So let’s learn about Jamaica real fast! Jamaica is an island mon! You knew that! In the Caribbean! You know what’s weird, everyone says ‘Caribbean’ with the accent on ‘RIB’ BUT whenever anyone says Pirates of the Caribbean they put the accent on BE isn’t that something. Columbus happened upon in in 1494 and so he said ‘The Spanish own you now!’ and the Spanish killed a lot of native people either the old fashioned way or by bringing new diseases to them. Fun fact: Columbus is in the Bad Place because of all the raping, slave trade, and genocide!

After some more shit, the English conquered it, named it Jamaica mon, made it into a leading sugar exporter (more slave trade), yada yada yada, it became independent in 1962, though it is still a Commonwealth country (so Lizzie Dos is their queen). Jamaica is a wee small island with international fame and influence much greater than you’d expect for a wee small, considering the spread of Rastafarian culture, reggae music, and their bobsled team.

Kingston is the capital and the largest city, but tourists tend not to go there because it has some violence. Tourists, especially from the UK, will likely fly into Kingston, however, and unless you get a connection to MoBay (that’s how the cool kids say Montego Bay), it’s a 2.5 hour drive at least. Luckily for us, we were coming from Philadelphia so it’s an easy flight to MoBay. I’m gonna tell you all this up front before you get to the beautiful resort stuff and fun vegan food jawn: the Montego Bay airport is a nightmare. It’s an absolute zoo, and after you get off the plane you will wait in a sea of endless people pretending to be some semblance of a line until you get to immigration hours later. HOURS. And this entire route, snaking from the gates to immigration, have no toilets. (Obviously I weasled my way through all the halls to the front of the mess somehow to find the bathroom but then went back to Z.) Immigration has kiosks where you enter your info, it prints out a document, and then you take it to a person at a desk. It’s a MADHOUSE. The only funny thing is that tourism is such an enormous part of the economy that the short list of ‘reasons to be in Jamaica’ that you have to answer – the normal options being ‘business or travel’ – also includes ‘for a wedding’. 

Also baggage took FOREVER to arrive. You might be like ‘oh that’s fine I always just use a carry-on’ but our flight was ‘overcrowded’ and made everyone check their carry-ons too…and then all the overhead bins were empty, completely empty. The people in front of us on the plane were carry-on people and they were LIVID. See sometimes it’s good to overpack! 

Alright you did it you made it through the nonsense. And now: 

The Round Hill is lovely, refined resort that seemed perfect for the calmer crowd that does not go clubbing every night (like us!) (although tell that to the gaggle of divorced blondes who arrived on our last day and WERE SO LOUD). It was honestly one of the most ridiculous places I’ve ever seen in real life. Not for regular tourists like us who stayed in the main hotel (it was nice but regular), but for bigwigs staying in the luxury villas on the outer grounds. If you are supes loaded and want to go to Jamaica, THIS is where you stay. One of them was a favorite vacation spot for JFK and Jackie, and one is owned by Ralph Lauren (who is on the Round Hill board). If you are really eager to waste a bunch of your time today, go to the Round Hill website and take video tours of each of the 28 luxury villas. It’s like watching the (amazing) Netflix show The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes but somehow more upsetting. The posher of the wedding guests stayed in villas, so I visited and took some sneaky photos (shared anon).

We stayed in the main hotel since we are Not Royalty, with a really nice room that we got for half price with the wedding rate. Honestly, I cannot believe that people pay twice TWICE as much as we did for the basic rooms. It was nice but man alive that’s some crazy talk. And NB this is NOT an all-inclusive resort; in fact, we felt quite nickel-and-dimed by how exorbitant the cost for food &c turned out to be. We definitely had snobbish attitudes in the past about all-inclusive resorts being like lower class or something STUPID like that, but after experiencing this ridiculously expensive place where you get like a $20 salad and you’re like ‘ugh that was mediocre but we knew it would be expensive’ but then you get the bill and there’s already 20% service included which fine that’s fine waiters deserve it but then there’s also like an extra tax fee and then a separate service charge and you’re like wait how is that different from the other service fee but you don’t want to make a fuss don’t make a fuss and then somehow there’s also a random $5 like resort fee or something that is inexplicable so if you ever order a drink it will not be $8 it will be $25 which is why I only drink water, we are so ready to board the all-inclusive train (not that we have ever done a resort vacay before or plan to in the near future, you know us and our penchant for difficult travel!).

The resort comprises endless standalone buildings spread throughout the expansive grounds (most of it unseen by the regular guests, with the grounds uphill from the beach reserved for villas), with the public areas – the restaurants, the reception, the main block of rooms, the gym, the pool – along the beach in a semi-circle. The entrance to the hotel room building was surprisingly drab compared to the rest of the place – you entered from a very industrial-looking side with all the giant tanks and AC units on your doors’ front stoops (all rooms entered from the outside). Weird but inside was a beautiful room.

I love a hotel bed and this was a pretty good one! Not in my top 5 of all-time hotel beds but probably in my top 10! I loved the little sitting area by the balcony; you can’t see in this photo but against the right-side wall is a daybed (“Janet! Fetch my dizzy couch!”). Here’s the view from our balcony:

The weird thing about that unfinished-seeming entrance to the hotel block meant that the resort staff worked like right up against our windows and we could hear everything they did and said whenever we were in the bathroom. It was awkward! There were also like bags full of linens and towels on our front stoop at all times (and not for me to use!). So that was weird.

Here are the pics I promised from inside one of the villas – not even one of the “fancy” ones.

This is their private pool – every villa has a private pool so they don’t have to hobnob with the poors. It’s about the same size as the main one!

We used the main hotel pool every day, and it was super lovely. During the weekdays, it wasn’t too crowded at any point, but on the weekend it was a bit. The infinity pool stretching over the ocean was so beautifully designed. I was just surprised that it was a little small (and that there was no other public pool on the grounds like for lap swimming (I brought my googles!)). I guess most people are using their private pools!

One day we had the pool to ourselves at sunset and it was the most magical thing ever. 

Round Hill has a great gym (included in the room rate thank goodness) that I super enjoyed, although it’s about a 15 minute walk around the beach from the main hotel block (and you have to pass the restaurant, so I’d see people I knew having breakfast and I’d be all sweaty). They also have a yoga pavilion next to the gym – which sounds amazing, right? Except the yoga classes are around $25 and it’s more like hot yoga since pavilions are outdoor structures. I was okay sticking to the gym.

The whole fitness center complex also had a deluxe spa, which I did not use (cannot imagine how expensive the massages are) but I used the bathrooms during the wedding and they were super nice.

Admission: I didn’t actually go to the beach here. Eeeek. I mean I walked in it and put my foot in just to have done that, but when faced with a beach and a pool/the chance to be sandy vs not sandy, I’m always going to pick pool. I should have had at least one beach day, I know. OOPSIE.

So as you can see, the Round Hill was pretty paradisical. The only drawback was that I was SUPER excited to play tennis every day and…I just couldn’t. It was too hot. I was shocked that the courts were always empty, but then the staff and Jamaican friends were like, uh yeah? People only play before the sun is up, otherwise YOU WILL DIE. I even had a lesson booked and everything but had to cancel because it was 1000 degrees. So sad! (And they were like oh thank god.) Aside from that, we had an amazing time, even though we aren’t really sit-by-the-side-of-the-pool-for-days-and-don’t-see-anything-of-the-land-you’re-in kinds of travelers. And we weren’t! We were the only guests to venture downtown into Montego Bay, even though we were told pretty much that “tourists stay in their resorts.” I must admit, everyone downtown was staring at us, with faces like WHAT are you doing, you lost? But the people we actually spoke to/who fed us seemed happy to see us out and about. And we had to go, not only to see the real Jamaica and not just a resort, but to find the good vegan food.

Round Hill catered fine to my veganism, and I had some nice quinoa stir-fries and veggie stews. Also, if you are in the market for a destination wedding, their buffet at this wedding was incredible, and super vegan-friendly (and also really, really not) (you know what I mean, think Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when he cries on the beach). But as I said, the food was supes expensive, and Montego Bay had several exciting vegan joints to check out anyway.

It’s annoying to get downtown, because you probably aren’t renting a car (if you do you are nuts in that traffic and all-around lawlessness re traffic laws), and the resorts charge an arm and a leg to take you downtown, but that’s the way you have to do it. It’s such a racket. We planned on getting our own cabs once we were downtown, but we literally could not. Every single taxi we saw was a route taxi, meaning they fill up with lots of people and operate like a small bus. They weren’t taking us to our specific destinations, let alone back to the resort! So that’s just one annoyance you have to suck up.

One morning, we had to go downtown anyway for the BEST MOST RIDICULOUS experience (with dogs) of all time, which will be its own (next) post. After that morning experience, we went straight to Millennium Victory, a vegan Rastafarian restaurant. It was THE BEST.

There’s a long history of vegetarianism in Rastafari culture. It’s called Ital food in the Rastafari tradition, derived from the word ‘vital’ but with no ‘v’, emphasizing the ‘I’ as it emphasizes the unity of each individual with nature. (Thanks wikipeeds.) It means food that’s natural, pure, and from the earth. Ital food aims to increase “livity”, the life energy in all people. (That’s why that vegan raw dessert market stall in London is called Organic Livity, I am just now realizing; and yes the people who run it are Rasta.) Rastafari commonly believe that everything you put in your body should enhance livity and not reduce it. That means there’s no chemicals or additives. It also can sometimes mean no salt, which is yikes (but often especially means no salt treated with iodine, which is yay for me), but this food was seasoned well and delicious. I would LOVE to go back here.

We asked the staff to decide for us, as everything on their big board menu sounded excellent. So they brought us two big plates of their best stuff, and everything was indeed excellent. We had jerk tofu (omg), roasted plantains and veg, all in amazing sauces. There were huge chunks of homemade seitan and sauteed ackee, the famous Jamaican fruit that whips up somehow just like eggs. AMAZING. I don’t remember everything else so just ask them to decide for you if you go, which you def should if in MB.

UGH IT WAS SO GOOD. We also got a melon skin juice, which was ace. There was a really friendly man eating at the table next to us who was like ‘this melon skin juice is the best, you need to try it’ and we were like ‘we’re okay thanks though’ and he was like ‘no I insist, I’ll order it for you’ and we were like ‘ok thanks man!’ and he really did just mean order it, not pay for it, it sounded like he was going to pay for it, but then the staff was like you need to pay for your juice, it was funny and also a Larry David moment. We also got Jamaican patties (like pasties/hand pies but not flaky crusted, which is amazing for me because I don’t like buttery flaky things (I do know that this is weird)) filled with veggies to take away to have the next day.

The best part of any hotel room is a fridge that’s empty (not full of minibar crap you don’t want (or worse the kind of minibar where it charges you if you MOVE something? LET ME USE THE DAMN FRIDGE ASSHOLE)), and since we had one in our room, we went to a giant supermarket called Progressive, in a downtown mall, so we could stock up on snacks, fruit, breakfast foods, and drinks.

I forking love this supermarket. They had SO much vegan stuff, like an entire enormous aisle of non-dairy milks, a war chest of strange vegan meats that I’ve never seen before even in Chinese groceries, a juice/smoothie bar, all kinds of great stuff.

I had two ultimate favorite items from this shopping trip: one for its hilarious packaging that still makes me laugh, and one because it is g-d delicious.

The funny one:

The next restaurant we tried wasn’t vegetarian or vegan, but it had tons of vegan options. It was the kind of cafe you would find on every block in Malibu or something, with an extensive trendy menu, lots of green smoothies, and a yoga-studio vibe. I obviously loved it. DLE Cafe is right around the order from the Progressive market, btw.

I could tell you how extensive DLE Cafe’s menu was but I’m just going to show you so you can appreciate how difficult my decision was.

I don’t remember which green smoothie I got but obviously I got one, and it was great! I was annoyed to get a plastic cup since I drank it there, but I did have it while I was waiting for them to make the rest of my order which was takeaway so I guess that’s a good reason and prob my fault. The straw was paper though, which is good in theory but they disintegrate super fast.

Here’s just one of the food menu pages ugh I still can’t decide and I’m not even there. There’s a feeling long-time vegans know well, when you are used to not having much decision-making power and then you’re faced with a menu with so many options and you are like NO STOP IS TOO MUCH.

I decided on the ackee wrap because you must eat as much ackee as possible when in Jamaica it is a MAGIC fruit and I don’t understand why jackfruit blew up as pork and ackee hasn’t as eggs? Someone sell it! I also got the vegan mac & cheese because I’m a mac & cheese fanatic and also look at that menu it says “hands down this is probably the best mac you will ever have” and I was like “excuse me is it ‘hands down’ or is it ‘probably’ you can’t have it both ways this is like how my brother and I for some reason say ‘poss def’ all the time and no one gets it and for good reason! Anyway the mac was just okay. No pics because it was takeaway and the pictures I took were sad.

Lastly, poss def my favorite, was the Chabad Kosher Hot Spot. You say Chabad, you say Kosher, I hear hummus and I come running.

The Hot Spot is an Israeli food joint right across the main road from Margaritaville (which apparently is the hottest place to party, even for locals, on a Tuesday night…or maybe it was Thursday…I don’t know because I didn’t go obvs but ask a local). We called in an order before our flight home so we could get it en route to the airport (smort!). The number on the website…is not the one to call. Somehow, when we called to place an order for HUMMUS, we heard “this is Rabbi x…?” THE RABBI PICKED UP. HAHAHAHHAHA. We apologized and were like sorry we were trying to reach the restaurant? and he was like ‘oh sure here’s their number!’ It’s all connected, the Chabad org and the restaurant, see all these Jews in Jamaica just want to make sure everyone who wants hummus can get the hummus, THAT’S ALL THEY WANT SO BE NICE.

We did get our hummus, which was excellent, and our amazing flatbread, and Israeli salad and a jerk falafel wrap (that’s right) so yeah DEFFO a must in MoBay. Again, I’m not going to share takeaway pictures because yeesh and oh no. But trust me that everything was great! What a great find! When we told our driver where we wanted to stop, he was like ‘oh yeah I’ve heard of that place!’ and seemed excited so I hope he went and liked it.

At the airport, leaving is much saner than arriving, and they have giant water bottles at most vendors! Huzzah! (Small water bottles are the devil’s playthings.) There’s also plenty of recognizable food outlets. I had my hummus and falafel but I did buy one non-water airport treat, a packet of moringa powder. You know I’m a sucker for all things superfood and apparently moringa is big in Jamaica. I had to buy it because a) it’s a Jamaican variety so that’s cool and b) the brand?? do you see the brand name? LOL. (Shavuot is a Jewish holiday.)

