January 19, 2023
Mites at the Tristan Bates Theatre: Don't Trust Men (or Cats...or Men that are Cats)by Randi / October 10, 2019“Hey, do you guys know a good place where I can get Mexican food?…Oh, Mexico, duhh!” Just like Judge Gen on The Good Place, my love of Mexican food runs hella deep (although I do not have the ability to add essence of time to my burritos). We finally made it to Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX (for Ciudad de Mexico), and we forking LOVED it. All of it too, not just the (amazing) (omg so good) (and so vegan-friendly) food, which is a huge deal for something who tends not to breathe in heavily polluted cities. Okay I’m not saying we loved the pollution (hates it!) or the traffic but the rest of it, you bet your bottom dollar we loved.
After our incredible time in the Yucatan (that link will show all the Yucatan posts at the beginning!), we flew from Merida to Mexicity funtimes. PS, the Merida airport doesn’t have vegan food but it DOES have giant waters after security, which is the most important thing. (The airport was also playing my absolute favorite song from the band Jesse & Joy, a Mexican duo that I hadn’t thought about in years so I was like almost crying, it was so amazing. (They are amazing truly check them out.)) Okay food is important too, so that was bad planning on my part. The flight was 10:50am, landing (bumpily) in CDMX at 12:50pm. By the time we got through customs and got our bags, it was like hella late! 2pm! Where’s our first day! I guess it was not a good day to not plan for lunch, I’ll tell you that. The airport has mmmnothing. So don’t be like me! Be smart!
It’s okay I just love them so much!
We took an Uber to our hotel because the metro wouldn’t have helped much timewise (and we were crankypants), but MAN ALIVE, the drive into the city from the airport was hell. Sitting in traffic was definitely the worst part of the whole experience (and I had to go to the hospital another day! we will get there), just sitting on crammed highways and smelling/seeing the pollution. We walked everywhere and used public transit from that point on.
Luckily, everything picked up from there! We got to the Hipodromo section of the La Condesa neighborhood to our hotel, Casa Mali. Guys, I don’t think i can do justice to how BEST EVER this hotel was. First of all, the room was not a room but more like a surprise serviced apartment: a little kitchen with a full-size fridge (and a blender!), a dining area, a gorgeous bedroom, a sun-lit bathroom. We were on the top floor (yes it was called a penthouse but it was like 4th floor, it’s a small boutique place and it’s perfect) so not sure if this was an upgrade sitch but I wasn’t going to ask questions.
(not pictured: A+ wall unit the bed points to and another big tv, plus on the left side you can sort of see the beginning of an INCREDIBLY GIGANTIC CLOSET AREA)
But aside from a great shower, a huge fridge, a lovely bed, all these wonderful aspects of the room, what could there be that actually made me sob with happiness and disbelief at our good fortune? Guys what’s my favorite thing in the world??
A WASHER AND A SEPARATE DRYER! AHHHHH! I screamed, I really did, and then I immediately told my mom and my best friend so they could scream (they know how much I love a good dryer). I know this is weird but they don’t do dryers right/at all in England so this was huge for us. And those of you who followed along on our Central Asia trip a few years ago (check the DESTINATIONS tab at the top) know how much I love (/how anxious I get about) doing laundry when I’m traveling.
Obviously I immediately washed all of our clothes and then did my second favorite thing to do when traveling: completely unpack.
(not pictured: water shoes lol)
The hotel had a roof deck with a tiny hot tub and a “gym” – and by “gym” I mean a teeny lil room with an elliptical and a treadmill but no real room to get on them, lol. Our room was spacious enough that I worked out in there! (ABYB: always bring your bands!)
Okay that’s enough about the room because you know what the best part of this hotel was? Well what do I love even more than a clothes dryer that actually works? The same thing I love more than life:
Doggos.
People. The hotel was located right on a park, which according to google maps is called simply Parque Mexico, which cannot be right. But not just any park: It was a dog park. It was packed full of good boys literally everywhere you turned, all day every day. I honestly would have been happy not seeing any of Mexico City and just walking around this dog park every day. I could NOT handle it! So cuteeee! In fact, one day, there was a doggo adoption fair going on in the park. Right outside our front door. Can you even? I could not even.
