drinks like actual iced tea (not from a bottle) and turmeric lattes and smoothies. It’s somewhat slow paced so it’s not for you if you’re in a hurry but it’s lovely to sit in for a while.
We got the vegan brownie to take away, which in true UK & Euro form was more like chocolate cake (because it was cakey) but it tasted good and was saved by the inclusion of a little pot of chocolate sauce to pour over it! Yum!
My other favorite place in Cork was Earth Cafe, which is a restaurant that looks like a big black box of a shipping container was plopped on the bank of the river. It’s very close to Quay Co-op. While the Co-op has that old school veggie vibe, Earth Cafe is very much the millennial cool vegan vibe, with all the trendy hot drinks (including pumpkin spice lattes), jackfruit, and avocado toast. They offered pretty much my perfect brunch, which is a salad bowl of zucchini noodles and spinach and what nots and then a whole bunch of avo toast crammed in. I like!
Also in this vicinity is THE BEST ICE CREAM IN IRELAND, and that’s both in my opinion and what seems to be official word. Casanova Gelato had a line out the door and down the street even though it was coooold.
And there was a doggo in line with us!
HEHE DOG
They usually have a half dozen or so vegan flavors. While most of them were your standard fruit sorbet flavors (NO!), they did have two non-fruit flavors that were spectacular. Okay one was great but one was BEYOND. One of the best ice creams I’ve ever had. The great one was dark chocolate.
The PHUH NOM one was called Wanna be my Vegan and it was a finalist in an ice cream contest! I don’t know what ice cream contest or where or how I get to be a judge but man alive if this was a finalist the winner must have cheated because I can’t imagine anything better. It was a chocolate hazelnut base with like everything good mixed in, like cookies and chocolate and love and hope. AMAZING.
i wove you ice cweam
The cherry on top of all of this is that they had vegan cones – and an assortment of them at that! I obviously picked the charcoal cone because if you offer me charcoal in my food I will take it for no good reason.
My “favorite” food experience in Cork was when it was super late one night and we had to find a restaurant for dinner but because we’re in the British Isles everything closes pretty early (and it was Saturday!). But HappyCow alerted me to a pizza place called Milano that was open still AND had a separate vegan menu! Vegan pizza that wasn’t just regular pizza with no cheese? We’re in! I was excited to see what kind of indie Italian restaurant in this little baby town had a separate vegan pizza menu. And I did not laugh harder the entire trip than when we rolled up to Milano and we both instantly remembered that Milano is simply the Irish name for the chain Pizza Express. DYING! But you know what, it’s still pretty decent! I got the new Vegan Puttanesca pizza that uses marinated jackfruit in the puttanesca sauce. And yeah I might have a Pizza Express literally 4 minutes from home and then on every single block in the city after that but you know what? I’d eat that again.
I know but how good were the rest of the food pictures in this post? wouldn’t be right if they were all good that’s not what you come for
Our last food adventure came from the Malaysian noodle bar Malay Kitchen, which is entirely vegetarian and mostly vegan. We picked up a few noodle dishes and a container of deep fried tofu to eat at the airport before our late night flight. It took forever for them to make our order, but it was pretty good. If you like supes greasy noodles like your favorite cheap counter service, then you’ll love this.
On our recent trip, we stayed (courtesy of the fillum fest, a-thank you) at the very nice Hotel Metropol, which we found utterly hilarious because that’s the name used in all our Russian classes when you learn about hotel words. Gde otel metropol? We said that a lot. It means where is Hotel Metropol. I still find this hilarious. Anyway it was a very nice hotel with a big indoor pool (!!) and both a dry sauna and a steam room! I didn’t have much time to use them all so I did a fast run through of all of them in less than half an hour. It was very fun. Hotel Metropol also has a giant gym for a hotel, and I enjoyed all of it even though I actually did the thing where I hit my headphone cord when I was on the treadmill and my phone went flying (it’s okay!) and I stopped the treadmill to go get it but I started walking back before the track came to a complete stop so then I went flying and fell kind of simultaneously if that’s possible and I have a big bruise on my calf but I’m okay and my phone was okay and the dozen or so people in the gym with me did the respectable thing of pretending they didn’t see anything.
The hotel had a water jug and green apples for the taking and big fluffy white bathrobes for the wearing, which I did because that’s my favorite thing about hotels.
This apple’s sticker says “I never fall far from the tree” lololol A TALKING APPLE |
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So that’s my time in Cork! It’s a very nice city with not too much to do but it makes a great stopping point when you are visiting the countryside. And that’s really the thing you do in Ireland; you don’t go for the cities. We will talk about the beauty that you do go for in the next post!