So that’s my time in Jamaica, my babies. I leave you with a Jamaican proverb, just one of the many such cards that housekeeping left on our pillows every night – literally the best part of the trip.

The post Vegan in Jamaica? Yah Mon! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

Things

The only really nice to look at part of Brussels is the Grand Place, the central square of Brussels and the most crowded place in Europe outside of Parisian museums and the London tube after work. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Grand Place is often named the most beautiful square in the world, which is…surprising. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong, but the most beautiful square in the world? Maybe in August every other year, when they do the incredible flower carpet over the entire thing. But in winter? It’s fine. I’m fine.

I enjoyed the pinkish purpley lights and the giant Christmas tree. And while it is very nice, it’s not my favorite thing in the city. For someone who talks SO GD MUCH about how often she has to pee, I know you know exactly what my favorite thing in Brussels is:

Manneken Pis! I know it’s so stupid and so touristy but there is a STATUE in the CAPITAL OF EUROPE of a LITTLE BOY PEEING and it’s the MOST FAMOUS SYMBOL OF THE BELGIAN PEOPLE. You cannot tell me there’s anything better than that. Little Boy Piss is smaller than you expect, about the size of a child his age would be so it’s actually easy to miss on its unassuming lil street corner about 5 minutes from the Grand Place.

It’s said that Little Pissing Man (actual translation) represents the people of Belgium’s independence of mind and sense of humor, which I’d say is true about the fact that this statue exists and is on display, but the actual statue represents their tendency to pee outside.

The statue dates from the early 1600s, and this one is a replica; the real one is in the Brussels City Museum. There are several legends associated with Manneken Pis, and they are all incredible because they all are about a little boy urinating and they all try to explain why that was a momentous event. It’s really extraordinary. They’re all amazing but I’ll share one: in the 14th century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power, and the attackers placed explosives at the city walls to finish things but seriously. A little boy was spying on the attackers as they prepared and he urinated on the burning fuse and, of course, saved the city. Brussels wants you to know that peeing outside can save lives.

So most people know about Manneken Pis, but did you know about his sister-in-crime, (not me) Jeanneke Pis??!! There’s another little pissing child statue in Brussels and it’s a girl! I honestly cannot.

Jeanneke Pis is located down a dark (and pot-filled) alley so it is not as touristed as Manneken Pis. Gender discrimination, I think. Jeanneke was built as a companion piece to the little piss boy, and she was commissioned in (checks notes) THE YEAR OF MY BIRTH! She’s my spirit statue! She’s behind bars because even Europeans are still lagging behind on women’s rights you’re supposed to throw coins into her fountain and make a wish. Great stuff, Brussels.

Food

Like all capital cities worth their salt, Brussels has some great options for vegans, especially compared with the last time I visited the city like 15 years ago, ugh and oh no. Hooray for progress! Not only is there tons of vegan chocolate even in the chain stores as we saw in Bruges, there’s also now VEGAN WAFFLES!!! But before I share the waffles, you’ll have to eat your vegetables, unless you’re that idiot pathetic man who complained about the Golden Globes going vegan when it’s a) a free meal b) ONE meal and c) he would never be invited, ya basic!; if you’re that guy you don’t get anything.

For lunch in Brussels, I did all my HappyCow research and decided on the most predictable choice for my salad-and-bowl-loving self: Yummy Bowl. It’s a vegetarian bowl joint. They make bowls, like full of all kinds of vegetables. It’s literally perfect.

Well it’s not perfect perfect because I went up to the counter when I arrived and was told to sit and that someone would take my order from the table which is fine but then for the next 30 minutes they took people’s orders at the counters???!!! Like yes all those jackfruits were doing it wrong but they still got served first so the lesson is NEVER FOLLOW THE RULES. But finally I ordered my Super Bowl (not to be confused with the upcoming football game that can EAT my SHORTS because the Eagles are out (are you proud, fam, doesn’t it seem like I actually care? #goeagles (look I did it again!))).

My Super Bowl, like Walt Whitman, contained MULTITUDES: red and white quinoa, young shoots and baby leaves salad, gomasio tofu, avocado hummus, garlic grilled green beans, red cabbage, roasted sweet potatoes, edamame, marinated zucchini, grilled broccoli, mango, pomegranate seeds, goji berries, sunflower seeds, and lemon curcuma dressing. I KNOW! ALL THESE THINGS MIXED TOGETHER! Obviously I sang like the boy in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (“Oh Happy DAYYYY”).

I know some of you are like ‘um you know they have vegan burgers and fries and stuff in Brussels, right’ but you know I love a loaded salad like nothing else. And I got a waffle for you! Well not ‘for you’ but for you, know what I mean?

Let’s take a walk through this GORGEOUS arcade to find our vegan waffles!

Here we are!

Vegan Waf is, you guessed it, the vegan waffle joint in Brussels that I say is a MUST VISIT. This was SO DELICIOUS, not to be confused with the best ice cream brand but man alive did you know? Did you know about waffles??!!! Like about real Belgian waffles? I think I had one when I was first in Belgium but I wasn’t vegan yet so I didn’t appreciate it because I was probably like “yeah I can eat this I can eat ANYTHING I don’t even care!” but now I care.

If you aren’t vegan, or you drink beer, or both, I even have a recommendation for you! Before our train home to Londres, we whiled away the hours (conferring with the flowers) at La Mort Subite, which is a very direly named old-fashioned bar that is suuuupes classic and like French if you are looking for that sort of thing. Rude old men waiters, enormous blocks of cheese, amazing beer (so I’m told), so I have it on good authority (husbo’s) that you should go there. We sat at the window and the people at the table outside had a dog so I was set.

Anyway that’s literally all we did in Brussels.

Sleep

I don’t actually have a recommendation for you, I have an anti-recommendation. An opposite torture, as Michael would say. We arrived in Belgium on the late night Eurostar, so we slept in Brussels before leaving first thing in the morning for Bruges. We stayed in the B&B Hotel Brussels Centre Gare du Midi, right across the street from the train station, just for a cheap simple place to spend the night. It was literally the worst, most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve slept in some random places all over the world. So, just a warning.

Brussels might not be the most charming to look at, but there’s lots of culture that you should immerse yourself in, via the many many museums and tours and more. I did that last time so this was just for how to pass your short day in the non-emerald city. Goodbye!

The post One Short Day in the Capital City: A Quick Tour of Brussels appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

come with meeee and you’ll beeeee in a wooooorld of chocolate shops and bridges

HOT DAMN Bruges is adorabullllll. I finally went to this charming lil baby city in Belgium recently and I gotta say, just based on the human-to-chocolate-shop ratio alone, it’s one of my favorite places. The scenery is pretty great too, and other people would rave about the beer, the food (though not the vegan food – you must do research and know where to go), the beer, the quaint old-timey vibe, the beer, and the delightful ease of a visit. I am mostly enamored of the chocolate. OH and the cone-shaped fruit candy too. See I have more than one interest. At this time of year, the Christmas markets are all over Belgium, and while Bruges’s didn’t have anything of particular interest for me, it was still a pretty sight, not that the town needed any help in that department.

We were supposed to go to Bruges this past summer for the bank holiday weekend, but we had to reschedule because of TINGS, I tell ya, TINGS. Honestly, it was fine that we had one less day to spend. I’m not saying more time wouldn’t be nice here, but having all of Saturday, one night, and then Sunday morning was plenty for seeing the highlights and getting a feel for the town. Also it was suuupes crowded. I think it’s always full of tourists, but now that it’s Christmas-market season, it’s packed. (Doesn’t detract from its loveliness! You got nowhere to go!) We’re usually go-go-go travelers, so I think it worked out that we had less time since this is the opposite of a go-go-go place.

Our first stop once we arrived was, naturally, THE BLOOD OF CHRIST CHURCH. This place is seriously called Procession of the Holy Blood, because apparently the blood of Christ is in a vial and you walk by it one by one with a guard watching. Considering all the vials of blood I’ve seen, this one definitely ranks high and isn’t going to come back telling me I have another auto-immune disorder, so.

There’s actually a line-guard to make sure everyone stays in line orderly and like doesn’t make a fuss, don’t make a fuss, and then there’s a lady standing with the vial at the top of the altar/stage and you say ‘hi’ and ‘thanks I guess’ to her as you look at the ancient glass vial. Since you cannot take photos of the blood of Christ (it’s like a vampire it can’t have its essence captured), I’ll splain: it is a very ancient glass vial covered with gems and crusted over with…well I guess with the holy spirit?

It’s 2.50 euro for the museum inside the blood church, but it’s free to see the blood vial in the church. Not sure what’s in the museum part, probably like information on where the blood came from and all that lore which you will not get from me.

After we saw the blood of Christ, we went to see him as a lil baby with his mama at the Church of Our Lady, or the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk if you nasty. This church/museum houses the famous Michelangelo sculpture Madonna of Bruges, which depicts the Virgin Mary and her magical baby. It’s a lovely sculpture, but the whole alcove it stands in is currently under construction. Thankfully, the museum knew that visitors were coming just for that so there is a hole in the scaffolding so you can still see it.

The best thing is the information on the wall for this piece. It begins “Contrary to the habits early in the sixteenth century, Our Lady does not look tender and sweet here, but rather glum and sad. She thinks deeply and expresses the fear that her large and naked child will soon run away.” LARGE AND NAKED CHILD. I sent this to Rob Delaney obviously, the king of large and naked children.

So that’s the main thing in the Onke museum, but there are other treats that make it worth the ticket price (which I just checked and it was only 4 euro so go nuts). Across from the sculpture, there’s a painting that made us go ‘huh, that looks like a Caravaggio’ (and by ‘us’ I mean ‘husbo’ because I am just like ‘oh art’) and it WAS! And also was not. Facts: This painting, The Disciples at Emmaus, was long attributed to Caravaggio because, as husbo can attest to, it looks like his work. However, experts now believe it’s the work of Hendrik Ter Brugghen in the style of Caravaggio; he liked to copy him. Fun fact we learned, Caravaggio’s first name was Michelangelo too! He must have been pissed!

(Oh dear, upon further investigation it looks like Caravaggio was not his last name but the town he grew up in??? and it’s a ‘da Caravaggio’ situation like ‘da Vinci’ which ISN’T LEONARDO’S LAST NAME it means FROM VINCI and oh my god I really really hope Michelangelo Merisi is okay with everyone referring to him by the name of his town ahhhh.) (Okay upon even further investigation it appears Caravaggio was a murderer? so call him what you want.)

Here’s a scenery interlude for making it through the museum bits.

As you can see, taking little boat rides around the canals is a Big Thing, though no one sings (however, they do use an intense microphone setup that we could hear in our hotel room; luckily they stop tours at night). I decided not to join in the fun though, because I guess I hate fun. No I think I had good reasons: a) it was cold to be stuck in a boat b) I get seasick (okay man it’s not ‘the sea’ but you never know) and c) the best pictures are of the boats on the canals, not from the boats.

How about a quick look at the Christmas market? Just a quick one because it was pretty meh for me. In the main square, there were the familiar wooden stalls of European winter markets with the familiar wares: fried meats and fish and fries, alcohol, more non-vegan food, touristy gifts that put “Bruges” on magnets and towels and shirts and ornaments &c., and more alcohol. It was pretty-ish, but overrun with drunk men who had no idea whose space they were intruding into so we peaced rather quickly.

I mean I’m not going to share pictures of meat stalls (which was all the food, except for the cheese) and bar stalls so there’s really nothing left except woollen socks and ornamenti. The belfry looks great though; maybe we should climb that later.

Here’s the best thing we saw:

Before, between, and after the sights we visited, we bought chocolate. We bought a lot of chocolate, and sadly, even though it has been like a week, I’m out. My favorite shop was La Belgique Gourmande, because the staff was helpful AND they didn’t even have to be – their bowls of various chocolates were really well marked with all allergens!!! Eeee! I love a good labeling system!

The funniest thing was that, by our second day in Belgium, we learned that this is pretty much the most popular chain of chocolate shoppes in the whole damn country and we were treating it like a tiny little artisan find, HILARIOUS. Who cares, I love that they have more of these in Brussels (next post) than Starbucks in NYC. We shopped at three of them.

Below you can see the best chocolate they make that I should have gotten 100 pieces of instead of 100 grams. It’s like Ferrero Rocher with an amazing hazelnut butter filling but there’s no dairy! You can see on the tag their allergen legend, which shows that this contains nuts and soy, and NOO DAIRY! woot! I love them for this guidance! I love labels. Except for people, obvs.

We also bought some-but-not-enough of the famous Belgian fruit candy called cuberdons, which is like little cone-shaped pate de fruits and they are really good! They are also accidentally vegan so go nuts! Although I’d avoid the cherry because it tasted like medicine. We learned that these famous candies are only really found in Belgium because they don’t last long enough to export; the quality would suffer and people would be like ‘these aren’t so great’ instead of like ‘moar pleeeease.’

Alright, time for another sightseeing adventure before we get to the food. On Sunday morning, before we left Bruges for Brussels, we planned to climb the belfry in the main square. It’s one of the city’s most prominent landmarks, and is heavily responsible for the historic centre of Bruges attaining UNESCO world heritage status. The bell tower was built in 1240 but rebuilt after a fire in 1280…which is still super super old. There were several fires over the years, including one that wiped out the spire that was never rebuilt, so the tower today is shorter than it once was.

Here it is at night, GORGE.

And here in the daytime:

Unfortunately, the day we climbed it – the only slot we had available – was foggy mcfoggerton senior. Visibility was like, maybe three inches in front of you. Once you got a foot off the ground NOPE couldn’t see shite. Even the ticket man was like ‘are you sure you want to climb today…’ and we were like ‘no but we have no choice.’ We had to climb the thing, because we climb things (except ice mountains) so it had to be during the fog.

Kind of hilarious! It reminded us of our INCREDIBLE (as in cannot believe it) experience in Huangshan, when we climbed all day up a mountain in China and saw literally nothing. We had fun though; we do like climbing towers, and it’s good exercise (more on that below) (I mean sort of, like 2 words).

Alright, y’all bitches made it. It’s time for the vegan food. So, the food in Belgium is not surprisingly not the greatest for vegans, unless you like living on frites (that means fries), which I do not, because – hot take alert – fries aren’t that great. The HappyCow app is indispensable for Bruges, alerting us to the vegetarian restaurants or at least the veg-friendly ones. We only had two meals in Bruges but we had experiences (run-ins) with a few restaurants.