Mexico City is like, UNNERVINGLY large, so instead of breaking up the experience in the usual way (separate posts for activities, hotel + food, &c), we are going to talk about each neighborhood that we explored in separate posts. It’s so big that it’s no good to you if we talk about a restaurant near x activity in a post that isn’t about x activity! It’s like REALLY big so you have to plan ahead and know what you’re after. We’ll continue today with our BFF nabe, where we set up our base: Hipodromo in the La Condesa neighborhood, about the southwest corner of the very central section of the city. It’s right near the Roma neighborhood, and we excitedly took pictures outside the Roma house even though the movie was like, just okay.
Read my thoughts on Roma and every other important movie of 2018 here!
i was looking at a dog
I’m SO glad we had a friend recommend staying in La Condesa. CDMX is GIGANTIC (i’m going to say that a lot) and figuring out where to stay or even where to go is seriously stressful, so having an insider’s opinion on what neighborhood we’d like most was priceless. La Condesa is a really nice, chill, hipster, semi-quiet very-neighborhoody area with lots of good businesses, and full of green spaces. That last one really helps you feel comfortable in a city where not many people feel comfortable. In fact, most people I know who have been to CDMX in real life have hated it! I think your enjoyment hundo p depends on what sections of it you explore and where you stay. All the pollution and cars and HUBBUB that you’ll encounter throughout your day pretty much sucks, so having to stay in an area that is also super pollution + cars + HUBBUB would be terrible. La Condesa was so calm and green and cool, it was like a refuge we could return to after hubbubbing all day, a refuge that is still jam-packed with activity but in a cool neighborhoody way.
I’m also super grateful to our expert-friend for recommending this neighborhood because he based it mostly on its proximity to Tacos Hola, also known as Tacos El Guero, also known from its sign as Tacos Hola El Guero but that’s not the name, it has to be one of the other variations. Anyway, this super unassuming lil almost-hole-in-the-wall joint was INCREDIBLE. There were big pots of all these different kinds of fillings and you just say which pots you want in a taco. There’s also a big picture-board of all the menu options which you know is the best forking thing in a foreign country.
It doesn’t look like much, but that’s because they are LEGIT, not worried about the gram but about the taste and the authenticity and the general amazeballsness. AMAZE. And the people were really nice and friendly despite my horrible attempts at communicating.
Alright, it’s time for some culture – we will get back to tacos later, as 90% of what we did was eat tacos. Our big To-Do list for Mexico City was literally to go to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, or the National Anthropology Museum. Now, if ever a museum has attained A Reputation, it’s this one, famed for requiring not a whole afternoon, not even an entire day, but entire daysss, plural, to even scratch the surface. We tried, my lord how we tried, and we did not even finish the first floor. It is INTENSE, it is dense with information, and it is incredible.
The MNDA, former name of MDMA, from here on in referred to as the Anthropology Museum because I’m realizing what a horrible acronym that makes, is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. It’s in Chapultepec Park, a giant, lovely park to stroll around with lots of other important sites: the Castillo de Chapultepec (a castle on a hilltop with a history museum), a modern art museum, several fountains and monuments, a lake, a zoo (don’t go to zoos!), a Canadian Totem…? LOTS. We meandered through the park on the walk from our hotel so it took about an hour to get there.
We also, obvs, were stopping to try every awesome bit of street food we saw.
