Veganizing "Friends": Dr. Roger's Oysters & Middle Eastern Couscousby Randi / September 16, 2013
A lone fisherman on Inle Lake
The final leg of our journey through Myanmar centered around a relaxing – and then unfortunately horrendous – stay in Inle Lake, followed by a long, arduous, and amazing trek to the pilgrimage site of Golden Rock.
After another bucket-jumper flight to Heho to visit the lake villages, we stopped in Pindaya to see the famous Pindaya caves. The caves are a must-see, because they house more than 8,000 Buddha sculptures!
After another bucket-jumper flight to Heho to visit the lake villages, we stopped in Pindaya to see the famous Pindaya caves. The caves are a must-see, because they house more than 8,000 Buddha sculptures!
This goes on for so long
I kept expecting one to move
The Buddha images in Pindaya caves range in age from modern to several hundred years old. All kinds of people can donate the statues, from important government officials to civilians, so the mix is impressive.
In addition to the inside of the caves, the outside is really fun too. There’s this legend of princesses who, while bathing in the lake, were captured by a giant spider and trapped in the caves. Then, Prince Kummabhaya (Peter, Paul & Mary’s friend) saved them by shooting the spider with his bow and arrow. This legend is depicted at the entrance to the caves:
In addition to the inside of the caves, the outside is really fun too. There’s this legend of princesses who, while bathing in the lake, were captured by a giant spider and trapped in the caves. Then, Prince Kummabhaya (Peter, Paul & Mary’s friend) saved them by shooting the spider with his bow and arrow. This legend is depicted at the entrance to the caves:
That’s me laughing instead of recoiling from the spider. #Vegans
Transport to our hotel
After visiting Pindaya, we finally made our way to Inle Lake and to our hotel, Paradise Inle Resort. Inle Lake is a freshwater area in the Shan State (namesake of the super comfortable shan pants), and most people stay in some type of ‘resort’ while they explore the lake villages by boat during the day. You can only get around by boat – these hotels and villages are single buildings standing in the water (see below). No roads, just water. It’s pretty awesome. Aside from seeing the village markets and a few pagodas, there’s not much to do, hence the ‘resorts’ expect you to eat all your meals there and be there after dark.
A village in Inle Lake
Our hotel. It looks like that green part is land, but it’s not! Floating gardens!
At first, I was kind of upset that we had so many days in the Lakes and there was so little to do, but then…then it was the best thing ever. Because we got sick. REALLY sick. I thought I cholera. Luckily, my travel doctor (you need lots of shots for this country) had said, before the trip, “You’re going to get sick. Really sick. Here’s what you take when you do,” so we had proper medicine. Kind of hilarious, the doctor just hearing “Myanmar” and saying, yeah, no matter what you do, drink only bottled water eat only cooked food, whatever, you’re still going to get sick. And we did. Thank goodness this hotel was the one with television and wifi. It was the perfect place for the worst sickness ever! (Side note: ‘Joyful Noise’ is a fun movie to watch when you are half gone. Also, they blurred Keke Palmer’s cleavage in it! Hahahah! No one else’s cleavage, not Dolly Parton’s or anything, but the teenager’s. So weird!)
A woman removing the thread from lotus leaves 
Women making cheroot |
Thankfully, we recovered and got to see all the Lake sights. We visited lotus weavers, who do everything from pull the thread from lotus leaves to spin the thread into finished products for sales. Everyone was really nice, letting us watch them work. This lady tied some lotus thread around my wrist. It was really sweet.
We visited cheroot makers as well. Cheroot is a type of cigar, filled with all kinds of leaves and herbs and other addicting stuff. They are inexpensive and insanely popular. They are also mentioned in Rudyard Kipling’s poem “On the Road to Mandalay”, which I mentioned before:
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An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,
An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ‘eathen idol’s foot
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I like it because you have to say ‘foot’ funny.