First, I took advice from HappyCow reviews and went to Brasserie Forestiere restaurant for lunch, a slightly upscale (meaning, expensive (as all of Bruges is) and doesn’t do tap water oof) cafe that promised to know what vegan meant and in fact has a tofu wrap on the menu. It was fine, they definitely do and that’s definitely true, but it was mostly soy sauce and a lot bell peppers, which I don’t like, so if I knew better I would have chosen the falafel place ‘t Brugs Pitahuis (I get the pitahouse part and I guess I can accept Brugs but I do NOT get the ‘t business (I understand that it’s their abbreviation for the word for ‘the’ but still it’s difficult for me)). But then again, I do get falafel all the time since I live next to a Pilpel (best falafel in London alert) so I’m not mad. I’m especially not mad because the pile of peppers came with a side salad AND a scoop of avocado/guacamole (best not to ask), and you know how much I love a surprise salad. And salad in general. Why do I love salad so much? Hot tip: mix the whole avo scoop into the wrap and everything is better.

Anyway, it was decent and incredibly filling, but a wrap it was not. A wrap has LITERALLY one requirement:

And this clearly failed that. I wouldn’t call this cornucopia of onions and peppers spilling out of an open shell a wrap. Of course I did try to pick it up and eat it as intended, which was forking hilarious (it did not work).

If you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll pass the Frites Museum on the walk back from Forestiere to the main square. Yes, it’s an entire museum dedicated to fries. No, we did not go but knock yourself out.

For our one dinner in town, we were eager to try the all-vegetarian restaurant Des Plaats. However, the guy who greeted us was kind of a dick. Fun fact that we did not know: You cannot eat dinner in Bruges without a reservation. And I don’t just mean at this little dick boy’s restaurant; I mean everywhere. We were turned away from several places that were ‘fully booked’ even though they were absolutely empty at the time. Bruges just WILL NOT FEED YOU without a reservation, which okay, I understand, it’s crowded, but we didn’t know. Except instead of just saying ‘no, we’re fully booked sorry’, the Des Plaats bellend was like supes rude, unnecessarily. Fork his boring plaats anyway.

Luckily, one restaurant remained to check out, one I’m not sure why we didn’t go to first since it’s entirely vegan: de Brugsche Tafel, a small family-run restaurant that has a small but solid menu and two adorable kids helping their parents out. I wanted to hug them I was so happy they agreed to feed us. It was great, too, and we were happy to support a family.

We read a lot of good reviews about the ramen, but they had two specials that sounded good: the mushroom palak with basmati rice, and vegetables in vindaloo sauce, so both Indian-esque dishes. To fit super well with that theme, we got bruschetta to start (I’m funny). The bruschetta was on regular sliced bread, which is funny, but toasted, so it all worked out. It was one the garlickiest foods I’ve ever eaten and I FORKING LOVED it. Husbo, who is less garlic-oriented, said it was almost too garlicky, but I, a person with eye-tal blood who has garlic coming through her pores at most times, do not think so.

The mains were great; I think the mushroom palak is the winner but overall everything was, as the Brits say about food which I just do not understand but I guess I have to now, ‘nice.’ A weird thing we both noticed was that they didn’t use any beans, tofu, seitan, &c. Usually we see this lack of protein sources at restaurants that aren’t vegan, especially if they’re trying fancy tasting menus, but not at all vegan places, so that was quite odd.

The best part about de Brugsche Tafel (aside from the hospitality, the ability to feed us without buying into the Bruges Booking Malarkey, the family-helping jawn, and the fact that every once in a while we’d see the tiny little girl child climb CLIMB up onto chairs to remove empty dishes from other tables and it was hilarious and adorable) is that THEY HAVE VEGAN BELGIAN WAFFLES.

Baby’s first vegan Belgian waffle! Granted it’s my first time being back in Belgium since being vegan but still, wowee! I remember when I was first in Brussels, I guess 15 years ago, and I had a street waffle with maybe speculoos? and it was great obvs but this was EXCELLENT. The waffle part was so amazing it didn’t even need the chocolate sauce (but I wanted it). They are 4 euro and this little carton was the to-go container but whatever I ate it as soon as we got outside and it was magical.

As for our lodging, that was a bit of a predicament. Very, very few hotels in Bruges will let you book for just one night. The place we were going to stay in in August was going to be for two nights, so they wouldn’t let us change it to one. (Well, then they said ‘for you, we will make an exception!’ and offered a one-night rate…at the price of two nights. Cool guys.) Luckily, we found the adorable restaurant and inn Hotel Duc de Bourgogne. It’s right on the canal, super quaint and old-fashioned and perfect for the broogie vibe. The old-fashionedness means there weren’t enough outlets, and I wish each room could control its own heating, but there were no real problems on those fronts. The staff was super nice and accommodating.

The hotel/restaurant is the white building on this canal. One of those windows was ours!

Aside from the loveliness and the chocolate, the best part about Bruges is the dog-human ratio. EVERYONE WHO LIVES THERE HAS A DOG. We saw so many adorbsy puppos my head almost sploded. I took lots of pics (more in my instagram stories, Bruges highlight) but here are my best friends I made:

Ok bye babies!

The post In Bruges: Man Alive It’s Like a Forking Fairytale appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

In this post, we’re moving south to the Coyoacán neighborhood of Mexico City, where we find the famous blue house of Frida Kahlo, Casa Azul. I mean I guess it’s the famous house of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera but he seemed like a bit of a wanker so I’m going to focus less on him. Just a few blocks away is the Leon Trotsky house, where the Soviet revolutionary/Marxist/politician/Bolshevik/ Communist Party leader/&c lived and died in exile but not before partying with the Kahlo fam bam. I almost used a photo of the Trotsky house as the banner picture for this post but thought that might be weird/get me on lists. Anyway, aside from those two house museums we’re gonna eat great food and then go to a spectacular spectacle that I shockingly loved: Lucha Libre, the crayballs Mexican wrestling extravaganza.

Let’s start with the Commies!

THE LEON TROTSKY MUSEUM-HOUSE

Since I’m American, let’s start with the commies. You know how into all things Russia we’ve been for the past few years, learning as much as we can about the people taking over America, &c (and their language! правда!) so we weren’t missing this. I recommend a visit – it’s pretty quick and fairly interesting. It costs 40 pesos and would not take you more than 40 minutes to visit, so it’s like a peso per minute, a ratio that bothers me much less for museums than it does for theatre, strangely.

Trotsky was kind of a big deal in the USSR in the early 1900s, which is pretty much the time of all the big Soviet leaders whose names you know, like Stalin. Trotsky did not like Stalin. I mean no one ‘liked’ Stalin but he did it to his face. I really want to give him the nickname ‘The Trots’ but he’ll probably haunt me for that so no. Okay, so Leon was big into Marxism as a teen, as all teens are (?) and helped form the South Russian Workers’ Union. Since that sounds kinda nice, unions are good, he was exiled to Siberia, while I on the other hand paid to go there which is hilarious. (It’s not bad.) An enterprising young Trotter escaped to England, changed his name to the one we know now, and met up with fellow Bolshevik revolutionary Lenin, and they drank and argued in all the classic English pubs every night till closing about which of them would be commemorated in the future in every single Russian village and city with a giant and I mean GIANT bust of his head. (It was Lenin.) Mista Trotterrrr returned to Russia in 1905 for the Russian Revolution and was again exiled to Siberia and again escaped. This f-ing guy, am I right?

His radicalism got his azz thrown out of lots of otherwise nice places like Paris, Spain, NYC, and Switzerland (I mean but ‘neutrality’ favors the oppressors so fork you) (I know I know it is bothering me too that that list goes city, sovereign, city, sovereign but that’s how the source material I’m referencing does it ugh) and then he went back to Russia in time for the 1917 revolution. I mean he shows up for the important events, you gotta hand it to him. He was instrumental in the Bolshevik’s successful power grab, and he became Lenin’s secretary of foreign affairs. He did lots of stuff, yada yada yada, learned English from Seinfeld, and seemed to be the successor to Lenin, but as The Death of Stalin taught us, once a leader gets sick all hell breaks out and the succession struggle falls into chaos. When Lenin died, Stalin emerged as leader, and since Trottingham East didn’t like him and in fact openly criticized his polices, Stalin propagandaed him, removed him from his posts, and then exiled him from the Communist Party and then the Soviet Union. After some time in Turkey and a few other Euro stops, Trottingham North was granted asylum in Mexico! Yay Mexico! He and his fam first lived at the Casa Azul with Frida! Did you know! Trotavarius had an affair with Frida, a fellow Communist (Alexander did you know), but like who didn’t (we will get there). I imagine he also ate some amazing food that must have been a welcome respite from cucumber-tomato salad (what I had all throughout the former USSR). After a few years and a few too many fights with Diego (I can imagine what about), the Trotskys moved a few blocks away to their own house, which is now the museum. Despite being probably as far away as possible, Stalin was still mad and prob jealous of the food so he ordered Trotsky’s assassination. The first one, using guns, was a failure, but the last one, with an ice axe, well, the details make it seem like also a failure (I wish I didn’t know the details) but he died the next day from his wounds. 

So the museum! So fun! The entry building has lots of photographs from Trotsky’s life and info about his work. It was fun to practice reading Cyrillic again and to listen to all the Russian tour groups (I think when we were there it was just us and Russian tour groups). It’s not super informative but some of the photos are interesting. The real focus of the museum is his actual house and gardens. It has been kept just as it was when he lived there, which means it’s dark, due to bars and shutters on the windows. That also means some of the interior walls still have bullet holes from the failed attack. In the kitchen, his pots and pans are still out; in the bedrooms, shoes are still lined up; and in Leon’s study, his papers and glasses and books are still on his desk. Out in the lovely gardens is his tomb. 

So, it’s not the most popular tourist attraction, but I definitely recommend a quick visit before the Casa Azul, especially since his relationship to the Kahlos can help you understand them more. 

CASA AZUL: THE BLUE HOUSE OF FRIDA KAHLO

When you visit the Frida house, you buy tickets online in advance. It’s too busy and popular to risk otherwise. But even so, you’ll wait in an endless line snaking around the house, around the block, and several blocks away to enter. Yes, when we arrived in what we thought was good time for our ticketed slot, ticket holders were waiting in a queue for almost an hour. In the SUN, guys. It was rough. If it was for the theatre I would have missed most of the first act and demanded an exchange and better seats.

Is it worth it? I mean I’m not a Frida nut but it’s pretty interesting and, ya know, it’s the big f-ing thing to do. If you really don’t care, then by all means skip it; there’s no reason to set aside a whole afternoon for it. But if you have the time, it’s fairly interesting. You learn a lot about Frida, what she went through, what kind of person she really was. And the house is lovely.

Once you enter, they will try to shuffle you straight into the museum part of the house, where you look at Frida’s and Diego’s paintings with lots of tourists taking selfies with them even though, if I recall correctly, you aren’t allowed to take pictures. Don’t let them manhandle you though – there are no bathrooms until you finish the entire inside tour of the house, so find them first and then go back. It’s a MADHOUSE, wall-to-wall people, and you’ll get agita trying to read about all the works when people are blocking everything. There are some interesting works in these initial rooms, but the better stuff awaits when you see the rooms as they lived in them.

I especially liked the kitchen. I don’t think we were allowed to take pictures but we have this one, so.

Surprisingly, the super long video that’s playing on a deck out in the garden space was incredibly interesting. I usually zone out in museum videos, especially ones that are this long (it’s like a whole movie) but it was great. As we already learned, Frida had an affair with Trotsky, but did you also know she probs had one with…Georgia O’Keefe? Yah. More important than her affairs is the information about Frida’s chronic pain. She had polio as a small child and its effects changed her body forever, leaving her with one leg shorter and significantly weaker than the other, due to muscle atrophy. As a teenager, she would suffer even more after a streetcar accident, which left her with fractured ribs, spine, clavicle, pelvis, leg, a crushed foot, a dislocated shoulder, and an iron railing through her hip and pelvic floor, causing the infertility represented in many of her paintings. They didn’t think she would survive the accident, but she did, and was left with a lifetime of pain.

Her father encouraged her to start painting as she recovered, and that’s how she met Diego. If you’re more familiar with her art than I was, you’ve seen her pain and suffering, as well as her strength, in her works.

In fact, her famous clothing style was a direct result of that: her corsets were really back braces helping her stand up. The square tops of her Tehuanan ethnic heritage could fit over and hide the brace. Flowers in her hair, her famous braids, and other interesting adornment above the neck would lead people to look up instead of down at her broken, withered legs, which were also hidden often by big skirts.

She went through a lot, is what I’m saying. And I knew some of her famous work and some generalities about her life, but I never knew she was disabled. She was an artistic pioneer in large part because of her pain, and it’s worth noting how her disability is largely erased from the popular narrative (and of course the cinematic portrayals). Of course, she still had quite a life – people long thought of her as a victim to Diego’s infidelity, but girl could get it too, and did – but you understand a lot more about her when you know how she was constantly suffering.

Also, she and Diego were Communists. I think it fairly hilarious how much she would despise the capitalist pigs who make endless tee shirts and tote bags with her face on them and how bewildered she’d be by the people wearing them. She’d hate the gift shop on her property selling all kinds of shit with her face. I think she’d hate the Christmas ornaments most of all, or she’d find it all utterly hilarious.

Okay, that’s enough of the serious stuff for today, right? Let’s switch to Arizona trash-bag mode and talk about food and wrestling.

VEGAN FOOD

Coyoacan is a fantastic neighborhood for vegan food. We planned on eating lunch at Aura Vegana (at Malintzin 199), and we stick to most plans, but we were almost enticed away to several other vegan establishments we discovered just as we wandered!

First, we saw Pan Gabriel, a bakery billing itself as entirely vegan! According to HappyCow, it is all vegan, but heads up – inside, we found several products with egg, and several others that reminded me of that one doughnuttery that appeared at the UK Vegan Fest like 9 years ago and told everyone that their giant amazing doughnutty things were vegan even though they looked exactly like another company’s products that were not vegan and then they disappeared from the face of the earth, so, ya know, be wary.

They have a lot of gorgeous bread products, cakes, rolls, sweet empanadas, all kinds of bakery treats that made me absolutely lose my shit and overpurchase in a glutinous fit. However, the actual goodies were disappointing. Everything was very bready, even the things that weren’t supposed to be bread, like doughnuts and cookies and brownies and cakes and well I guess that’s everything. And nothing was sweet enough. Honestly I would skip unless you hear of improvements, or unless you like your treats to be shiny bread.