The museum costs 75 pesos to enter (about $4), so one of the highest values in all of museuming considering the quality and quantity of what’s inside (“everyone wants to know what’s insiiiiide”). The only bad thing is they do not let you bring liquids – even water – in, and Mexico City isssss hot. Because “I promised” not to drink what was left (not that much!) from my giant bottle, the security guards let me in with it, and I drank when I was in between rooms and near bathrooms, but I didn’t have nearly enough. After a few hours of rationing when I really could not afford to be rationing, I ran to the cafe at the end of the first floor only to find they had CLOSED FOR THE DAY. I mean, WTF. Guess who else closed for the day? The fancy restaurant! I was like please please I need water I’m literally dying, and they said they could fill my bottle from the tap. Well. If you know anything about traveling to Mexico, not drinking tap water is like rule numero uno. I knew that, and my face conveyed that I knew it to the guy who offered, because he quickly added “the water is filtered from this tap.” And honestly, I didn’t know if filtered meant safe for my weak ass tumnus, but I was going to find out because I needed water. Luckily, I am happy to report I did not get sick. PROCEED WITH VISIT!
So, a museum of anthropology is not full of cute dresses that are supes overpriced until they go on sale and you have to root through those overstuffed racks and honestly in the past few years it’s not even worth it anymore; whoever is doing their buying should be working at Free People because the aesthetic is off. ANYWAY, no, anthropology is the scientific study of humans, human behavior, and past and present societies. (The study of (near-) future societies is called Idiocracy by Mike Judge.) The museum is packed with archaeological and anthropological artifacts from Mexico’s pre-Columbian heritage, with lots of Aztec finds. Even if you don’t think you are interested in anthropology, you gotta see the big f-ing thing, okay?
Considering the extent of what we saw on our first day literally fills four years’ worth of college anthro courses (I took one and it was too cold in the hall so I did not learn SHITE), I’m going to just share my highlights from the museum instead of like, leading you through it. There are tons of good highlight guides online if you need guidance for when you are there.
Considering my line of work (you can ask if you want), I loved that my visit began with a sign calling humans chumps for trying to feel superior to chimps. I am so going to throw the phrase “nothing but an evidence of anthropocentric arrogance” at some bitches.
“well maybe he was nervous.”
The museum is laid out like a big rectangle, with each room opening to the inner courtyard on the inside and having outdoor exhibit extensions on the perimeter. I was grateful for these outdoor sections because no one can yell at you for drinking water outside! It rains!
Below is the Aztec sun stone, maybe the most famous Aztec sculpture. Its complexity has attracted tons of interpretations from scholars but I bet none of them are right.
So that was a quick and dirty tour through…the things I took pictures of, so if you are in CDMX, know that you must go and you must devote lots of time to a proper visit. (And let me know what’s on the second floor; we never made it!)
After all that learning, we all deserve a delicious reward:
MOAR TACOS! We treated our time in CDMX as any wise person should: as a chance to do the taco cleanse and to do it right. La Pitahaya was on my list because it’s hundo p vegan and had great reviews on trusty old HappyCow. Also, it was a 20 minute walk from our hotel, which is pretty much as close as anything could be in this city.
We enjoyed delicious tamales, a special from Mama that day (I’m assuming), and AMAZ tacos. They have six or so taco kinds, so we thought it would be normal to have 3 each, but fork being normal – if you go just get one of each. WHY NOT. They also have INCREDIBLE sounding mains like enchiladas and enfrijoladas, and if we weren’t committed to our cleanse/if we had more time, I would have been back for all of it.
We got a ‘carnitas michoacanas’ which is meaty mushrooms, with raw nopales; we got my FAVE the scrambled tofu with black salt and guacamole (I mean, a perfect food circle); and I think the masala curry potatoes? Just get them all. Man alive, these were great. I definitely recommend a visit. And the staff was SO super amazing and nice and I wanted to be friends and not only because they gave me tacos.
The last thing I’ll share from this neighborhood is our visit to a pulcheria, a thing we had to do because culture. Pulcherias sell pulque, a Mexican alcoholic drink made by fermenting sap from the maguey plant, which is a kind of large agave plant. Cool! I thought. It’s like an agave nectar drink! No, pulque is like the initial, unfiltered substance that can be distilled into mezcal (which can be tequila). I was told this was like kombucha, like a low-alcohol drink that I’d be fine with, which was FALSE. The kind we tried at L’Nuclear Pulcheria (about 20 minutes from our hotel) (I mean honestly the name should have given it away) was 20% alcohol! That’s like A LOT. It wasn’t an unpleasant drink though, which is a huge thing considering it’s famous for its OKRA-LIKE VISCOSITY. It really is…quite viscous. But if you can consume alcohol, it’s worth a try. I didn’t hate it but I will be sticking with kombucha.