Anyway, the next place we visited in the Lakes will probably be your favorite – the Burmese Cat Sanctuary! We played with cats, and it was adorable. And they seemed to be well taken care of. It was also one of the nicest buildings we saw. I’m pretty sure you can stay here, as there were a few nice looking guest rooms. And there’s also a cafe, but we didn’t have a chance to look at the menu. These cats were so friendly. They have the run of the house and the gardens outside. |
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Burmese Cat Sanctuary
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There are so many cool things to see in this area, like these floating gardens:
And the impressively nimble fishermen, who famously stand on one leg, at the stern of the boat, while wrapping the other leg around the oar, handling the net while fishing pretty much hands-free. It’s crazy to watch: |
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A fisherman practicing hands-free yoga-style fishing
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As with all other towns in Burma, the daily markets are the biggest draw. The ones in Inle Lake were my favorite, because they sold this special tofu made from split peas! It’s found only in this region, and I’m so mad I couldn’t get to try it because of all the sickness. And the lack of cooking equipment. I need to go back ASAP just for this tofu.
The markets are usually really crowded, great for meeting people and getting a feel of a certain town. They’re also great for one of my favorite things – taking pictures of adorable children (boyfriend calls me the ‘babysnatcher’). 
Cute child! In a hat! 
Potato rice ball 
That’s my parasol he’s dancing with! |
Split pea tofu 
Cute child friends! Even though I didn’t get to eat the tofu, I did have some nice things once I was able to eat again. The hotel had this amazingly carbtastic potato-rice ball for breakfast, and we also saw women making huge, feather-light rice cakes.
Making rice cakes But the coolest thing that happened during the trip was when we stumbled upon a community’s celebration of young boys’ novitiation – they were about to be sent as novices to study at a monastery, to one day become monks. They saw us standing pretty far away, and without having any shared words they invited us to celebrate with them.
Big party, everyone’s invited! I also got a picture of some English graffiti! Street art is my favorite thing to photograph (see: this site’s home page banner!).
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Graffiti!
The last part of our journey was a visit to Golden Rock, the hard-to-reach pilgrimage site. We flew back to Yangon from Heho, then drove for a long time, and then…and then we were packed onto this truck. And I mean packed. We thought we were going to wait for the next truck, but they squeezed us onto this one. I have never had so little personal space. The guy I was next to was great though; he kept saying “USA!” and “Obama!”. Hilarious. We drove through the mountains in this truck for about 45 minutes, and then it drops you off and you walk another 45 minutes or so to the Golden Rock area. It was quite a day, but so worth it. Look at this:
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How awesome is this! It’s such a precarious perch, and no one understands how it is staying put (except to praise Buddha for it). The effort you have to put in to get here is so worth it. It was a fantastic final sight in Myanmar.
Because of how far it is from everything, you stay overnight in the area. We stayed at a great hotel right outside the entrance, on a street peppered with vendors, a few of whom sell rice balls that are vegan-friendly. Staying overnight lets you see this amazing sight in the daytime, at sunrise, and of course at night, when the grounds light up and the Rock looks like it is truly lit up by some higher force. |
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Well, it wasn’t exactly our last thing. We did have to go back to Yangon for a day or two before flying out of the country. We learned so much on our trip and developed such tolerance for difficult cultural differences that this sign, below, no longer phased us. Well…almost didn’t.
WHICH WAY!!!! WHICH WAY DO I GO!!! AHHHHH!!!!!
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Madeira, Portugal (Part 2): Funchal Vegan Food, Lodging, and More
As discussed in the previous post, Madeira, the little Portuguese island off the coast of West Africa, is an amazing little paradise of mountains, gardens, and overall pleasantness. In this post, we are getting down to what matters: the vegan food, and the hotels. Although the remote location means the extreme vegan ballerness of mainland European cities hasn’t reached Funchal yet, there are still lots of good options and cute restaurants to check out. And as far as lodging goes, we stayed in THREE different hotels over this trip! Okay, one was in London and one was not planned, but you’ll see! We had an incredible time in Madeira and you can read about all the sights and stuff to do here.
yep this was taken during a break in barfing. (‘oh it’s pronounced bar-fay’)
My top restaurant recommendation is Coracao (pretend it’s a squiggly c!) Vegano, which has been around, and vegan, since 1973! Amazing job guys. The food took a minute but we had just flown in and we were super hungry so it probably seemed longer than it really was. Before we share the food, look how adorable the restaurant itself is!