LITERALLY NEXT DOOR to Pan Gabriel is a restaurant called Temictli, which is billed as ‘Plant-Based’ on the awning but even though I despise the cowardliness of people using that phrase all the time now instead of just saying vegan, they get a pass because they sound amazing and the lady was so nice (also because it’s not in an English speaking country so they can do what they want with words). Temictli’s menu looked OFF THE CHIZZ:

This is not even all of it! We were so tempted to stay put and skip Aura Vegana, but unforch the lady explained that even though she let us in and gave us a menu to look at, they weren’t actually open yet. Oops. Next time Temictli, you sound AMAZ.

So that means we stuck to our plan of Aura Vegana, which was pretty good.

Aura Vegana is a small cafe on the ground floor, right at the entrance, of a larger building with a bar up top and other restaurants inside. They have English versions of their menus, and they have green juice. I was sold before we sat down.

I assume I ordered an ‘Emerald’ juice, which mixed my classic hits like celery, orange, coocoomba, kale, spinach, parsley, and lemon, but I have a slight memory of husbo saying something like ‘you always have stuff like that at home’ so there’s a chance I actually had the ‘Turquoise’, which is celery, parsley, grapefruit, prickly pear, and pineapple. Either way guys, they have various green juices and it’s cool.

Since apparently I share pictures of menus now, here’s one from Aura:

I don’t know why these are called ‘Morning Dishes’ and the next page of the menu – all food from other cultures, like ravioli, various hamburgers, curry, hummus, Vietnamese noodles? – was called ‘Afternoon Dishes’, but definitely stick to Morning because you’re here for Mexican food.

We decided to share an order of enchiladas and an order of chilaquiles. This was baby’s first chilaquiles, which means I didn’t realize what I was getting into: it’s like, fried tortillas with sauces and junk on it, and it’s pretty delicious but was pretty heavy for me. Also, for being called ‘tofu chilaquiles’, there wasn’t much tofu. In fact, there was one piece on top, so, you know. The enchiladas were great, a bit more my speed though it was all heavy, creamy, filling food. We chose the little hogweed and portobello version, although there was not enough little hogweed – I found one strip of greenery which I’m assuming was the little hogweed. Maybe that’s why they said little.

It was all delicious, if heavy, but I should have known that going in. The cashew cheese on top was excellent, as was all the sauciness. Mexican food is amazing.

Outside, we passed a local park that was literally covered in paleta and gelato shops. Paletas are the Mexican ice pops that are made from incredible fruit purees (if you are cool and want vegan ones), which we enjoyed throughout the Yucatan. We decided on watermelon and horchata sorbets from one of the parkside shops, and we liked it, and we loved it.

LUCHA LIBRE

Alright I’m here, she’s here, we all made it to the craziest thing we did in Mexico City, the thing you have to do if you visit CDMX even though it seems ridiculous and if you’re like me you are probably like ‘really?’ but if you are like me you will give it a shot and you’ll be glad you did because it’s HYSTERICAL and SO FORKING ENTERTAINING. On a Friday night after our exploration of Coyoacan and communism and everything, we took the metro to the Arena Mexico for some Mexican wrestling, straight out of the Jack Black movie Nacho Libre but probably not entirely like that but honestly I’ve never actually seen it so shh but it doesn’t matter because now I’ve seen the REAL THING, BABIEEEES!

Lucha Libre is Mexico’s professional wrestling, of the sort you’d see on TV where you know they were faking it but it doesn’t matter. The wrestlers wear masks and costumes and have specific characters to play. The wrestling is as boisterous and raucous as the crowd, and they favor dramatic flips and crashes and bams (I don’t know all the terms) over rule-following and it is RIDICULOUS and it is HILARIOUS and it is AWESOME. I cannot recommend it enough.

When we arrived at the Arena Mexico, there was a line longer than the Frida house line, but it moved. We didn’t have tickets, and neither did the many western tourists in line with us. We had fun talking about our travels and Nacho Libre with the other tourists (I’m really good at lying about movies), and we also bought some amazing swag. Ingeniously, the sidewalks along the side of the building/blocks and blocks where the line travels are filled with souvenir stands. We bought husbo’s brother a Lucha Libre mask, then a few minutes later at another stall we bought him a cape (he’s a fan), then a few minutes later we got t-shirts. It’s like a neighborhood version of the rack by the supermarket checkout.

When we got to the main entrance, we were told there were good 200 peso tickets left for great seats. If you want to spend less, I’m sure you could. The place is freaking enormous, and I don’t think it’s possible for it to sell out, so don’t worry about tickets being available. There were lots of high sections that remained empty.

The only downside to going to Lucha Libre is the venue security, worse than any I’ve dealt with yet. Not only did they take my water – and they didn’t have any free water in the venue, only bottles for sale, which is illegal??? – and my snacks, they took MY GUM. My gum that I can only get in the USA and needed for the plane home so I didn’t vom! Dammit security lady! So so weird.

Aside from that though, it was stellar. Such a spectacle, such a loud ridonk spectacle, and so much fun.

We saw a lineup of 5 matches, I think, including group fights, a random parade of women? I forget, it was bright and loud. But it was awesome. We had recently enjoyed season 2 of Glow so we were jonesing for some well choreographed wrestling that looked painful but wasn’t.

I honestly can’t believe how much I enjoyed this. I definitely recommend it for a touristy but fun cultural experience that you kind of cannot miss. Once we were seated, it ran from about 8:30pm-11pm, about the length of a regular show we’d be at on a Friday night anyway, so it was a new super fun kind of evening entertainment for us.

Here’s my absolute favorite part: all the Mexican babies that are not only up so late but exposed to the UNBELIEVABLE NOISE of this place (bring earplugs if you’re sensitive…not that this baby had any…)

Alright, that’s it for this post! Which of the things that you are probably surprised to have found in this post did you enjoy the most, the Communism or the wrestling?

Oh oh one more thing, found in a shopping mall:

The post Vegan In Mexico City Part 2: Coyoacan! Frida! Nacho Libre! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

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! 

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.

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.

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’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.

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.

The post Traveling While Vegan in: Mexico City (Part 1: Hipodromo, La Condesa, Roma) appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

Catch up on the Yucatan adventure!

Part 1: 

Part 2:

A long, hot drive to Merida led us to our hotel for three nights (absurdly long for us) called Casa Lucia, a lovely little boutique hotel with a giant, clean bed, a good shower, and most importantly, a lovely pool area. When in Mexico in the summer, you need to find lodging that has a pool, that’s just the rule and we don’t support rule-breakers here.

Although the poolside bar service didn’t really work (where did that phone actually call??), the pool area was just what we needed after our long days of tourism. It was empty a few times, but mostly there were just 3-4 other guests using it, the benefit of a rather small hotel. I loved attempting to relax in the hammock even though I never trust them.

The rooms were spread around this courtyard on 2-3 levels, and everything felt really spacious and private. Here’s my standard hotel bed picture!

Since we were staying at Casa Lucia 3 nights, and when we travel we normally don’t have that much time at one hotel, I like to make the most of longer stays by unpacking COMPLETELY. Every sock, every extra ziplock bag, everything gets unpacked if I’m in a place longer than 2 nights. It’s honestly one of my top travel tips because it brings me some weird sort of peace, like feeling at home.

For our first night in Merida, we had a decent list of all the vegan-friendly restaurants we wanted to try, but guess what – it was Monday, and like Dave says in the movie “Dave” but the exact opposite, “Everything is closed on Mondays!” Ughhh. Well what would be our favorite restaurant in the Yucatan, Distrito Vegano (infra!) (I’ve never been so excited about an infra before but I am! it’s a good one! (it means below/later in this writing)), was open but it’s outside the city center and we didn’t feel like driving any more. So our only real option was the chain restaurant 100% Natural, which I obviously called Mr. Natural. It has easy-for-tourist menus with pictures, English versions, and vegan options clearly marked, and since we were beat (BEAT!) it was a good simple option. The food was whatever but it was exactly what we were after – quick, easy, no-thinking. I got a bowl of kale soup that was Not Good, but I also got mushroom tacos that were Very Good, so it averaged out to be a fine dinner.

After dinner, we walked through the main square, saw the requisite dancing in the square as one does throughout the Yucatan and as one learned in previous posts, and…went to church. No but our hotel was on the same block as this cute lil church so we took a picture and crossed ourselves? and went on our merry way.

Our merry way included some stops in other cute lil places, namely cute lil shops, including one where I got THE FUNNIEST coin purse I’ve EVER seen and will post in my instagram stories for you to enjoy, and one where I found mamey flavored bolis! Bolis are like bags of flavored water ice – you just bite the corner off the plastic bag and it’s like a big ice…bar…kinda jawn. I’m so glad I got to try something mamey flavored. So good!

The next day, we went to Uxmal and the ChocolateLand (Choco-Story museum), which you already read about. What you didn’t already read about was that, there’s not really any food out there. Luckily, we brought sufficient snacks (bananas, Justin’s peanut butter packs (ALWAYS when traveling!), lime nuts, chips/salty things of all shapes and sizes) to get us through the day, but that’s a big day, and in this heat, oof, we were pretty hungry. Luckily, we had made a reservation for that evening for dinner at Lo Que Hay, the vegan restaurant inside Merida’s Hotel MedioMundo.

The owners of Lo Que Hay were very helpful and friendly (and fluent in English). I believe one is originally from Lebanon, and so the set menu varies between Lebanese and Mexican food. The night we booked was Lebanese night, which is fine, but we really were after Mexican food all day err day. If you’ve been in Mexico for a while and need a break from Mexican food, this would be absolutely perfect because it was delicious, but we were the tiniest bit disappointed to miss an opportunity for MOAR MEXICAN FOOD.

It was good though, and it was outside in a lovely setting. For 200 pesos, or $10, we got a nice spread (though not as much food as we expected/hoped, it was probably a normal amount for normal people).

We started with a mezze plate with hummus, babaghanoush, tabouli made with quinoa, falafel, and pita.

All the components were great! The falafel reminded us more of kibbeh, not that it mattered since it was all good. We just like…wanted more. And we wanted it to be Mexican food. Lol that’s OUR BAD. It was really good though, truly.

Next was mjadara, or lentils with basmati rice, plus a purple cabbage and lemon salad.

The fried onions were amazing with the lentils and rice, and like everything else it was really good. Just unexpectedly not Mexican food. Okay okay you get it!

Dessert was lemon sorbet, which was fine (you know how I feel about sorbet but when it’s a hot destination like this it’s fine, I’m fine) and not pictured because guys it was hot out and it was melting!

I definitely recommend going to Lo Que Hay for a lovely dinner, but make sure you are cool with whatever menu they have going on your night because you might not get the tacos your body desperately needs.

Our third day in Merida was a doozy. We decided to enjoy a beach day at Progreso beach, about a half hour from Merida, after we visited the Mundo Maya museo. Progreso is a very normal-life beach – not really built for tourists (good!) but for locals and people who generally can figure shit out on their own. We can figure shit out on our own and don’t need luxury or anything, but Progreso still wasn’t my favorite because…it was windy. I know you’re like oh boo hoo the beach was windy? the Mexican beach you got to visit? But guys, it was like, RULL windy. Like glasses and beer bottles (not mine) and silverware and menus blowing off the tables of beachside restaurants and cafes windy. Like Arabian nights sandstorm looking jawn windy. And most importantly, like ohh this is how people get swept out to sea in harsh rip currents windy. We went in the ocean but it was rough, and it was kinda scary. Yeah there are lifeguards but they’re not like, life guarantors. And it was kind of too windy to enjoy ourselves. We tried to swim, we tried to sit at a little cafe table and enjoy horchata, we tried to really do anything but all we could do was fight the wind (with eyes closed). It was too windy to take our phones out and take pictures! This is literally the only photo we took the entire time!

So, our day at Progreso was a bust. It might have just been an off day, but I figure if you are going to Mexico for the beaches, you got off the bus long before you reached this point in the Yucatan, so stay in Tulum or whatever, or commit to having a non-beachy holiday.

The saddest part was that we went out here in large part to eat at vegan-friendly restaurant Milk Bar, which has amazing reviews. SO EXCITED! SO WORTH THE WIND! We did not expect that Milk Bar’s closed day of choice would be Wednesdays. Yup you guessed it, this was a Wednesday. Dammit! We had a heck of a time walking around the little streets trying to find a restaurant with vegan food. We finally find one called La Antigua and the entire staff was so nice in trying to feed us enough, and they definitely did. I don’t even know if they ever had to deal with a vegan before but they really tried to make me happy and succeeded, which given the rest of the experience in Progreso was a g-d miracle.

Of course, we got guacamole, which was great. They also made this gigantic pear and pecan salad (it seemed like a salad-trustworthy place, and I did not get sick), grilled mushrooms, and black bean dip.

So it worked out well, food wise. It seemed like they felt bad about not having vegan stuff on the menu so they made and brought out everything they could think of! It was so much, and all really good. I just wish the beachy part of the day had worked out as well!

Luckily, that night, our final night in Merida, was The Time.

The Time for Distrito Vegano, the best restaurant in Merida. AND IT’S ALL VEGAN! I’m so excited just remembering how great this place was.

WE GOT SO MUCH FOOD. OK not really we got a normal amount of food but I have a lot of pictures. The special El Xolo hot dog, made with lentils and seitan, was great. The tacos, of any variety, were great. But the torta, MY GOD THE TORTA. It might be because it was my first torta (ever!) (baby’s first torta!) but it was AMAZING. Everything honestly was amazing. I wish I could go to DV every single week. The place was cute, the service was great, and the food was sensational. I LOVED it. I may have just been overexcited at the idea of the first all-vegan Mexican restaurant of our trip (not the last!!) but man alive this was all epic.

Distrito Vegano is a bit annoying to drive to – it’s outside the city and you have to drive on the highway to find it, and it’s like in a random spot, but it’s SO worth it. We finished dinner with peanut ice cream that was just as impressive as the rest. I really want a torta now!

Back in the main/old part of town, we strolled along the enormous fancy boulevard Paseo de Montejo, home to palace museums, rich people, and a well known cafe with a Chevy Impala just like perched on top.

This boulevard at night is also PRIMO DOGGO SPOTTINGO land. We met an older lady leaving her super-gated compound with THREE count em THREE good boys and we chatted and got to meet them. But then we like kept running into her on our walk and I think she thought we were following her and got scared and I SWEAR I wasn’t following I just get like magnetized towards dogs, I think? We mean no harm.