So that’s our first look into Mexico City! Next time – Coyoacán! And more tacos of course.
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Nukus, Uzbekistan: I Finally Find Pretzels (And Also Interesting Art)
After our time in Khiva, we decided to stop in the tiny town of Nukus, Uzbekistan for one purpose: to see its art museum. Now, you might be wondering what kind of art a museum in the middle of nowhere might have to bring a person so out of their way. A rare Picasso? A beautiful Monet? (I know only the most famous artmakers apparently.) You crazy if you thought that; this is the middle of nowhere Uzbekistan. No, the Nukus Museum of Art houses the second largest collection of Russian avant-garde art in the world. I know it doesn’t sound great, but it’s a very cool thing and I’ll tell you why.
So once upon a time there was this man Igor Savitsky (“accordion genius, plays weddings at 7-years-old” anyone?), who was a Russian painter and archaeologist. Igor visited the Karakalpakstan region of Uzbekistan (where Nukus is located) in 1950, and somehow was like hey this place rocks/is dust I’m gonna stay. He moved to Nukus and started collecting all kinds of crap. After he amassed quite a collection of jewelry and artifacts and carpets and such, he convinced the place that they needed a museum to house all of it. They were like why don’t you keep all your crap in your attic like normal people and he was like just trust me on this and they were like I guess man. So the authorities established a museum and made Igor the curator, and once he had that sweet sweet position locked down, he started focusing on collecting the art of Central Asian artists and those whose work had been banned in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Igor specifically directed his efforts at finding these artists and displaying them in his museum in order to give them the representation and acclaim they never got to enjoy because Stalin was such a buzzkill at art too. Because the museum houses such politically important work, and so much of it (only St. Petersburg has a larger collection of Russian avant-garde), the Nukus Museum of Art – actually called “The State Art Museum of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, named after I.V. Savitsky” (yes the ‘named after’ is part of the full legit name omg) (and then also like is it named after him or not because it looks like the real name is The State Art Museum of the R of K right and if it was actually named after him it would be The Savitsky Museum am I right like you can’t just say ‘named after’ if it’s not actually named after??? how do words work) – has become a must-see attraction for tourists in Uzbekistan. And that is why we went.
the view from our car
To get there from Khiva, though, there’s not really good transit. We had to hire another car and driver through Sultan at Avantour tour company. He told us that the ride would take about 4-5 hours. So on our last morning in Khiva, we woke up at 6am, planning to leave about 7am, arrive in Nukus by noon, have lunch, and then have a few hours in the museum before our train that evening. Ahem. We left at 7am and got there at 9:45. JFC I could have slept for two more hours. JFC even more, we had to WAIT for the museum to open! Man alive. I guess it’s better than being in a car for longer but like come on guys get your facts straight. He didn’t even speed.
Our driver dropped us at the Nukus train station, where we stored our bags. The people looked at us like wtf are you guys doing here there is not a train until tonight (one train town) and we were like hayyy please don’t steal our stuffff. They didn’t give a receipt or anything for the bags but they said (without using words) ‘we’ll know this was yours, nerdy white people’. Then we went to the museum and it was pretty interesting. I thought it would be more political art, like on its face, but it was more regular art but by people who challenged authority. Or maybe it was challenging authority for its time, but nowadays we are used to much more blatant opposition and much more in-your-face offense so I couldn’t tell that these works were crossing a line since we are so far past where that line was 50 years ago. The line is a dot to you.