Since like I said we were so hungry, we did our usual thing of ordering too much food. We ordered a wrap, a thing called Vegan Lust, and sushi. So yeah, the offerings are eclectic, like lots of vegan cafes, without one clear vision or cuisine. But who cares!
First up, the vegan plate of lust. It contained crispy chicken slabs (is slabs not a good word for food?), bacon slabs (again I ask but what is a better way to describe it?), and salad. It was fine! I love salad and the various vegan slabs were fun.
Next up, the wrap. There’s only one wrap option, the Crispy Wrap, and it has crispy vegan chicken with veggies and salad inside. I loved the filling and wish the wrap itself was sturdier; it fell victim to the disease that kills most wraps – sogginess. Ugh I love wraps so much but haaaate when the wrapping gets too soggy I might dry heave just thinking about it. There is nothing else in the world where suuuuuch a tiny change in status makes me go from loving it to literally barfaying from it. But anyway, it wasn’t as soggy as other wraps I’ve seen in my day, so it was pretty good.
Lastly, sushi! Or what they call Shingen Zushi! It’s a fried tempeh roll and it was DERN GOOD. Man I love tempeh sushi. I want this again! So the food overall at Coracao (squiggly!) is decent, but it’s a must go because it’s kind of a Funchal vegan institution. And it’s rare to find an all-vegan place! I think this is the only one in Funchal, actually. And I adore that they are not shying away from announcing themselves as such or wimping out with referring to some ‘plant-based’ bullshit. Look at the entrance!
Just in case ‘vegano’ in the name wasn’t enough! Love it.
The next restaurant we tried that is worth sharing was called Copaki, which is a little farther down the coast, closer to the Contemporary Art Museum. They aren’t vegetarian but they have a veggie/vegan menu that is really great. Unfortunately, I ordered the wrong thing, like I can’t even believe I ordered it. I had the choice between deep fried aubergine (eggplant), braised tofu (omg want), lasagna (what!!), or fajitas, and like a G-D MORON I chose fajitas, momentarily forgetting that the main component in veggie fajitas are bell peppers and I FORKING HATE bell peppers! What was I thinking? I think I was distracted by the prospect of guacamole. Ughhh I had to eat so many red peppers and they make me nauseous.
first of all that’s not fajitas
Best (not) of all was that the ‘side of vegetables’ was more bell peppers. I mean. So don’t be like me, because I think if you ordered something that there’s a chance of you actually enjoying (e.g. not your least favorite veggie??) then we are all good at Copaki. Still can’t believe it. Luckily, I had some other dishes and they were great. Hard to mess up, but great.
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Including:
BRUSCHETTA! I love bruschetta hard. I love it even more when people pronounce it right. (Hot tip: You’re probably doing it wrong.)
Ours had mushrooms on top! Approved!
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
Next, we shared a bowl of soup. I honestly forget what kind of soup this was, but it was a pureed light colored vegetable (there aren’t that many so just you decide) and it was good.
what brand of soup are you
But guess what else! They had a nice vegan dessert, can you believe it? I was expecting nothing more than fruit plates or fruit sorbets, but here they had a vegan puddingy flan type thing with candied puffed wheat bits on top. NICE!
Overall, it was a nice meal, and Copaki is a little more upscale than Corasquiggle if you are looking for a date night or something.
We also stopped by Gigi Sumos one day, a juice bar chain that is on HappyCow and says it has vegan bagels and salads too. Well, they don’t really. They can make a salad vegan by removing all the stuff in it, and they don’t have vegan salad dressings! I asked the staff, but you say you offer vegan salads; how can you do that if you don’t have vegan salad dressings? And you know what they did? They offered me MUSTARD or SWEET CHILI SAUCE. Like, both condiments straight from their bottles, undoctored to be palatable as salad dressings. I mean I chose the sweet chili but DAYUM.
even with avocado it’s sad! and look more bell peppers
Luckily, after that unfortunate stop, we went to the MOST BEAUTIFUL land of produce – Mercado dos Lavradores! This famous market is a must-do for tourists. It’s a giant building full of food vendors. The main hall is vegetables and fruit and nuts and spices and dried fruit and all kinds of good stuff, and there are restaurants and hot food vendors all along the sides. Because it’s so touristed, the produce is expensive, but you can get INSANE stuff. This is where I found my most favorite avocado of all time. You ready? She ready.
