A Quick Trip to A Classic Fave: Berlin, Germany

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! 

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. 

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. 

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! 

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 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? 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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! 

WHO DAT!

My boyfriend I mean my fiance I mean my husband! and I finally made it to New Orleans! As some of you know, we were supposed to go to the Big Easy Apple Patch in January, but that ridiculously crazy ice storm back in January 2014 that destroyed Atlanta and Mississippi also closed all roads leading into NOLA. Here’s a really scary picture we took as we “drove” (slowly glided) through the streets of ice in Brookhaven, Mississippi as we tried to find shelter. Petrifying.

So that trip didn’t happen, but then we decided to get married so we could go to New Orleans for a mini honeymoon/’wee agavemoon’! Yay!!! I got scared that maybe the universe didn’t want us to ever get there, especially after we had a flight delay, but we got there and we loved it SO HAH UNIVERSE.

Our mini honeymoon in New Orleans started off kind of hilariously (mostly awfully) as we laughed at this sign in the cab (at right). Like…did you have to specify that it’s a crime to kill a cab driver? Do the type of people who normally go to New Orleans not realize that cab drivers are people too, and that killing anyone is wrong? I don’t know why but we found this hilarious. Also, we loved the “may be first degree murder”, not “is first degree murder”, because of course, what if the cab driver attacks and you retaliate in self-defense? Or like if he is driving while sleeping with your wife so it’s heat-of-passion manslaughter? Likely story. 

Anyway! We had scoured TripAdvisor for the past few months to make sure that our hotel choice, the Bourbon Orleans right in the heart of the French Quarter, was a good one. It seemed like a good fit: perfect location, had a pool (that we didn’t use), room looked swanky. And, the most important, it had water and unsweetened tea dispensers in the lobby all day and night!

So we got there hours after check-in time, but our room wasn’t ready. The not-so-nice lady didn’t even apologize or give a reason, just said it wasn’t ready. So we waited, but after about 35 minutes, I was steaming. I went up to the desk, talked to a man and said UMMM WHADDAFOCK? (effectively) He apologized and then looked down at his computer while I was standing there and I was thinking like…um…do I leave now? But then he looked up and said he found us a different room that was ready, that we could have for no extra charge “if we wanted” – a TWO-FLOOR suite with an enormous corner balcony overlooking the famous St. Louis cathedral. I mean, hot damn. Yes please.

One night, after we ate two dinners (which you can read about tomorrow in the New Orleans food guide!), we walked through the old towne (with an ‘e’ obviously) and wandered into one of the many hot sauce & praline shoppes (with a ‘pe’ obviously). This store had hundreds of hot sauce bottles set up for testing, along with baskets of chips. I casually tried a couple, not really looking at the bottles or reading signs, mostly because I love tortilla chips (I hate potato chips but corn chips? Gimme I got it). Ya know, just casual, eating some chips…and then I started feeling like my body was imploding. I looked down to see if I was still in one piece or if somehow my abdomen had been disappeared,  and then I looked up and around with eyes wide with fear. Whatttttt waaaaaaassssssssss happeningggggggggg tooooo meeeeeeeeeeee! This man about my age came up to me and asked, “Hey…um…which one did you have?” I pointed to the green bottle in the back and only then did I realize that it had WAIVER FORMS in front of it.

It was the NAGA JOLOKIA, aka the Ghost Pepper, aka the Bhutan poison chili aka the hottest pepper not only in the store but ON EARTH! And I just ate it because I like chips! I mean. Wow. Husband was like WHAT THE HELL OMG HAHAHAHA. And then it started pouring rain and even though I was wearing a white dress I dawdled outside with my mouth open. Before that point in my life, I had never cried without producing tears or moving my face, but somehow, that night, I did. 

We strolled a bit so I could regain consciousness, but strolling around aimlessly is the best thing to do in a new city anyway! You get a feel for it – and you learn how to get to your hotel. Once I recovered, we went to CVS for some supplies and saw this hilarious lineup of goods:

AMERICA.