Pictures weren’t allowed in the museum and I don’t break worthwhile rules, so if you want to see some of the works on display you’ll have to go to Uzbekistan HA HA ARE YOU? There were guard ladies who were supes annoying, following us around the whole time. I didn’t notice if they followed others too but it was really uncomfortable. Maybe they chose us because we were the youngest and yoots usually cause trouble? There were lots of other visitors to the museum (a surprising fact, considering I thought we were the only people in the whole town) but they were all older and mostly in big tour groups. Anyway it was a pretty good museum, but oh my god we were so tired. This trip was catching up with us and we were getting a little delirious. We were still able to appreciate all the interesting art, but I was just laughing the entire time (not appropriate) as I do when I’m overtired.
The museum is actually in two buildings (second largest collection n the world and all that) and you have to check your bags, even wee purses, which is kind of lame. So much art!
After all the art, we walked around trying to find food. This was hard because Nukus is a tiny little desert town and there was not much happening. We passed a few important-looking buildings but no one was around for us to ask what they were, and I tried googling but to no avail. I’ll share the pictures of said buildings with you so you can also wonder forever what they are (or be better than I am at googling).
And yes I did try googling ‘jaslar awqami’ but it’s not helpful. you go look at all the stuff that comes up. I hope it just means public pool because awqami sounds like aqua-me. and also it would be hilarious if this super official nicest building for hundos of miles was just a pool with a capital p that rhymes with g that stands for go like let’s gooooo
Finally we found a place that sold non-fast food that was open. This very random Uzbek restaurant with a separate small Korean food menu (?) was called Sheraton but was unrelated to the hotel chain. It was full of those older tourists we saw earlier, I guess because it was ostensibly the only decent restaurant open. I was so excited to see that the menu had a variety of vegetable dishes! Also, one was translated as Pine Forest, which was the name of my camp, so that seemed like a good sign.
Unfortunately, most of the salads were dairy-based and/or covered in mayo, but I found one that seemed safe for vegans, translating roughly as garlic and greens. I was so excited to get what I expected was a plate of garlicky sauteed greens. I hadn’t had greens cooked like that in so long! I was so pumped.
My phone notes from this travel day literally just say ‘this country is complete bullshit’
Alas.
It was literally a plate of raw garlic, raw UNCUT spring onions, and lots of herbs. Oh and plus green bell pepper, the one vegetable I hate. COME ON UNIVERSE. I guess it was a companion piece to one of the Korean stews or something but like y’all should have SAID SOMETHING.
Sigh. What a disappointment. We had hours left before our train, to wander around and see all the sights (no more sights) and buy water for our 3 day train train (we’ll talk about that next post), so we wandered. It was very hot and dry and dusty, and the main road was destroyed with ongoing construction (as we expect everywhere in this country), so it was kind of harrowing to walk down it when like, suddenly there would be no more road and cars were coming. Luckily, there were lots of little convenience stores, and luckily, one had a nice babushka selling all kinds of baked goods in bulk – including hard pretzel sticks! I’d never seen pretzel sticks sold in bulk and I hadn’t seen pretzels in weeks so this was a dance dance dance moment. My pretzel babushka was the one nice person we came across in Nukus. Why is everyone there so mean? Is it because they are so bored and also had a real weird lunch?
So that was our day in Nukus! I know right. The Savitsky (I’m going for it) Museum was pretty cool and I’m glad we got to see such an important museum. But I was a little jealous of those old tourists who got off a big bus, saw the museum, and then got right back on the bus. If you go, make sure you don’t have too much time to spend wandering the town. After our too-much-time, we boarded our longest train in months – two nights from Nukus, Uzbekistan to Volgograd, Russia. It’s a doozy so look out for the next post!
In Which I Spend All Day on a Train: Croatia to Bosnia
Over the river and through the woods, to Bosnia & Herzegovina we go!!!
One early morning, after enjoying a few days in Zagreb, I embarked on a pretty crazy day-long train journey to Bosnia. It felt important for me to spend quality time in Bosnia since for so much of my life all I knew about it was that Cher Horowitz thought it was in the Middle East.