Look at those gorgeous things! Do you see the giant avocado? We bought that one that is standing upright – it was bigger than my face. Luckily our travel was intra-EU so we got to bring it home! It made a lot of guacamole. Okay so because it was so big it was kind of bland, but I don’t care, it’s so cool. If it were a rocking chair it would be a stop on a long-drive through the American West.
I don’t have a picture of the next coolest find we made in the Mercado, but I remember it vividly. A few vendors stopped us and made us try pieces of a special Madeiran hybrid fruit called – I shit you not – ‘ADAM’S RIB’. Making things even more interesting, it’s a hybrid of pineapple and banana. And against all odds it sort of reminded me of custard apple! It was more fun than delicious but it still was good enough for us to buy a few. SO FUN.
Okay, that’s it for food in this post. Sadly, we didn’t get to what many say is the best restaurant in Madeira for vegans, Restaurant Olives, but maybe next time. And there’s some happy news: the next Madeira post will be a fancy restaurant review, a part of the Vegan Michelin series!
LODGING
Funchal is the kind of place where you really will want a baller resort to stay in. Without sandy beaches, you’ll want to swim in a nice pool. Also, this isn’t the kind of city like Paris or London where you want to spend as many seconds as possible seeing all the sights because there’s never enough time to see it all (‘there’s no time! there’s NEVER ANY TIME!’). That’s not the vibe here. You’ll see some stuff like I shared in the previous post but you’re gonna want to relax in the hotel. Also, the hotels get the most beautiful beachfront so the views are amazing. We did a lot of research trying to find the nicest place that was still a value for money, and we decided on the Porto Bay resort. Porto Bay actually is three different resorts, and if you stay in one you have access to the amenities (restaurants, gyms, pools, tennis courts, kids clubs (so many families), mini golf, &c) in all three, so it was a great decision. They have the Cliff Bay (which I think is the most expensive), the Porto Santa Maria, and the Porto Mare. We chose the latter. And we liked it, and we loved it.
one of many sun bed areas
This was the view from inside our room.
What’s out there, you ask? Let’s go see!
Oh it’s just one of the FIVE pools at the Porto Mare alone! While I of course swam in this one just to have done it, it wasn’t super hot to make it my regular pool. Luckily, some of those five are indoor. If you know me, you know I love an indoor pool, like to a weird degree. Look how beautiful these options were!
That one was so big it snaked its way to be part outdoor pool. SO FUN.
There were also jacuzzis and steam rooms all over the place. And while the gym was a little hard to get to (down to the basement and then up again sort of?) it was a pretty good gym! My only sadness about this stay is that there were tennis courts literally outside our wing but we didn’t play.
The food at Porto Mare was pretty good too. As with all hotel buffet breakfasts, there was tons of cereal and fruit but nothing great on the hot food side. But, they had Alpro yogurt! So it was overall a win.
Now I bet right now you are thinking, if you loved this place so much why did you say you stayed at a different place? Well, Madeira can get crazy winds, and so it wasn’t a huge surprise that our flight home to London was cancelled because of them. EasyJet transported our entire flight from the airport to a hotel that was much, much better than I expected of EasyJet (I expected a trash motel). It was called the Pestana Ocean Bay.
It’s that green bit. Not the nicest place, but still pretty good. Checking in the entire flight took hours, sadly, as the hotel was not ready for such a madhouse. We were originally given a basement room but it had ants (omg maybe it was a trash motel and I forgot) so I went back to reception and demanded we be moved, and we got a much nicer room on the top floor! Awesome.
We were all given tokens for the dinner buffet, which was fine. Nothing special but they had enough dishes out in the giant buffet that were veg. We talked to some fellow passengers (ack) and wondered when we’d be notified about our rescheduled flight. The email came late that night: they were putting us on a flight the next night/morning at 1 AM!!! ONE. AM. And since this is Madeira, most of the people were supes old! This sucked. We’d get in to London at what, 3-4 am? And back home no earlier than 5am and have to go to work? No no NO this will not stand! Luckily, they offered money back if you chose not to accept their shitastic rescheduling, so we refused and booked a NORMAL HUMAN TIMED flight with British Airways. We still had another whole morning to explore though, so we walked along the beach and the caves near this end of Funchal.