Anyway, we had such a great time in Merida and the Yucatan, and that brings this particular adventure to an end. The next morning, we would fly to Mexico City for even more amazing sights, vegan food, and good dog sightings (in increasing order of importance).

The post The Yucatan Adventure Continues: Vegan Food, Hotels, Beaches, & More Merida appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

Once we saw all the wonders of Chichen Itza, on that amazing first full day in Mexico, we drove about two hours towards the west coast to Merida (it could take you less but remember we left Cheechee at closing time (5pm), so we were living it up during rush hour! On a Monday! So fun in every country!). As we saw in Valladolid and as I warned you would happen in every town in the Yucatan, our evening arrival was commemorated with half of Merida dancing in the street outside the main square, and the other half watching. It’s so fun and lovely; I love that there are still legit communities out there in the world. Meanwhile we don’t even know our neighbors (but one of them has a Leave (Brexit) sign in their window so we don’t want to know them, obvs). Honestly I can’t even believe there are Americans who don’t want Mexican people to be their neighbors. THEY’RE JUST GOING TO DANCE IN THE STREET AND MAKE YOU AMAZING FOOD, what is your problem?

Now that we’re in Merida, it’s time for our favorite travel segment:

Merida, along with being the heroine of the most disappointing “Disney princess” movie (seriously all she does is turn her mother into a bear and we’re supposed to appreciate the “feminism”? she’s a “strong female role model” because she “decided” to turn her mother into a bear? how many “quotes” can I “use”??), is the capital and largest city of the Yucatan state. It’s also one of the most popular destinations in the Yucatan because of its prime location as a perfect jumping off point to start negotiations explore the surrounding sites, and also because it’s one of the most beautiful cities. It’s been named the American Capital of Culture a few times by smart people who know that ‘American’ doesn’t just refer to USA. Merida is indeed a cultural gem, with interesting architecture that mixes its Mayan roots with European influence, and with strong museums, amazing food, and the aforementioned dancing in the Plaza Mayor. Having the largest indigenous population of any Mexican city means its Maya heritage and history are at the forefront.

So in the 1500s, there were three men named Francisco de Montejo and they were all Spanish conquistadors AND they were all related so it got super confusing but there wasn’t much they could do because there just weren’t that many names back then. To make it easier, they used cute lil nicknames: the oldest was “The Lieutenant” (“hello lootellaaaann” – South Pacific), his son was “The Boy”, and his nephew was “The Nephew”. Cute for you! Obviously these were in Spanish because they spoke Spanish because they WERE Spanish! which means they arrived in Mexico and saw indigenous people just carrying on living their lives and the lootellant, the boy, and the nephew – or just The Boy, actually; I think it was just The Boy but then why did I have to hear about all three of these bozos? – were like “LA LA LA I DON’T SEE ANYONE ELSE I MAKE MY CITY HERE. HERE’S A GOOD SPOT.” Merida was built on the site of the ancient Maya city of T’ho, and stones from T’ho’s/those buildings were used to build the Spanish colonial buildings of downtown Merida, including the cathedral.

For a few centuries, Merida was a walled city, needing such protection because SOME Maya people had the BIG IDEA that the Spanish and their descendants shouldn’t have just up and taken the land so there were some revolts. Modern Merida has since expanded well beyond those old walls. I don’t know much about the treatment of the indigenous population today, but considering they are the majority, I hope they are running things.

I’m going to share Merida hotel and vegan food info in a separate post because there is just SO MUCH to talk about! You may recall we only spent 1 night in Valladolid (and did so much I’m honestly just so proud of my lazy butt) but we have 3 in Merida, so we have a lot of ground (food, really) to cover – as well as a beach day in Progreso! It was not as exciting as it sounded! But you’ll see! In the separate post!

After our first night, we slept in a little because, well because I hadn’t been able to sleep in for like at least a week and I can’t function like that for too long because I have a SYNDROME and the only cure is MORE COWBELL sleep. Also, we had to be ready for another gigantic day! This day was going to be packed with a trip to the site of the ancient Maya city Uxmal, more cenotes, and a surprise chocolate museum that literally took 3 hours and yet was great.

UXMAL

After about an hour’s drive, we got to Uxmal at 11:30am, which is a terrible, no good, very bad idea. See, this was summer, in Mexico. It’s hot. At almost noon, the sun is, like, ready, and boy oh boy it felt like we were in a sauna while we explored the extensive grounds of Uxmal. It was about 102 degrees (Fahrenheit, obvs; see last post for my rant about systems of measurement it’s totally worth it) and we were positively baking. (You’ll be like THEN WHY ARE YOU WEARING A SWEATER IN THESE PICTURES but it is not a sweater it’s like the thinnest material ever made and it just protects my arm skin from burning.) Entry into Uxmal is 413 pesos (about $20) and, like the other sites, a portion of that is a federal fee that has to be paid in cash so you just need to be prepared to pay in cash. 

Like pretty much every site we’ve seen so far in the Yucatan, Uxmal is an ancient Maya city and one of the most important archaeological sites in Maya culture. It’s on the Ruta Puuc, a long grouping of roads that lead to endless Maya archaeological sites and ruins. If you are in the market for an entire day of endless ruins, just drive down the Ruta and see however many you have time for, ensuring you end with Uxmal since it’s the grandest and most important. If, like us, you’ve already seen lots of ruins and you don’t want to get burned out to the point where you don’t appreciate them any longer, start with Uxmal, spend a significant amount of time exploring this site, and then treat yo self to a hilarious afterparty/museum.

While everyone visiting the Yucatan will put Chichen Itza at the top of their to-do list, we were impressed with Uxmal and I think we both agreed it was our favorite site in the state. It’s an enormous site like Chichen Itza, but it’s much less crowded, and it’s also much more interesting topographically. There are so much areas to explore and it seems like they’re all on different levels, like various earthen platforms rising in unexpected ways so there’s all this surprising variation in elevation as you explore. This made our exploration of Uxmal much more exciting and fun. Also, there are ZERO touts, whereas Chichen Itza has tons of stalls all around the interior grounds, which I get and it happens at most important sites around the world, but it’s nice to find one that isn’t all commercialized inside.

Despite its popularity and general fame, Uxmal has not actually been studied enough as an archaeological site. I’ve been calling it an archaeological site and I’m going to keep calling it an archaeological site because calling it old ruins sounds like I’m being a bitch to her, but there hasn’t actually been much archaeology going on. Very little excavation or research has been done because I guess archaeologists are too busy in Egypt still? I don’t know where are they? People think that it was founded about 500 AD and was the capital of the Maya state from 850-925 AD before invaders took over. During its height, it teamed up with Chichen Itza to dominate Mayan society; the two together were like Helene Bezukhova, the queen of society, beautiful, barely clothed, plump bare shoulder and much exposed neck, round which she wears a double string of pearls! okay I’m getting sidetracked by musical theatre again (PIERRE THE CUCKHOLD SITS AT HOME PIERRE THE CUCKHOLD SITS AT HOME the poor man).

Like all good ruins, Uxmal featured a enormous f-ing thing that you have to climb. Well  you don’t have to, but we always feel compelled to climb whatever is climbable, even though my FOMO (fear of missing out) is regularly outweighed by my FOFO (fear of falling off). Uxmal’s expansive grounds include lots of highly climbable structures, but the highest building, the grand temple, is the Featured Climb. As always, it probably looks like an easy climb in the pictures but it was g-d terrifying to come down. I mean the climb up wasn’t a picnic in 102 degree heat when you are sweating buckets even without moving but I almost panicked to a halt coming down. No I definitely did panic-halt a few times. At the top, we met a really nice English family who were taking a year-long tour around the world. They had a son of about 7 years old and the two of us literally talked each other through the descent. We both went down on our bottoms (as the English say) for a part of it, but I felt better standing and going sideways. Guys it was legit terrifying. It’s so steep that you are basically looking at a sheer drop; the stairs are almost on top of each other and even for my small-ish feet they are TINY. I felt bad leaving my new child friend as he took longer but his parents were waiting for him at the bottom and like, didn’t seem concerned and I had to GET THE F OUTTA THERE before I froze again. Ahhh these descents are scary! I mean I get extra scared because I fell down a similar thing once (okay it was stone stairs at college not at an ancient archaeological site BUT STILL) but it’s definitely not a breeze to do for anyone. (Also not a breeze? The lack of breeze.)

At many of these ancient sites, amid the enormous temples and structures for sacrificial rites and residential buildings and smaller temples and everything, would always be an open field called the ‘ball court’. Some, like at Chichen Itza, are ‘Great Ball Courts’. I honestly saw all these signs for ball courts and thought ‘well it’s nice they also had leisure activities and sports.’

We’ll put a pin in that ball court discussion until we get to the Mayan Museum at the end. REMEMBER!

Surviving the descent of that temple was definitely my favorite part, but my second favorite part offers some stiff competition. Like I said (a lot) (yay complaining), it was hot as the balls they used in the great ball court’s non-basketbally game of basketball. When we exited the grounds back into the ticket/welcome building with the toilets and a few shops, we saw THE BEST THING EVER:

ICY DRINKS! PLEASE AND THANK YOU! We shared a mango one and a coconut one and because it was so sweltering out, they were amazing. Icy drinks have never been better. HUZZAH FOR ICE.

What a great place.

After our just-under-two hours at Uxmal, we were definitely ancient-ruinsed out for the day. I mean, all we’d really done so far in Mexico was tour these sites, so continuing further down the Ruta Puuc would have probably made us bitter. Instead, we went across the street from Uxmal to…the Museum of Chocolate.

CHOCO-STORY: ECOPARQUE MUSEO DEL CACAO

We thought the Chocolate Museum, or “Choco-Story” would be a nice little air-conditioned diversion to regroup after our exhausting (but awesome) time at Uxmal, before getting back on the road to find more cenotes. But it turned out to be a HUGE cacao plantation, where they grow and harvest cacao beans and also have an entire museum about the history, growth, use, everything to do with cacao. It was INSANE. We thought it would be like 30 minutes tops and we were there for over 2 hours. But it was SO fun, and so interesting. The museum is spread through the endless grounds in numerous thatched huts, with each hut covering one topic. I fancy myself a chocolate connoisseur and I never imagined there could even be so much information about it.

We learned what healthy beans look like, as well as a lot of (too much) information about all the different kinds of diseases your cocoa beans could catch (omg it was actually very sad). We learned how the very special beans were used as currency in ancient times, and how much they’d be worth. We learned how the Maya would use cocoa beans in their sacrifices to the gods. And we learned about the cocoa gods the Maya people would pray too, like this fine one below who is appropriately but oof sadly covered in cocoa bean…lesions?

We ALSO learned – too late – that it wasn’t just a cocoa plantation, but also a sort of animal sanctuary. When I first came upon the cages, I was like OH SHIT OH SHIT IS THIS SOME SORT OF F-ING ZOO? But there are signs all over the animal areas saying WE ARE NOT A ZOO! and explaining that the animals living here have been rescued from abuse, and wouldn’t be able to survive in the wild. Now I’m no wildlife expert, and I’m sure there’s a strong argument that we still shouldn’t interfere with wild animals even if they face certain death remaining on their own. But there’s not much I personally am mad about if this place is giving these animals a nice life that otherwise would have been over long ago.

Another thing I thought this place did well was reinforce the respect that cacao farming deserves, and how we should treat chocolate as something special and not something we are entitled to. And of course, we have to be careful where we buy from and what kinds of practices we support.

My favorite part was that one hut was for learning how to make traditional Maya hot cacao drinks, complete with making and enjoying your own cup! The cocoa on its own is extremely bitter, so there is a bowl of sugar for making it palatable, plus the traditional spice additions of cinnamon, annatto, allspice, and hot pepper. I added everything!

I also really enjoyed the sign on Chocolate & Health. We had a pretty good laugh at how ridic this was.

It was pretty cool but kind of awkward when we were ushered deeper into the forest (it’s like in a forest, it’s nuts) for a traditional Maya cocoa ceremony. Awkward just because we were uncomfortable with these guys performing for us white tourists and we were just like eeeek thank you I really appreciate this but eeeek, but it was interesting.

Obviously, my favorite part of the Chocolate Museum was truly the gift shop. IT WAS ALL CHOCOLATE! and like, things for making chocolate? and soaps and shampoos made from chocolate? The flavors of their bars sounded incredible, but it was so hot and they would all immediately melt before we made it back to London (in like, another week? no chance!). We limited ourselves to two awesome flavors, both with some sort of pepper.

OH NO! HOLD THAT THOUGHT. My actual favorite part was the additional information inside the main building, near the gift shop. There was a “Chocolate Timeline”, and it included such shade, such absolute, gorgeous, sensational shade, thrown at the king of fuckery, Mr Christopher Columbus. Behold the glory:

I CANNOT handle how excruciatingly perfect this is. In so few words it’s basically announcing what a f-ing asshole Columbus was but without saying anything objectionable. SO GOOD. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.

Choco-story was a really fun surprise! It took over two hours to tour, and the toilets are only outside the ticket area (had to do a few reentries), but I’m glad we went.

After the chocolate, you know what it’s time for.

CENOTES

Another day in the Yucatan, another swim in a cenote! We followed our GPS as best we could towards the middle of nowhere for X’Batun Cenote, which eventually led us down a dirt road. We were like, is this right? Where TF are we? We drove through this amazing, quaint little villages with a single small church and like a cow on the side of the road, wondering if we were going in the right direction. Eventually, we saw a small sign up on a big porch, with a few guys sitting in chairs. They were selling tickets and giving directions! They also had toilets!

The men sold us a joint ticket for two cenotes located across the road from each other, X’Batun and Dzonbacal. It’s 80 pesos for both. Unfortunately, X’Batun was closed because of heavy rains earlier that week – the rains made the water too dirty to swim in. We had a peek at it though, and it was very similar to Dzonbacal, where we still could swim, so it’s fine.

We still have to get there though! This ticket porch is still miles away from the actual cenote! They directed us to drive to the end of this road, turn right past a certain tree, and then drive 3 kilometers down a random suuuuper dirt/off-roady road till there’s a split in the road, indicating the two cenotes. We peeked at the one and then drove to the other, where the parking area had toilets (!) and a shower stall. The toilet was the foulest one I’ve seen yet in the country, and still no hooks were to be found (Mexico like doesn’t do hooks in toilet stalls), so changing in it without letting any of my stuff touch the gross floor was A CHALLENGE. We rinsed off with the shower stall/bucket as you should do (really as you should do not just with natural swimming wonders of the world but in public pools omg the gross men at my London pool don’t shower beforehand even though it’s IN THE RULES and they all reek of cologne HOW MANY EMAILS DO I HAVE TO SEND BEFORE THEY ENFORCE THE RULES) and then we enjoyed this cenote! It was beautiful, like half in a cave half outside.