I knew going in, from reading online accounts from other travelers, that the bus to Sarajevo was faster, had air conditioning, and prohibited smoking. But, it had no onboard bathroom and only made 2-3 stops during the 8-9 hour ride. Not ok! I had to take the train: Even if the bathroom onboard was a disgusting hole of %@*$, I needed it.
I felt pretty prepared for delays, the low comfort level, the disgusting bathroom, and most horribly the cigarette smoke. The ride wasn’t as awful as I prepared myself for, so I advise you to expect the worst and be rewarded with just pretty bad.
I knew going in, from reading online accounts from other travelers, that the bus to Sarajevo was faster, had air conditioning, and prohibited smoking. But, it had no onboard bathroom and only made 2-3 stops during the 8-9 hour ride. Not ok! I had to take the train: Even if the bathroom onboard was a disgusting hole of %@*$, I needed it.
I felt pretty prepared for delays, the low comfort level, the disgusting bathroom, and most horribly the cigarette smoke. The ride wasn’t as awful as I prepared myself for, so I advise you to expect the worst and be rewarded with just pretty bad.
Zagreb’s train station
The train journey actually began with an hour-long bus to Sisak train station, which was delayed about 40 minutes because we waited for a train from Germany to arrive. (This is a good thing – those aboard the train would have otherwise missed their only ride to Sarajevo.)
Smokers’ Alley
Bosnian trains have carriages that are mostly little rooms off of the main aisles, and the little rooms have cushioned benches that seat about 3 comfortably (for a total of 6 comfortably in each room…though we had 8 for one portion). Thank goodness the little rooms have a window and sliding doors you can close, because the aisle is Smokers’ Alley, nonstop for the whole ride. It was horrible!
We stopped about 4 times, for at least 30 minutes each, for border crossing and passport checks. NB: It was frightening as hell when one patrol officer took our passports and left our carriage. Luckily, it was just to get them stamped in the little office off the side of the tracks, but before he returned them to us I had already imagined the train leaving, the renegade Bosnian selling two American passports,
This is where my passport went
someone taking over my identity, getting me on a government watch list and the no-fly list, and my name being sullied forevermore. I imagined arriving in Sarajevo, finding an English speaker, getting to the nearest U.S. embassy, explaining what happened, and being berated for being stupid enough to let your passport out of your hands. It didn’t come to that. Hooray!
If punctuality is important for your journey, I recommend taking the bus. The train stops not only for the border and passport control stops, but for stray cows or workers crossing or I don’t know a barrel of hay blowing by. Overall, we arrived about two hours late.
If punctuality is important for your journey, I recommend taking the bus. The train stops not only for the border and passport control stops, but for stray cows or workers crossing or I don’t know a barrel of hay blowing by. Overall, we arrived about two hours late.
My train picnic!
Thankfully, I made a fantastic little travel picnic, seen at right.
Oh, Zagreb cherries! Seriously, they are incredible. And of course I had bread for the soy pate (which you can find in groceries in Zagreb), I’m not a savage. Also, ginger chews are my #1 recommended snack for travel of any sort. It helps with nausea. And I always travel with pouched baby food. I love baby food and this just makes it great for travel. It’s not weird.
For the final third of the trip, it became standing room only, with people stuffing the corridors and squeezing extra people onto our bench. So, if you don’t have to pee all the time, you are probably thinking of definitely taking the bus. However, the train has better views – like insanely better:
Oh, Zagreb cherries! Seriously, they are incredible. And of course I had bread for the soy pate (which you can find in groceries in Zagreb), I’m not a savage. Also, ginger chews are my #1 recommended snack for travel of any sort. It helps with nausea. And I always travel with pouched baby food. I love baby food and this just makes it great for travel. It’s not weird.
For the final third of the trip, it became standing room only, with people stuffing the corridors and squeezing extra people onto our bench. So, if you don’t have to pee all the time, you are probably thinking of definitely taking the bus. However, the train has better views – like insanely better:
Entering Bosnia & spotting our first minaret
If I can stand the delay and the smoke, you can too. It’s going to be a long journey anyway; you might as well see the best views of this region by taking the train!