Okay so that’s two hotels; what’s this talk about a third? Well our flight out of London was at 7am, so we decided that rather than getting up at 3 or 4 am beforehand and hating the world on our first day in Madeira, we’d sleep at the airport and only dislike the world on our first day. We stayed at the YotelAir in Gatwick Airport and you know what? It was super fun and comfy. It’s a pod hotel, meaning the rooms are tiny little compartments and you feel like you’re on a submarine or something. (Or an overnight train!!) But it was clean and comfy and even though everything was a weird purple haze, it was great! Nice bed too.
ahhh so similar to our train journeys!
There are buttons to bring the bed down for sleeping!
The check-in process was so smooth, maybe the smoothest at any hotel ever. The staff was super nice. And it was weirdly fun to be able to change into pajamas and then go out and shop at the airport Boots and stuff!
So except for the aforementioned fancy dinner, that’s it for Madeira! I hope you consider it for a future vacay, especially if you are old or have kids. I hope to go back someday! Oh and here is a look at my favorite Funchal graffiti:
Send it to your friends named Sam and have a good day!
The Legend of Bilbao Baggins: Rain, Dogs, More Rain, More Dogs
As soon as we stepped off the airport bus near our hotel in Bilbao, the pouring rain turned to hail. It was hailing on us. Serious, scary balls of hail pounding on us like we’ve never before experienced. What a lovely welcome, Bilbao!
Luckily, the hail stopped that night, but the rain continued for almost our entire visit. That sucks, but although Bilbao isn’t as pretty in the rain as Paris is, it was still a solid trip in a nice city. Now, those adjectives might seem decidedly underwhelming, but I mean them with all my heart without going overboard with praise. Also, Gabrielle Union was wrong and you cannot just be whelmed in Europe.
Luckily, the hail stopped that night, but the rain continued for almost our entire visit. That sucks, but although Bilbao isn’t as pretty in the rain as Paris is, it was still a solid trip in a nice city. Now, those adjectives might seem decidedly underwhelming, but I mean them with all my heart without going overboard with praise. Also, Gabrielle Union was wrong and you cannot just be whelmed in Europe.
Fighter of the night man!
Landing in Bilbao, Spain, I thought I was sooo clever calling it Bilbao Baggins, like The Hobbit. Of course, five minutes later, we see on the road signs that, in the Basque language, Bilbao is ‘Bilbo’. So, not as clever as I thought. By the way, that Basque language is quite something. It’s a language isolate – meaning it has no discernible relationship to any other language. ON EARTH. That’s freaking wild. When you’re in Europe, you’re like, hey man, hit me with the romance languages, I’ll figure it out, they’re all close enough. But then in this region between Spain and France, all rules and prior knowledge go out the window and you are left staring at some hybrid of Japanese and Klingon where every 4th letter is a ‘k’ and every 6th letter is an ‘x’. It is CRAZY and crazy interesting. Where did they come from! How is the language not related to any other spoken on the planet? (That Klingon thing doesn’t seem too far-fetched now, does it? (Husband has me watching too much Star Trek.)) Everyone speaks regular Spanish though, but not many people we encountered in restaurants, shops, and train stations spoke English. So prepare some Spanish! I’ll get you started with some necessary phrases: “Donde esta la biblioteca? Me llamo T-bone la araña discoteca!”
OH LOOK IT’S THE ACTUAL ARAÑA DISCOTECA!
OH LOOK IT’S THE ACTUAL ARAÑA DISCOTECA!
If you know “Community“, or me at all, then you know that when I saw this giant spider outside the famous Bilbao Guggenheim (more on that below), I exclaimed “Ahh! It’s the araña discoteca!” (“What. It’s 2009.”) Now, this is where my talents of persuasion? lying? convincing myself that things are real? paid off. Husband is finding out only right now, as he reads this upon publishing, that I was making up my Bilbao history: When we walked up to this, he said “What??? It’s a giant spider! What the heck!” or something like that. And iiiiii said, “It’s called the araña discoteca. I read about it. Important in Spanish history.” Oh my god I’m awful. But good. So there we have it.