* * * 

One early ass morning, we took a National Park Service walking tour that mostly shared information about NOLA’s birth and early development. I love taking walking tours to show you a different part of the city that you may not have discovered yet, and of course to learn! (Of course I don’t really remember what I learned, except that they lied a bunch to get people to move there.) I highly suggest taking this free walking tour, but get there early as they do cap the group at around 10 people (so fance). We had trouble finding the right meeting spot – there are six sites of the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park (everything in this region is called Lafitte because he was a pirate and New Orleans loves Johnny Depp). The right spot to meet is 419 Decatur St. 

 After that, we checked out the inside of the St. Louis Cathedral instead of just looking at it from our sick balcony. It was a lovely church but the view from the outside, with its fantastic green space in front, is better. I mean once you’ve seen the Vatican you are kind of ruined for regular churches. 

One night, way past my bedtime, we made our way to the well-known and awesome bar d.b.a. to see the well-known and AWESOME Glen David Andrews band. Oh man was this guy an entertainer extraordinaire! First of all, the bar itself was a superb venue (at least compared to where we were the following night). It seemed clean for a bar, it was roomy, and it had quite a sophisticated bar menu. Second, Glen was such a fun, crazy guy, and he works his ass off to entertain you. We are still laughing because the band performed the most hilarious songs – one about how they would ‘make that mo***f****’ shake (that mofo in question? The headboard), a lotttt about his ex-wife, who is apparently the worrrrrst, and best of all, my favorite thing to come out of NOLA, my favorite new song of the summer – one that went “I will I will I will I will I will MELT YO ASS LIKE BUTTER!” oh my god we were dying, and singing that nonstop for the following…eternity. 

The saxophone player was the most impressive I’ve ever seen, not that I’ve ever really paid attention to the instrument before, no matter how hard Duke Silver tries to sway me. Every bit he played felt like a spotlight solo. Just a fantastic performance that made me forget how late I was up. This was the musical highlight of my week, and the cover was only $5! If you are ever in NOLA, I am pretty sure that Glen and his band play at d.b.a. every Monday. 

The second night (we saw music every day!) we went closer to the West Bank (not that one) for the Maple Leaf Bar, a very Tulane kids bar, for a concert by Grammy-winning brass band Rebirth. They play big, loud, jazzy…brass band music, which is like paying to see a live headache. They are very talented and good but it is not my cup of tea. However, I may have been biased because the crowd was from hell. I hate college kids. Oh my god. I hated college kids when I was one. This was like a room full of every awful stereotype, so much drinking and pushing and shoving and being dumb. Ugh! I wish I had a mirror for them that showed their future selves looking reproachfully at them, in order to make them take stock of their shitty behavior. The best part about this show, however, was that famous NOLA artist Frenchy, with a canvas set up right behind where I was standing, was documenting the scene in a crazy cool painting that he will probably sell for many thousands of dollars while an angel sings “Beauty School Dropout” to him. 

Another night, we took the ferry (yay ferry!) across the Mississippi River to Algiers Point to see the Iguanas play, plus a special guest I’m sorry I can’t remember. They were decent entertainment, but the real draw was the location itself. Algiers Point is a big open spot of land that every Wednesday hosts pretty much the entire local community, with lots of food trucks and drinks tables set up. It really seemed like every local was there, with entire families and babies and so many dogs! There was such a good communal vibe and a friendly relaxed atmosphere, with everyone sitting on chairs or blankets they brought. 