Such a great cenote. There are decent signs advertising X’Batun, so you shouldn’t have a hard time finding it (or at least finding the right village) if you include it with your trip to Uxmal, which you should do. Hopefully for you X’Batun won’t be too dirty to swim in!

Since we were already in wet bathing suits when we got back to our hotel, we enjoyed our hotel pool after our cenote time. Double swimming days are the best. But more on that in the next post!

Aside from our beach day in Progreso, we have one more sight to share from our time in Merida, and one of the most important: The Mayan World Museum of Merida, or the Gran Museo del Mundo Maya.

GRAN MUSEO DEL MUNDO MAYA

The Mayan Museum is the big thing to do actually in the city of Merida. It’s off one of the main expressways of the city leading north out of it (so it makes sense to visit the museum first and then continue north to Progreso for a beachy day trip, if you are planning things for yourself). It’s a huge, modern, shiny building with a gigantic, new, shiny, modern parking garage underground. It costs 80 pesos to park in it, which is $4, and worth it to keep your car out of that sun.

When you get to the huge shiny lobby of the museum, you’ll be (I was) happy to see water dispensers for refilling your enormous water bottles! Honestly my favorite part.

It’s 150 pesos per ticket, about $7.50 which is not bad considering how much this museum has. The exhibits are great, but there isn’t very good signage, at least in English, which was a little disappointing. Still, you can learn a lot from what what signs there are and from just looking at the displays with a modicum of critical thinking.

There’s tons of information about indigenous cultures, their ways of life, and what they were like in ancient times, in every aspect. There’s tons of archaeological finds, including ancient statues and all kinds of pottery.

But you’re here to finally learn what the big ball courts in all the ruins sites are about. All over Mesoamerica, these ancient cities have these huge ball courts, and like I said before, it’s not just for old-fashioned forms of basketball. Archaeologists believe that the game was played by hitting the ball with one’s forearm, or a bat-like device, to try to pass it through those rings we saw above, in Uxmal, on the side walls of the playing field. Hitting it with your forearm sounds like it would hurt, because the balls were HEAVY. Yikes! That’s probably as bad as it gets, right? Pain-wise? Noooope. Scenes carved on walls of the spectator benches show players wearing protective gear as well as carrying tools that could be used for striking the ball, so who knows what the right way to play is. It shouldn’t concern us too much, though, because REGARDLESS can we just ALL AGREE as a society NOT to play this game? Okay so after you play and try to get the ball through the hoop, there would be a winner and a loser, as there are. Seven players on each side would parade toward the center of the field, and the captain of the defeated team would kneel. Then the captain of the winning team would DECAPITATE THE LOSER. The winning captain/murderer would hold his knife and the severed head of his friend up before the probably cheering crowd. This, like almost everything else in these ancient cities, existed as a way to offer human sacrifices to the gods but in a more communal and fun way, I GUESS. And I thought football sucked.

I won’t leave you with ‘horrible sports gone wrong’, though. Elsewhere in the museum, there was an interactive screen display that, if you entered some personal information about yourself, would tell you sort of your Mayan fortune – what your personality is like and what jobs you’re equipped for. I’m sure it’s a way for the government to collect private details about its guests but we really wanted to know what it would say so we did it anyway.

As you can see, my color is black and my direction is west, so I’m kind of like a Kardashian in Mexico. I’m like IN AWE of how accurate this is. I DO live between day and night (like most people…because they just mean like…daytime, right?). I am GENEROUS with my ADVICE (/extremely judgmental and bossy). I TAKE TO THE ROAD IN BOTH HAPPINESS AND SORROW! this is amazing. Although apparently I should be a road guide or a…a marriage spokesman?? what job is that and how do I get it? LOVES IT! WORTH THE MEXICAN GOVERNMENT HAVING MY EMAIL ADDRESS!

So that’s it for Part 2 of our trip through the Yucatan, but there’s much more to come. Like, the hotel (and its pool) and all the vegan food, plus a beach that I did…not…love. So fun! Stay tuned.

The post It’s Yucatanfastic: Merida, Uxmal, Mexican Chocolate, & More Cenotes appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

Husbo and I had surprisingly never been to Mexico before this trip, surprisingly because we are from the USA and it seemed like everyone else we knew had at least been to Puerto Vallarta with their families or Cancun on spring break. Even drunk on a dare you make it to Cancun! Since we now live farther away, we had to make the most of this chance to see Mexico, a place I feel like it goes without saying is, like anywhere, in large part wonderful and nothing at all like Cheeto Mussolini would have you believe but a lot of things you hope go without saying nowadays do have to be said so alas I said it. We only had about 8 days, but we packed each day to the brim with activities, sights, and fun. And guacamole.

The first big decision, after the “We’re going to Mexico!” one, was deciding what we had time to properly see. It was hard to cross Tulum, the most popular Mexican beach right now for seemingly everyone on Instagram who loves green smoothies and yoga (hi), off the list, but it was more important for us to finally see the wondrous ancient ruins of the Yucatan than to lounge on the beach. We’re not really lounge-y people anyway, and we are definitely ‘climb around ancient ruins in 100 degree heat so you have something to complain about’ people. Well at least I am. You know I love complaining. So that meant four days in the Yucatan to see Chichen Itza, Uzmal, and other ruins we’d come to know and love along with our new best friend: the cenote. Then after a short flight, we’d spend four days in Mexico City, what the cool kids call CDMX, and seeing all those sights, eating all their food, and making lots of new dog friends! It’s a plan!

We flew into Cancun airport and immediately got the hell out of there. Well, not immediately – between baggage delays and the UNACCEPTABLE rental car delays (they kept taking Mexican customers who arrived well after us blahhh) it was two hours from landing till driving away – but after we were immediately greeted by guys with carts selling neon yardstick spring-break-resort-style drinks and dozens and dozens of resort representatives, we were like mmm bye. We are not rave-going people and even the Cancun airport is very much PARTAYYYY TIME! I mean I guess they know their main audience.

I’m really happy I brought a sandwich from Baltimore (where we were flying from) for the 3 hour-ish flight, because I didn’t see many options in the Cancun airport and we had a whole day of driving ahead of us. When we stopped to get gas, we did go a little nuts at the gas station convenience store buying more water (gotta drink that water!) fruit, chips (gotta eat that salt when you drink that water!), and my new favorite thing ever – lime & chili peanuts. Mexico does lime and/or chili everything better than anyone and it’s amazing.

The drive out of Quintana Roo and through the Yucatan was often lovely, shady with trees, with few other cars on the road until we got closer to the city of Valladolid. The city is the third largest in the state, with 45k+ residents at the time of the last census. I loved the vibe of Valladolid – relaxed, comfortable, and culturally old-fashioned in a nice way). At least that’s how it seemed to this tourist who was there one night and one night only and is about to say a whole bunch of things that, as usual, would probably make more knowledgeable folks and residents wince. And that, my dudes, brings us to the latest edition of:

Valladolid, named after the same named city in Spain (the capital when the Mexi version was founded, in 1543), was actually originally placed a bit aways from its current location, by a lagoon. That sounds lovely, sure, but the Spanish settlers soon realized stagnant water + heat = mosquitoes and humidity but yeah mostly mosquitoes and they were NOT having it (I mean I wouldn’t either) and they made authorities literally just move the entire city. I’ve never identified so hard with Spanish settlers.

Of course, settlers are bad and do bad things, so when the city moved, it displaced more Maya people and their buildings (they wanted those stones). The Mayan revolted, but, as always happens to the indigenous people, lost. Some bullshit. Almost 300 years later, the Mayan people revolted again, and after a noble was killed, the revolt grew and grew into legit battles and became a key location of Yucatan’s Caste War, when the native Maya all over the Yucatan revolted against the European descendants. The war lasted more than 50 years, ending due to occupation by the Mexican army. There were some reforms that addressed some of the problems, but tensions and violence persisted.

So, clearly, this is the perfect place to begin our lighthearted tourism! No, it is important to learn the history of any place you travel to, and we learned a great deal about the indigenous cultures throughout our trip, especially in Merida. Today, Valladolid is a charming and peaceful place that’s celebrated for its traditional architecture, lovely surroundings, dedication to craftsmanship, and its perfect location for accessing the big sites. It’s so special that it’s been named a Pueblo Magico of Mexico, or Magic City. Approved!

We arrived in the city late that first day after an afternoon of driving (and waiting for the car, yes I’m still mad) and checked in to the Hotel Meson del Marques, a charming (everything is charming here), sprawling, traditional hotel right off the main square of the town. Most importantly, it has a pool. When you go to Mexico in the summer, you need to make sure every place you stay has a pool. We spent almost zero time here, as we left early the next morning for our jam-packed day of sight-seeing (you’ll see; it’s like the fullest day ever), but we liked what time we did have.

After doing my #1 thing to do after a flight no matter how long it is (shower), we explored our one evening in this – say it with me – charming little city. The central square is definitely the highlight, full of locals, tourists, touts, food stalls, and general happy vibes.

Our chosen restaurant for our only night in Valladolid was the wonderful Yerbabuena de Sisal, located in the trendy Sisal neighborhood near the above-shown convent and colorful Valladolid sign. Yerbabuena is the CUTEST DARN restaurant and is vegan-friendly. It’s not vegetarian, but they have plenty of exciting vegan offerings, delicious juices, and picture-worthy decor.

We were beyond excited for our first guacamole of the trip, and theirs did not disappoint. (I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to have less-than-stellar guacamole when in Mexico.) We were also delighted to find that Yerbabuena had the vegan-friendly Yucatan staple dip of sizil pak, a traditional Mayan pumpkin seed dip. SO GOOD!

Even though they didn’t have the vegan lasagna (they don’t have it till 8pm and we arrived at 7pm because we are not cool enough to eat at normal times in any Spanish-speaking locale, apparently), I was after Mexican food anyway (it’s literally why we came here) and I was thrilled to have tamales! I love tamales! These were great!

As you can see, it came with a side salad. Mexico, as you know if you’ve heard any lazy jokes from the past 50 years, is famous for giving tourists some tumtum troubs, and we knew to stay away from raw veg and unwashed produce in general. However, I had a feeling that if any restaurant were safe to trust, it was Yerbabuena. I’m happy to report I did not get sick! And I got to have a salad! My happiest day. (I wrote in my notes from this dinner: “I am eating the side salad make sure to note on the blog if I get sick or not!” I did not!) I get the tumtums super easily so I am confident in reporting that the salad here is safe for all.

We really pushed our luck on our first meal in Mexico, hilariously, because we also broke the other main rule about eating in this country: we had drinks with ice! They were amazing juices, one chaya (a spinach-like green we would have a lot this trip, loves it) with pineapple, and one tejate, a juice from the cocoa flower.

With its amazing food, including must-try traditional dishes like sizal pak and tamales and tejate and chaya and guacamole and really everything we had omg it was so delicious, plus safe-for-our-weak-stomachs salad AND ice, I wholeheartedly recommend dining at Yerbabuena when you visit Valladolid and the Yucatan.

After our yucatangfastic (omg sorry) dinner, we strolled through the city center again and saw what we would learn is a staple of nights all across the Yucatan: enormous dance parties in the street. But the fun adorable kind, full of older Mexicans dancing and playing music and having a jolly time while the nearby sidewalks are packed to the gills with people watching. It was so sweet.

On the way home, we also found incredible paletas, frozen fruit popsicles. I had my first and probably the best one ever. This was watermelon, and it was literally just perfect sweet frozen watermelon juice. Ugh so perfect, especially with the background of YA books in Spanish (I see you Bajo La Misma Estrella, trying to make me cry!).

It was a pretty great first night in the Yucatan, and our last relaxed segment of the entire trip. We had shit to do!!

After a decent night’s sleep and a very nice plate of fruit for breakfast, the next day we enjoyed the busiest and best day.

EK BALAM

Ek Balam is about a 30 minute drive from Valladolid. It often gets overlooked as tourists concentrate on the big kahuna, Chichen Itza, and the next biggest kahuna, Uxmal, but you must make room in your schedule for a visit to Ek Balam as well. It doesn’t require too much time – you could probably spend only an hour if you are pressed – but it is definitely a worthwhile starting point on your ruinous journey.

Ek Balam was the seat of a Mayan kingdom dating back to 1000 BCE, now a Yucatec-Mayan archaeological site. King Ukit Tan Lek Tok, who ruled during the height of this city’s power in 770 to about 800 AD, is buried in the Acropolis.

We got to Ek Balam early, and I suggest doing the same because you can climb all over (most of) the pyramids and structures here and you want to beat the heat and the crowds. It makes sense to see Ek Balam and Chichen Itza on the same day, so you may be thinking that it’s better to get to the big one early and have a better experience there. However, you can’t climb the structures at Chichen Itza anymore, so beating the heat for that reason is not applicable. Also, Chichen Itza is the biggest tourist attraction in this entire state – meaning, you will never beat the crowds. It’s always crowded. With Ek Balam, if you arrive early you might be one of only a handful there, so at least you will get one set of ruins almost to yourself! (Also, Chichen Itza is enormous in comparison, so the everpresent crowds, even in the afternoon, are never really a problem. You’ll see later!)

There are 45 structures at Ek Balam, but a lot of them are smaller and/or not permissible to climb so it seems smaller than it sounds, especially compared to the other sites. The big climbing challenge is the main structure, the Acropolis, and even if it wasn’t 100 degrees out it would be hard.

(Oh, side note: Yes I am talking about temperatures in Fahrenheit, obviously, because I am smart. Americans rightly get a lot of shit for their systems of measurement, and for the most part it’s deserved. Sure the metric system makes more sense than the random number of feet in a mile. But I will never stop arguing that Fahrenheit is such a better system for measuring weather temperatures than Celsius. Oh sure in Celsius your temps for the freezing and boiling of water are easy to remember (0 and 100) but that’s not the kind of information you’re after when discussing WEATHER. Fahrenheit has a wider number range for temperatures we actually use in average normal weather (below 0 to over 100F in a normal year in my city, versus what, -10 to 40C?? what is that nonsense), so you get more information from that number than you do in Celsius. It’s much more precise. I need everyone to stop lumping our use of Fahrenheit for weather into the ‘Americans can’t measure shit’ debate because the argument for Celsius when it comes to weather does not exist. This is the hill I will die on.)