The disco spider stands (dances?) near Bilbao’s spectacular Guggenheim museum. Designed by Frank Gehry, it evokes the feeling of the water it’s on, with its wave-like sides and its shimmering fish-like scales. The building is gorgeous and larger than you can imagine, and although the atrium is splendid as well, the best part is the exterior view. Paying to get into this modern art museum seems almost silly when the best art is free to see outside.
The disco spider stands (dances?) near Bilbao’s spectacular Guggenheim museum. Designed by Frank Gehry, it evokes the feeling of the water it’s on, with its wave-like sides and its shimmering fish-like scales. The building is gorgeous and larger than you can imagine, and although the atrium is splendid as well, the best part is the exterior view. Paying to get into this modern art museum seems almost silly when the best art is free to see outside.
As a mountain of steel makes its way to the sea
Right?? It’s beautiful! Now, there isn’t much to do in Bilbao after you see this lovely building, so you might think, hey I guess I have to go inside. But…um…you don’t? The aforementioned atrium is gorgeous but the actual art hanging on these lovely walls? Balls. It’s all balls. I’m not the biggest modern art aficionado (could you guess?), but I can appreciate it, most of the time. Most of this stuff, however, was ridonkulous. Like if a toddler threw a bottle of paint at a wall. (Or his poop.) Or if a psychopath took a knife to some leather chairs. (There were actual destroyed leather seat cushions hanging on the wall.) One exhibit was just an old car’s motor. Unaltered. A car motor. How is this art! Someone tell me! The only item in the entire cavernous museo that I thought wow this is nice was a log by Ai Weiwei that somehow had a tiny picture of China drilled through it. That was awesome. The 2-D primary color blocked walls? Not so much.
There’s also this. A whole floor of this. The stuff of nightmares.
Luckily, there’s more fun external art to behold at this site. My very favorite thing about Bilbao was how dog-friendly it is. Everywhere we went, people had their dogs with them. (Rarely on leashes, which makes me absolutely nuts because I always frantically try to figure out who belongs to unleashed dogs in case someone is lost and I need to take care of them. So stressful. Just use leashes!) People who have seen me around dogs know that I go kind of nuts talking to them in my special dog voice (a high-pitched squeak that I cannot control), so all weekend in Bilbao was like me on helium. Doggies everywhere! It was amazing! I like to think that the very famous Flower Dog by Jeff Koons, standing proudly and beautifully outside the main entrance to the Guggenheim, is a symbol of how dog-friendly this city is. It’s possibly the most dog-friendly city I’ve ever been to. (And therefore the biggest point in its favor.)
PUPPIEEEEE!
More puppieeeee! That’s not me. (Move bi#$* get out da way!)
Me with a puppy!
Once you see the Gugs, you’ve done what you’re supposed to do in Bilbao! So now what? Well, stroll along the river in the rain and smile at how pleasant the little city is. It will be raining, I promise you. Oh it was on the trip that I was like ‘Ohhhhh the rain in Spain is mainly on THIS plain, that’s what they were talking bouttttt!’ Revelation. It made me okay with raining all weekend to feel like a part of a musical.
Then what? Well stroll some more. See some dogs and, if you’re like me, try to pet them and play with them but then realize that these dogs freaking speak Spanish so they don’t know what you are saying when you say “HI PUPPY YOU ARE SO CUTE! YES YOU ARE SO CUTE!” and their humans really have no idea probably what you are saying either or what the heck is wrong with you talking that high-pitched so you can try to adjust your language mid-freak-out and say “Hola….perro?? Tu es…um….HII PUPPYYYYY!” That’s pretty much how it went. 100x per day.
Walk over to the old town, as every good European city has, and wonder as your wander about the tiny streets and are lucky enough to catch adorable sights like this:
Then what? Well stroll some more. See some dogs and, if you’re like me, try to pet them and play with them but then realize that these dogs freaking speak Spanish so they don’t know what you are saying when you say “HI PUPPY YOU ARE SO CUTE! YES YOU ARE SO CUTE!” and their humans really have no idea probably what you are saying either or what the heck is wrong with you talking that high-pitched so you can try to adjust your language mid-freak-out and say “Hola….perro?? Tu es…um….HII PUPPYYYYY!” That’s pretty much how it went. 100x per day.