Our last night we went to the very famous Lafitte’s, where only candles are used for light in the entire place (no electrical lights, hence no pictures came out!). This old-fashioned décor creates a dreamy relaxed vibe (or maybe the darkness just made me tired). A pianist played right near our table, and she was pretty great to listen to, if not for her vocal health (you can still smoke in bars here, I think she has inhaled too much secondary smoke) then at least for her song selection. It’s definitely a must, not only for this atmosphere, but because they are the famous makers of the Hurricane, New Orlean’s most famous alcoholic concoction. Lafitte’s isn’t the original creator of the Hurricane but it is supposedly the perfecter. I can’t say because it tasted like alcohol. It’s a potent mix of rum and syrup, grenadine, or fruit juice. Some kind of highly concentrated sugar. We shared one and I stomached maybe 4 sips. My favorite thing at Lafitte’s though was our friend’s PURPLE DRANK. Oh my god Purple Drank is the most hilarious thing ever. It is a frozen…purple drink… that tastes EXACTLY like Dimetapp. Did you take Dimetapp when you were sick as a kid? It’s like grape flavored but in the artificial way that is really more purple than grape? Well, Purple Drank is like a Dimetapp slushee. It’s HILARIOUS. I’m not exaggerating when I say it was exactly like the cough medicine. Oh my goodness it’s so funny. If I didn’t know better, I would say that each drank is a bottle of Dimetapp blended with ice. I mean it could be, I don’t know better. 

     On our last full day in NOLA, we stole a car and drove about an hour out of town to take a boat tour on the bayou. We went with Jean Lafitte’s Swamp Tours. (We originally had booked a time with Honey Island Tours, but we weren’t going to make it so we called to cancel our booking – three hours before the time – yet they still charged our credit card for it. Not cool bitches.) It was fun to see all the alligators – so many! – but the tour guide was not my fave. (He talked a lot about hunting and other not nice things.) But, a bayou tour is still a definite if you have the time. It took about 2 hours. It’s cool to see all the wildlife in the area. And, funnily enough, on our tour we passed a good amount of set pieces from “NCIS: New Orleans”, which we also saw filming outside our hotel one day! We didn’t see any famous people, but we did see one of their like male-top-half mannequin bodies floating in the bayou. Now that was kind of freaky at first, to say the least. 

          After the boat tour, we drove another hour and change to Laura Plantation. Originally, I felt weird to be touring a site of so much torture and suffering, but we chose Laura because reviews said they devote at least half the time to talking honestly about slavery. So, like all terrible historic sites, it was a great learning experience and it felt important to see. Our tour guide was really likeable and knowledgeable, and she struck the proper tone, sharing serious information but having everyone enjoy their visit. We learned about the owning family, and how some of them seemed like good people but then some were truly truly evil. We walked around slave quarters and were told that, despite all the wars and the fighting, the plantation was still operating almost exactly as it was in the 1800s – until 1977. How is that even possible? That is so disturbing and soul-crushing. What the hell. We also learned that despite the result of the Civil War and subsequent legislation, nothing really changed on any plantation. Oh man. I don’t even have words. How is this shit even possible? Ughh people STOP BEING RACIST. It’s shattering to realize that people who still perpetrate racist criminal activity are never really punished themselves. The tragedy and subsequent activity in Ferguson was happening while we were here, and it really brought to light how much work still has to be done. Those cops, probably all of them and all of their superiors, should be in jail for what they did and continue to do. But probably nothing will happen to them. It’s a terribly shitty world and we have to do what we can to make it better, as much as we can. So be nice to people, go vegan, &c. 

ANYWAY, there were some bright spots on the tour, including the fact that the stories of Bre’r Rabbit came from this plantation, from the slaves who created the stories to entertain and teach the children. They also had these SUPER ridiculous books in the gift shop. I still can’t get over them:

Seriously, do you see how creepy this kid’s face is in the Kiss me I’m Cajun tee? THIS IS THE COVER OF A COOKBOOK FFS!  And the devil costume! I can’t even. 

Down the road from Laura is the plantation used to film “12 Years A Slave”! How crazy! It wasn’t open for visitation before the movie, but now it is. We drove by and took a picture. 

New Orleans is a really fun place to visit. Bourbon Street is full of debauchery and drunken naked people even at 10am. But when you get away from those few blocks, the city has so much great culture, art, music, and of course food – which we will cover the rest of this week! – to offer. The last place we visited was the famous Saint Louis Cemetery, which is filled with interesting stories, from voodoo queens to Nicholas Cage. That’s right, the actor Nicholas Cage built himself a tomb a few years ago in this cemetery because he loves New Orleans and wants to be buried there. How creepy is that!!! I leave you with his tomb, which has a plaque covered in actual lipstick kisses.