Or maybe this is the hill I will die on – at least I was terrified I would:

Climbing up this monstrosity is a lot of fun (it’s fun to climb things!), but like all the giant pyramids and ruins we’d encounter on this trip, coming down is TERRIFYING. It’s so steep and the steps are so narrow and you are just going like straight down and omg it’s forking frightening. I went down a lot of these steps sitting down. It’s just safer. Omg I am so scared again looking at it. Fun story, so I climbed it, said yee haw, and made my way miraculously back down. But then I saw how cool the pictures we took of Z sitting on the steps looked, so I climbed back up and took some of those (like the one below) at different points on the stairs. Then I miraculously tempted fate and got safely down again and thanked the Mayan gods.

But THEN, when we were both on sacred ground again, we realized we forgot to take a selfie at the top, a thing we like to do when we climb things. So up again I went, for the third time, and down again I came, thinking that ‘third time’s the charm’ would mean something bad for me, but luckily I made it and please do not make me climb it again.

Aside from my terrors, it was a pretty great morning. Ek Balam costs 413 pesos (very typical for these sites) (about $20) and it’s cash only. As is the case with most tourist attractions in the Yucatan, there will be guys (yoots) hanging out in the parking lot who will offer to watch your car while you tour the site, for 20-30 pesos. Of course this is a scam, but you do it, okay? They really do watch your car and if you say no they will probably, um, not. So just suck it up and pay them, it’s fine.

CENOTES

After our climby climby morning at Ek Balam, we enjoyed my absolute favorite part of this trip: the cenotes. A cenote is a natural sinkhole formed from the collapse of bedrock, exposing groundwater underneath. The ancient Maya may have used these for sacrificial offerings but luckily I didn’t know that until after we swam in a bunch of them because ew and oh no. I got to enjoy these for what they were to me: beautiful natural swimming pools, one of my favorite things (pools in general; considering my favorite smell is the chlorine of indoor pools the ‘beautiful’ or ‘natural’ element isn’t required but it was definitely a perk here).

Our first stop was the Cenote X’keken, which I can’t even describe how I’m saying wrongly in my head let alone how to properly say it, I’m sorry. (Is it like schnecken?? now I want schnecken.) This cenote is well signed since it’s pretty popular. Going to Schnecken alone is 80 pesos, but a combined ticket with another cenote on the same grounds is 125. If you are short on cash, just the one is fine and you probably won’t swim in both anyway.

The cool/crazy thing about X’Keken is that it’s completely underground. The guards will point you through the grounds, past a semi-abandoned sort of circular mall with bathrooms and changing rooms and, luckily, one lady renting towels outside (we paid 30 pesos), and over to a hidden staircase leading underground into literally the bat cave. The cave is, indeed, filled with bats. It’s so freaking cool! The bats keep to themselves flitting around the roof of the cave so you don’t have to worry about them bothering you or anything.

As you can see it’s pretty big, and even with a crowd it doesn’t feel crowded. It was pretty awesome! Everyone just leaves their stuff along the sides of the rock, but of course leave whatever you can in your car.

After our little schnecken swim, we drove about an hour to my favorite place: the Yokdzonot Cenote. This location has my favorite cenote, as well as a great restaurant. And best of all, it’s also a women’s collective, run by the local women of the community. Entry only costs 80 pesos and it’s the most beautiful cenote ever.

We timed our day perfectly so we arrived at Yokzdonot (or as I say in my head without wanting to, yoka deez nuts (I am sorry)) for lunch. We learned about this place and their ability to make vegan food from a PPK friend (the best and og vegan forum, never to be surpassed never to be forgotten), and sure enough they brought me this very nice plate of steamed nopales (cactus), nicely flavored rice, refried black beans, cabbage slaw, and a whole plate of soft tortillas so I could wrap everything up in my own special messy way. We also of course got guacamole, which was great.

After we ate, we changed in the changing rooms + bathrooms that are right off the restaurant space, and then put everything we didn’t need back in the car, which was a little annoying to keep walking out to but so what who cares. And then we went swimming in the best cenote!

At first, I was annoyed at the rule that everyone who enters the cenote must wear a lifejacket, but honestly it ended up being good because I was pretty tired from the heat by this point and it was nice to just float and relax and enjoy the scenery without worrying about drowning. This was such a lovely experience, and luckily it wasn’t too crowded for most of our visit. Yokadeeznuts is not the kind of place that can accommodate big bus tour groups, fortunately, but more and more people seem to be discovering it. I’m so glad we had a relatively chill time here. I love this place so much.

After one of the most relaxing experiences in recent memory, we went back to the car, grabbed our clothes, went back to the restaurant, changed back into (gross, sorry) clothes, and girded our loins for the big forking thing.

CHICHEN ITZA

Chichen Itza was one of the largest Mayan cities, built in approximately 600 AD, actually not that long ago in the scheme of ancient ruins. A variety of architectural styles decorate the site, suggesting that the population here was more diverse than the rest of the Mayan world. A cenote on the site (not swimmable, sadly) was likely used for sacrificial purposes – as you learn pretty much everything in the ancient Mayan world was.

The famous pyramid, El Castillo, is also called the Temple of Kukulcan. Kukulcan was a Mayan feathered serpent god like the Aztec’s Quetzalcoatl, the inspiration for Wetzel’s Pretzels. You are no longer allowed to climb El Castillo, which, ya know, fine by me.

Like I said before, Chichen Itza is always crowded, so instead of futilely trying to beat the crowds or the heat, we decided to do the opposite on both counts and go late afternoon, so that we would finish exploring the site at its closing time. (Just under two hours was, surprisingly, more than enough time for us, and we usually take forever.) This sounds like the opposite of anyone’s advice for seeing any place, but honestly it was a great move! The site is ENORMOUS – so much more than the famous pyramid that we took 1000s of photos of – and goes on for miles. So, the crowd disperses fairly quickly and it doesn’t feel crowded at all. It’s especially spacious around El Castillo and the Great Ball Court (oh, we will learn about the games that happen in these ball courts in the Uxmal/Merida post, just you wait).

Entry to Chichen Itza is 480 pesos per person, and you have to pay in cash. I know you’ve seen information that says it accepts card, but they will tell you it’s cash only. And if you persist, they will tell you you can pay the main fee by card, but you still need to pay the 75 peso “federal fee” portion of the price in cash regardless, so it’s all annoying and just expect to pay cash everywhere even though the touts selling tees and tchotchkes inside the grounds have card payment capacity. At least there are toilets inside the grounds as well as in the entrance hall!

El Castillo and all of Chichen Itza was pretty incredible. I’m so glad I got to see it. I am so lucky and grateful that I got to see all of these spectacular places that I knew mythologically for so long, and I fully do not believe that all of this happened in one day. What a day! Once we closed down Chichen Itza, we got back in the car for the long drive to Merida, where our next adventure awaits.

The post A Wondrous Place For Me & Yucatan: Valladolid, Chichen Itza, & Our Fave Cenotes appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

Recently, Cheeto Mussolini talked smack on one of America’s great cities, and it was embarrassing. For him, of course, because he was wrong (he did open his mouth). Since I have the best readers (‘I use the best words’), I know you agree that if the screaming carrot demon hates something, it’s probably awesome, and this is definitely true for Baltimore, Maryland. Sure it has problems – as most big cities do – but unlike the assclown who has the power (all the power in the world) to fix them, we aren’t going to complain about them and not talk about all the great things Baltimore has going on right now.

Balmore, as they say, is a vibrant, dynamic city with so much more to offer than crime and homelessness and a drug problem (helloo did I say every city because that’s every city). The diverse (in both senses of the word) areas of the city are full of young hipsters living in cool neighborhoods, tourists coming to see one of the first colonies, students attending one of the great schools, and established locals who will defend their city to any orange buffoon who dares, dares, disparage it. Recently, we were members of the second group visiting members of the first and third (and, by default, fourth) groups. We found a Baltimore more progressive and even more fun than our last visit 3 years ago. It was a short trip, but we managed to see and do (and eat) enough to recommend a visit to anyone, except assclowns.

Shall we start with food or activities?? Food or activities. I’m going to flip a coin aaaaaand it’s activities.

Great decision making!

DO

We’ll save my favorite new Baltimore/anywhere activity for last because it’s AMAZING and there’s no way silly museums could compete with it if I share that first. You know I complain about museums a lot (we go to so many museums! they take so long!) but I’m mostly just joking since they are a must-see pretty much everywhere. This trip, we returned to The Walters Art Museum, a free (!) museum in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood, housing mid-19th century collections amassed by the Walters family. William Thompson Walters began collecting art when he moved to Paris to flee the beginning American Civil War because he was a Confederate sympathizer and I guess he was at least smart enough to know he should get his ass out of there but also fork that guy. His son later refined his jackwagon father’s collection and made the plans for establishing a way to publicly house it; no word on whether he also was an ignorant racist.

It’s a great museum with lots to see and learn, but that’s for you to discover on your own because as usual, my job here is to share the pictures of hilariously weird things, and dogs. Here are all the dogs in the museum.

This is honestly one of my favorite museum activites. Half the pictures on my phone are paintings with dogs in them from museums all over the world. Anyway now we move on to another favorite activity: sharing all the hilarious and weird shit.

Okay that’s probably enough of that. The Walters is definitely worth a visit when you are next in Baltimore and not just for the dog paintings.

The museum is on the very hip very cool N. Charles Street, about a ten minute walk from husbo’s favorite pub, The Brewer’s Art. Last time we were in Baltimore, we could only have their incredible rosemary fries, but when we stopped in this time, we discovered they had Beyond Meat burgers AND sausages on the menu! I mean! What! (This doesn’t count as prematurely talking about food because we didn’t actually eat there.) So definitely check it out after the museum. The museum is also only a five minute walk from husbo’s favorite restaurant in Baltimore, The Helmand, an Afghani restaurant that is excellent, so that’s also an option. Do one before and one after!

I’m not a huge fan of cemeteries, but your next activity is a quick lil trip to one. Honestly, it doesn’t even really count as a cemetery, just a little tiny garden-looking jawn with some graves. Okay it’s a small cemetery. But it’s a special one!

It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s! Okay it’s not all exclamatey I mean he did die at 40 (in Baltimore, where he spent a good portion of his life). Poe’s grave site is on Fayette Street, at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, not too far from the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, which makes a lot of sense. If you are a Poefiend you should check all of that out but we were in the game for just a quick stroll by the grave. It’s in a very blink-and-you’ll-walk-right-by-it quiet little secluded corner of green, gated but open to the public.

In true Poe fashion, he was originally buried in an unmarked grave. Eventually a man named George Spence added a sandstone block on the site but still, no name and lots of weeds. Reports of this odd grave for such an important figure circulated and eventually reached Poe’s mother-in-law, who wrote some harsh but polite words (probably) to the cousin in charge of fixing this whole situation. Neilson Poe, the two-last-names cuz, ordered a legit marble headstone, but then in true Poe fashion, a train ran off its tracks and destroyed the headstone. After a few years, various benefactors, friends, and students raised enough money for another headstone. The monument was dedicated in 1875, 26 years after Poe’s death. Cremation is a lot easier, I’m just saying.

There are other people buried here, including members of his family and notable historical figures.

Our next activity is a jaunt to Fort McHenry, which I didn’t actually visit but husbo did (I was busy). He’s here to tell you all about it:

Ha I’m just joking it’s still me. Fort McHenry is an important American, well, fort. Or ‘coastal bastion’ as the wikipeeds says. Located in the Locust Point neighborhood, the fort was important during the War of 1812 (not to be confused with the Great Comet of that same year, wow what a year am I right), when it successfully defended Balmore from those DAMNED BRITISH whose navy was attacking from the Chesapeake Bay. It was also used during both World Wars. During the War of 1812, when the larger garrison flag was flown over the Fort, it signaled that the Americans had won the Battle of Baltimore. The sight of the flag waving here inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that only 7% of performers at sporting events have sung well.

Husbo really enjoyed his visit to the Fort, save for the true ‘mercans wearing t-shirts that literally said AMERICA FUCK YEAH but you know you’re going to see them at military places. Admission is $15.

Our last activity recommendation this go-round is the best one. Like true gentrifying hipsters, we tried the latest and funniest hipster activity that has country folk saying, um, what?

We went axe throwing! IT WAS AMAZING.

Urban Axes on North Haven Street is the shiiiit. Sure there’s a bar with craft beer and wines, which doesn’t seem like the smaaartest match-up. But the axe-throwing is fun enough to keep people engaged and away from the bar for too long. You generally have to book in advance (they can allow walk-ins if it’s not too busy, but don’t risk it) and you get 6 people per ‘arena’ (two targets) and per coach. We were told that since we had 4 people, 2 strangers (stranger danger!) could potentially be put in our lane, but that didn’t happen. (It was a weeknight.)

So you get a coach, an ‘axepert’, who stays with you the entire hour-long session and teaches you how to throw a g-d axe. Our coach was really great. She was so helpful in figuring out our best stances, whether we should go one-handed or two, and giving little tips to improve. I went in thinking it would be fun but that I would be terrible, but even as a first-timer I got a few bullseyes! We all did! IT WAS AWESOME!

It’s literally just a giant warehouse sort of room with plywood targets up. We said to each other, omg we should open one of these in London – the costs are SO low! You just need a bunch of axes and some boards! And then we took a beat and realized how much the liability insurance would be.

You can wear whatever you want, you just have to wear closed-toed shoes. It seems a little scary in theory, but we were reassured that people rarely get injured if they are following the rules. The most common injury people get is splinters from putting one hand against the board while they pull the axe out with the other. Silly people, don’t do that!

Man alive this was so much fun. Urban Axes has locations all over, including in Philly and Austin, so definitely check them out! It’s $38 per participant so it’s a little steep, but for a special occasion it’s pretty great.

EAT

Baltimore’s vegan scene, like that of so many big cities, is popping. We found such great finds over a few days. I mentioned The Helmand and The Brewer’s Art above and you should definitely have them on your list. Newbies this go round included Red Emma’s, Stall 11 at the very hip very popular R House market, and my new fave restaurant L’eau de Vie, which I wrote about already.

Before we get to those, let’s talk about a more famous Baltimore tourist destination in case you end up there. One night, the omnivores I was with wanted crabs, which, if you know your musical theatre, Baltimore is famous for (remember Velma Von Tussle was Miss Baltimore Crabs in her youth) (I just realized I haven’t been singing “Good Morning Baltimore” this entire time; am I okay?). We paid a visit to the harborside crab institution Bo Brooks, and if you likewise end up there as a vegan, there are a few options for you! 