Walk over to the old town, as every good European city has, and wonder as your wander about the tiny streets and are lucky enough to catch adorable sights like this:
How cute is this! Does the building management make sure all the tenants have colorful umbrellas or like do Spanish people just know how to be adorable?
Another great treat was the stained glass in one of the train stations. Okay, this is where the language barrier got really rough. We needed to go to a nearby town for a fancy dinner (check back tomorrow!) and wanted to take the train. Well, we didn’t. We couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone (also, like, no one worked in the stations?? because Spain in the afternoon = sleepytime?) as to which was the correct station and which was the correct train and where to go and just f it, we took a taxi. Anyway, one of the stations – whichever it was – had this nice glass.
Another great treat was the stained glass in one of the train stations. Okay, this is where the language barrier got really rough. We needed to go to a nearby town for a fancy dinner (check back tomorrow!) and wanted to take the train. Well, we didn’t. We couldn’t get a straight answer from anyone (also, like, no one worked in the stations?? because Spain in the afternoon = sleepytime?) as to which was the correct station and which was the correct train and where to go and just f it, we took a taxi. Anyway, one of the stations – whichever it was – had this nice glass.
Bilbao also has a very cool suspension bridge that is pedestrian only AND is lined with like astroturf!! It’s so fun and squishy!
A really fun part of Bilbao is the funicular ride to the top of the hill. It’s a three-minute ride and costs like 70 cents or something crazy. It’s a scary steep climb, but so worth it for the views, although it will likely be foggy, and for one of my favorite sights, the fingerprint statue.
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doesn’t it look like there’s a crazy floating sky mountain like out of Avatar??
Why do I love this!
There were many lovely views around Bilbao. Near our hotel was a park with lots of fountains, which was nice but seemed redundant in the rain.
You’d think at night this park would be full of criminals and drug dealers but it was pretty safe.
There were also some hilarious things we came across. Down the street from our hotel, we found a weird mall. It was one of the only things in the city open on Sunday afternoon — but every single store in the mall was closed! So why was the actual building open to the public if every store was closed? Because one of the entryways had a few crappy kids’ rides, and every. single. child. in Bilbao was there with its family playing with the crappy toys. It was so so random. In this scary ghost mall was also this restaurant:
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Yes, this restaurant was called La Mafia, and every single seat in the place had a name written over it – a name of a character from “The Godfather” movies. I mean. That’s ballsy. And hilarious. And it’s inside a mall. It doesn’t get better.
Oh wait, YES IT DOES! Of course it gets better because Bilbao sells The Thermomix! If you aren’t familiar with The Katering Show, you must must must watch this right very now before continuing with your life, even your breathing. It’s the best thing out there. So, being a huge fan of the show, when I saw this gigantic ad for the actual real-life breathing (probably) machine that does it all but unnecessarily, well I freaked out! It’s real! It’s alive (probably)! And it’s beeyoootiful! No, it’s not, it’s frightening, but oh man how I adore it, if only for the jokes.
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Can you believe it’s real?
So, Bilbao may not have a lot of activities to do, but it’s a nice town to walk around in for a few days. If you go, you’ll have a nice, pleasant time, as long as you aren’t out very late when all the yoots come out of the woodwork and take over the city and all the streets like awful drunk ants. Ugh yoots. Anyway, during the day it’s nice. I wouldn’t go out of my way to go if you have limited time in Europe, but like if you live on the continent then why not. (Ringing endorsement!)
We’ll talk about the food for the next two days. See yaaa.
So, Bilbao may not have a lot of activities to do, but it’s a nice town to walk around in for a few days. If you go, you’ll have a nice, pleasant time, as long as you aren’t out very late when all the yoots come out of the woodwork and take over the city and all the streets like awful drunk ants. Ugh yoots. Anyway, during the day it’s nice. I wouldn’t go out of my way to go if you have limited time in Europe, but like if you live on the continent then why not. (Ringing endorsement!)
We’ll talk about the food for the next two days. See yaaa.
Freaking love this little pink and blue buildings.
Oh hey here’s a statue of John Adams on the main drag.