It’s nothing special, but sometimes all I want is a regular green salad and a regular bowl of bean soup, and Bo Brooks had both for me. In fact, there’s a whole ‘plant-based’ section, and while I hate the phrase, I loved the contents. My soup was a ‘Tuscan white bean’ soup and it was fine! Then I had Nelly’s Salad which was actually quite big and had avocado and avocado dressing. That’s all I really ask for! Bo Brooks also has the Beyond Burger so you should definitely get one of those if you aren’t looking to recreate your own little Olive Garden sitch (saltines were my breadsticks).

Okay, next up is one of our favorite places in Baltimore – Red Emma’s. Yes, it sounds a bit Commie, and yes, it’s for a reason. It’s a radical infoshop, bookstore, and vegan cafe run by a worker-owner collective and yes of course it’s named after anarchist Emma Goldman (which of course should make you think of not one but TWO MUSICALS! EG was important in both Assassins and Ragtime). Given the state of the world right now, we should all be a little (lot) more socialist! You’re not surprised, right, with all the time we spent in the former USSR? You had to expect it to rub off a little. (Or you know by being aware in this society.)

In addition to being like so woke, Red Emma’s has wonderful food. It was one of the hardest menus to order from because everything sounded incredible (and was vegan, as far as I could tell). We decided on the banh mi and the Reuben, with a side kale salad, totally on brand for us.

The Reuben might not look like much, but it was one of the best we’ve ever had. Husbo, an omnivore, sang its praises to such an extent that he actually said it was better than the Reuben at Rudy’s Dirty Vegan Diner in London, which is a huge thing since that one gets so much acclaim (but part of that is because it’s the only legit vegan Reuben in London (except the ones I make at home, obvs the best)). The banh mi was on the wrong bread (too big and too hard!) and needed more of a mayo-y sauce but it was still pretty good. The rest of the menu sounded so amazing, Red Emma’s will definitely be on our to-do list next time.

We also ventured downstairs to the bookshop, which is where we bought Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race. Highly recommended!! (And definitely try to buy it from a shop that is not Amazon! Fuck Bezos! Billionaires are inherently immoral!)

Up next is my faaaavorite place and another that’s definitely on my list for a return visit. Man I really need to make a return visit. That’s Stall 11 in the food-vendor market space called R House, which bills itself as an “industrial chic food hall”. Directly south of the Johns Hopkins campus, R House is SO trendy and cool, and Stall 11’s existence in there proves the point. Carving out its own adorable space in the market hall, Stall 11 looks like what By Chloe wanted to be. And the food achieves the same goal. It’s incredible (and better).

We had the loaded mac and cheese OF COURSE, which was fantastic, with a house-made vegan cheeze sauce, nut parm, and crispy cauliflower which was AMAZING.

We also tried the avocado BLT which was great, if completely falling apart on that too-small bread! And it came with great sweet potato fries.

Of course we also tried a salad, the Harvest salad with added tempeh. Everything was so delicious! Here’s a better picture of the salad so you can see all the goodies inside, like chickpeas and quinoa and sweet potatoes.

I love Stall 11 food so much. It’s like my perfect menu – huge loaded salads, great sandwiches, mac and cheeze. All my faves! To top it off, R House had self-serve water stations. I could cry! That’s all I ask for!

Well there’s one more thing I always ask for: ice cream. R House also has an outpost of Little Baby’s ice cream, which I know from Philly. The best thing about Little Baby’s, besides reliably having several vegan flavors, is that they sell ‘Baby’ scoops, one step below regular single scoops, for when you want to have just a little but are really full, like we were!

STAY

You’ll notice we don’t have hotel recommendations this time around because they’re all rat-infested we stayed with friends who are LIVING IN HELL no they absolutely love it. We were in the Canton neighborhood which is quite lovely and close enough to all the attractions by bus (we downloaded the CharmPass bus app, on which you buy tickets and then show your code to the driver, so easy!). The buses were fairly straightforward, although sometimes there was a really long wait. Tourists might want to stay in the thick of things by Harbor East or in Fells Point, which is the most happening for night life. We walked through Fells Point one busy Saturday night and felt very cool and then we kept on walking towards home where we played Settlers of Catan (I’m like a very cool person).

So it was a quick trip to Baltimore, but even with a few days we could see that it is far from the hellscape that assclown would tell you it is. Yeah we walked through some sketchy neighborhoods and you should be careful where you walk at night, and yes there are issues that need to be addressed. But that’s the same for Philly, for London, for really anywhere. Writing off an entire city because it has problems, instead of talking about how to address them, is some ignorant bullshirt. Visiting such a city and contributing to its economy may be a helpful move for us regular people, who don’t have the power to fix everything and yet fix nothing, to make. If you have the chance to visit Baltimore, you really should. And please tell me all the delicious (vegan) things you eat! And sing all the musical theatre songs that relate to your visit! (More about that on my instagram stories! Link at the top of the page.)

Don’t forget to read about L’Eau de Vie!

Want more Balmore? Read about our 2016 visit! (enjoy even worse pictures!)

The post Trump Hates It? It Must be Awesome! We Return to Baltimore! appeared first on Laughfrodisiac.

*Washington, D.C. is a big city but it is also, as you know, a federal district that’s the capital of the USA (USA! USA! no not really) and is also treated as a state and a county for census purposes so it’s just like this fun lil enigmatic city-state-county-district-capital-effervescence jawn that had its street layout designed by a goddamn psychopath who enjoyed everyone getting the wrong mail and getting lost while he stroked a white cat and went ‘wheeee this is fun I’m having fun! four of you will have the same address!’

If you aren’t a fellow east-coast American, you probably haven’t been to DC for a school trip when you were a yoot and so you’ll need to see all the required aspects of a true DC tour when you first go: the U.S. Capital building, the National Mall, the Monuments Washington & Lincoln, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian (the one with Dorothy’s ruby slippers, the best one), things like that. If this is true for you, you will need mmm more than 20 hours in DC. But that’s cool, because then that means you could have more than one night in the bed that’s now on my Top 5 Beds of All Time list! I KNOW! (More on that later.)

If you are like me and all been there, done that about a governmental system that you thought was secure but haha isn’t, and you have one night and barely a day to see something interesting, then this is the post for you, friendo. We have time to do one interesting thing, eat two meals, and have an amazing night’s sleep. I know you’re like “this is what former prime minister Neville Chamberlain called ‘barely a travel guide'” (comment if you get the reference) but it’s a nice (and rare) departure from our full-on travelogues that take you days to read, isn’t it?

DO

There’s a newish (in the scheme of things) museum in DC, and it’s such a must-see that it’s your only-see if you only have a day. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, a Smithsonian museum, is absolutely your activity for the day if you haven’t been yet. Although it opened a few years ago (you didn’t think it opened under this regime, right), it’s still talked about like it’s DC’s hottest club (‘it has everything’) because it’s so hard to get into. It’s free, like all Smithsonian museums in DC, but you have to book tickets in advance, and those tickets get snatched in a hot second. We looked so far in advance but they were gone, gone, gone. Luckily, a friend alerted us to their walk-up system. Trying to find accurate information was confusing – is it just on Wednesdays? just Wednesdays of certain months? is it all weekdays after 1pm? We found websites that supported each of these ideas. To be safe, we went on a Wednesday AND after 1pm, and we got in! Now the website is clearer: during peak season (spring and summer), walk-ups are allowed weekdays after 1pm (for off-peak (fall and winter), it’s after 10am). There was actually no line, which was a surprise, but there were literally thousands of school kids on class trips. Hooray for learning and noise!

The museum, called the African American museum for shorthand since the acronym NMOAAHAC or whatever it is isn’t the most convenient, is astounding. If you follow me on the soshes (that’s cool speak for social media, links on this page), you know I complain sometimes about how much time we spend in museums. It’s a lot, I get tired. But this one, this one is different. It is altogether fascinating, depressing, infuriating, and riveting. The collection spans in great detail the entire African American experience from the start of slavery, through the civil war and segregation and the fight for civil rights, to LGBTQ issues and the Obama administration. There’s a special section dedicated just to Emmett Till (one of the saddest rooms you’ll ever be in, just absolutely heartbreaking so prepare for that), including the casket originally used. There are clothes worn by Rosa Parks, James Brown, and Muhammed Ali. Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac is on display, along with a bible owned by Nat Turner and the handcuffs used to arrest Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 2009.

The experience, which I’m sure you understand by now is super heavy, begins way below ground level, as you learn about the slave trade’s beginnings while trapped in dark underground rooms. On display are maps showing all the various routes for slave ships, information about life on the plantations, and all kinds of torture and control devices used on slaves. You can spend hours in these early sections, and we did. As history progresses through the various wars and movements, your tour moves upstairs to more seemingly endless halls of incredible displays. There are five stories below ground and five above, and you need to devote time to all of it.

If it sounds like an untenable amount of historical and cultural artifacts trying to explain hundreds of years of an entire culture, it’s because it is, except the museum is designed so extraordinarily (except for bathrooms, where are they) that it all moves smoothly. You just need to devote a least an entire day to it. We had about 4 hours, and we barely started the above-ground floors. Some people have recommended several days. I don’t know if I would be able to handle that, but if you can, by all means, plan for it. You won’t be disappointed (but you will be absolutely devastated afterwards).

EAT

After the harrowing museum experience, you deserve a treat, so let’s talk about food! We were in town for one dinner and one brunch, so we went with a new trendy restaurant for one and a tried-and-true fave for the other. For dinner, we met DC friends at hotspot Indian restaurant Pappe, by Logan Circle at 1317 14th Street NW. Pappe had a well-marked menu – every dish says if it has gluten or dairy or nuts – and the server helped us choose some great vegan dishes. Living in east London, we get our share of amazing Indian food on a regular basis, but Pappe impressed. Unfortunately, their dals have ghee in them (you know me and beans), but there were plenty of delicious vegetable dishes that were gheeless. I’m looking at the Pappe menu and honestly cannot remember what we ordered but I’m going to go with what makes sense and say we shared the Baingan Bartha (open-fire grilled eggplant, tomato, onion, garlic), which was…bangin’ (I had to); the Bhindi Jaipuri (crispy fried okra (the best), mango powder, cumin, coriander); and I want to say the vegetable korma that they were able to make without ghee? I forgot to take notes but it was all good! Add in tons of rice and breads (the roti is marked with dairy but they just left it off) and we were gold. It’s definitely a nice option if you are meeting omnivores in Logan Circle.

As for my brunch/lunch, there was only one place in DC I wanted to go: my old fave Busboys & Poets. I know, you’re like ‘ya basic’ and you know, this time I’m okay with it. If loving Busboys & Poets makes me basic then throw a pumpkin spice latte at my face and call me Becky (please don’t really throw anything at my face though). B&P is the ubiquitous DC chain that has such a great menu for literally everyone, and has some great vegan options. It was really hard to order and as usual I ordered half-wrong because of pressure, but also half-right so it’s a good day.

I started with like fried vegan chicken bites? Which is VERY out of character for me but I was like ‘I should break out of my ordering patterns and not get something I always just make for myself’ but you know what, patterns can be nice. These were just like, chewy chicken bites with way too much sticky Korean barbecue sauce and that’s not my kind of thing! Other vegan starters on the menu include tofu bites, hummus, and mac & cheese, but I was like “I eat those things almost every day wah wah wah do something different they say” and it bit me in the ass. Never do anything different! I’ve learned that now.

But luckily I was smart with my entree, because when there is a tempeh panini on a menu, I will be GETTING IT. My obsesh with tempeh sandwiches is rivaled only by the obsesh with banh mi and reubens (not-fun fact, the B&P menu had a reuben and I am so spoiled with vegan options that I assumed for a second that it was vegan! it was not!).

THIS WAS SO GOOD! And it came with a side salad! That’s my perfect accompaniment to anything! Even a choral concert I’d be like ditch the piano my preferred accompaniment is a side salad.

SLEEP

Ah, we’ve gotten to the most important part, the part I know you’ve been waiting for. We stayed our one night in DC this summer at the Hamilton Hotel, at 1001 14th Street NW. There are lots of good hotels in DC, but none of them, NONE OF THEM, have a room like the one we stayed in at the Hamilton.

That’s because none of them have a VEEP SUITE!

That’s right, we stayed in the Veep Suite at the Hamilton and it was SPECTACULAR! I’m assuming you’ve watched Veep, because if you read this site you have to know pop culture, and if you know pop culture at all you know that the best, funniest g-d show probably in the history of television is Veep. And the best, funniest g-d hotel suite is this one. We were cracking up at every little detail: Selina’s books, her diplomas, hilarious photos from so many scenes, family photos with her daughter, campaign signs in the bathrooms? It was so well done, so fun, and so amazing. I believe that some of the furniture was designed from or came directly from actual set pieces.

I’ve put a video tour in my instagram stories (link at the top), which will stay in my DC highlights tab forever (FOREVER) so take a look when you can for a fun Blair-Witch-style video!

The only downside of the room was, they had all the DVDs of every season of the series in the living room…but no DVD player. We were so excited to stay up late watching a few episodes, but the front desk confirmed that there were no DVD players in the whole place. Quit playing games with my heart!

No but really, the real downside was that we only had one night here. It was such a blast to explore all the details. And the best was that, above all the cheeky references and funny pictures, the bed was actually incredible. It’s in my list of TOP 5 BEDS ever! (Yes, one day soon we will do a whole post about them.) Ugh it was incredible. I loved that aside from all the hilarity, it was still an ace hotel room in an amazing suite.

IT GETS BETTER! Outside the room, by our floor’s elevator bank, there was a whole Oval Office set up! We got to take pictures at the faux-resolute desk and pretend we were going to save the country. Oh it’s fun to dream.

SO MUCH FUN! What a great experience. I love nothing more than when all my interests collide, so combining traveling with some beloved television and a sick bed (not to be confused with a sickbed, not my fave thing) is a surefire way to make me happy.

To top it off (and to continue my every-hotel-gym reviews), the Hamilton had a very decent gym onsite.

I took one ridiculous photo because I didn’t want to get anyone else in it, but I wanted to remember how pleased I was that they actually had space on the floor! My home gym barely has any space! I need space! I jump all over! There was also a little corner with big balls, small balls, yoga mats, and water, everything you’d need. Huzzah!

So, it was a short but memorable trip to DC this go-round. Eat some good vegan food, visit an incredible museum, and stay in the best hotel suite in America if you are going anytime soon. And then there’s only one important thing left to do (in caption).

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