"Follies" at London's National Theatre: All the Middle-Aged Crises Plus Lots of Feathers and Sequinsby Randi / November 9, 2017
After our perfectly lovely time in Almaty, Kazakhstan, it was time to cross into our final ‘stan, the one most believed of Herman Cain: Uzbekistan. There was no easy direct way to go from Almaty to our first destination in Uzbekistan – Tashkent – so we had to take an overnight train (but of course!) to Shymkent, Kazakhstan first, then get a taxi to the border, cross the border, and then get another taxi from the other side of the border to Tashkent. It was exhausting just to think about, but considering how relatively well our travels had gone so far, I was optimistic that it wouldn’t be too troublesome. I think I’ve previously shared on this blog that IQ quote about being an optimist and fool? Yeah.
To relish our final moments of Almaty’s modernity, we got an Uber to the train station instead of arguing with taxi drivers. We would have enough of that the next day, oh boy, would we have enough of that. When the car was due to arrive I shut down the little baby laptop and prepared to put it away and get my giant pack on…and true to chitty, chitty form, Windows decided to install updates then. DO NOT SHUT OFF YOUR COMPUTER. You think that maybe it was one of those quick ones since they didn’t ask first? Here’s the picture I took.
150 UPDATES. What in tarnation is that about! This is the kind of bullshit that can put me off Windows forever. I had to hold my computer open in the car, in the train station, as we waited for and then boarded the train. Can you even picture how ridiculous this crap made me look? I had a giant backpack on my back, my stuffed daypack slung on one arm, my ticket in one hand, my passport open in the other, my purse hanging cross-body, and the laptop nested in the crook of my elbow. If I thought people had stared at me before in these parts just for being a Western female traveler, hoo boy, was I in for some learnin’.
Fortunately, this train helped to balance out the fury that the computer caused me. Because of some of the less-than-stellar experiences endured on the Chinese overnight trains, we decided that our first night back on the rails after so many weeks merited an upgrade! We got a private berth instead of sharing with 2+ randos (not to be confused with randis which are usually good) and it was GREAT. And clean! The little compartment had one set of bunk beds against one wall and a little vanity table with a (clean!) mirror and small table on the other side. I thought there was a closet but the inside door was a connecting one to the next compartment, for families I guess. Our neighbors were none-too-pleased when they realized someone was trying to open the door but they had a crying baby so it’s a draw. This little room was so nice, as was the train in general. The bathrooms weren’t horrifying, AND – there was a water cooler! Guysssss! I could refill my bottles with potable water! My baby nephew says to me “drink agua!” every time he sees my water bottle and you know what Huddybear? I did!
We placed the still-updating computer on that little table and left it to finish. When we went to sleep, it was at number 9. Of 150. In the morning, when it was at 33, we just shut it down and used up ALL of our restraint to not smash it into a thousand pieces.
As we waved goodbye to the European-style cosmopolitan vibe of Almaty, we knew we were saying goodbye to civilization in general for a good while. Our time in Uzbekistan would comprise experiences on the more raw, less modern side of things, as our itinerary tracked ancient Silk Road stops and historically important towns and landmarks that are more or less untouched since the old days. Meaning, it would be like stepping back in time, especially considering how modern the city we were coming from was. Bye civilization!
But we didn’t realize at first just how drastic the contrast would be and how quickly it would materialize. When we got off the train in Shymkent, we needed to get a taxi to the border with Uzbekistan, and it was quite the ordeal. We asked several drivers for prices but all were oodles more than they should have been according to literally every piece of information – internet, books, hostel employees, previous travelers. We talked to a woman at an information desk by the side of the road (I don’t know if it was official; it looked like the Bluth banana stand without bananas, which I wanted even more than information) who told us in Russian to take this bus that was there and that would do the job. We were about to board but with a little more questioning, we figured out that that bus just would take us into the city center, where we would have to find the bus that would actually take us to the border, or get a taxi. The extra step seemed incredibly unnecessary and unwanted, especially if we would end up needing to negotiate with a taxi there anyway. We might as well just do that now, we thought. So back we went to argue with taxi drivers. Finally we found one who offered a not too bad price, so we agreed and unloaded our stuff and got in and…didn’t leave. The driver instead started filling the other seats with other people. We sighed but this was to be expected, right. Finally the car was full and the driver starting driving and took us to…the other side of the train station. What’s going on, we asked, not actually wanting the answer because we knew there was some bullshit about to come our way. The driver indeed spewed some bullshit, telling us to get into this other van that was there, already full of people. So this driver we had found wasn’t actually going to ever take us to the border. He was taking us to his friend with a van. He actually had the gall to agree to something he was never intending to do and then DRIVE US 15 SECONDS TO ANOTHER PART OF THE STATION.
Oh man this shit was just the beginning.
We said are you kidding me, no f-ing way, we are not getting into another stuffed mashrutka and paying the price we agreed on as if we were getting a private taxi. So we went back to the front of the station and started all over again negotiating with drivers in Russian the best we could. One driver promised he would just take us and not fill the car with others and we said great let’s do it. We left the station, drove for five minutes down the main road…AND THEN TURNED BACK TO GO TO THE STATION. What the HELL is going on, we asked? OH – he had to pick up another person. At the station. That we had left. You said it would just be us and ALSO WTF, we said. That’s it just this one more, the driver promised. JFC, fine, we said, come on let’s go. We again left the station, and then the driver stopped the car along the side of the main road where a crowd of people were standing. He wanted to pick up another person from this crowd! And not someone he knew about, he was just going to ask if anyone needed a ride. FFS. We yelled HELL NO! Just take us to the f-ing border right now! He reluctantly left and started driving the three of us to the border — at the fastest speed I’ve EVER witnessed any car go, race cars in Talladega Nights included. I was petrified. This guy was such an asshole AND he was a dangerous driver?? Oh my god. We sped down the roads passing every car and weaving through lanes and cutting off EVERYONE else on the road and just holding on as tight as we could, terrified.
When we were sufficiently in the middle of nowhere, nowhere near anything we could see or walk to besides highway and desert, the driver pulled into a gas station along the side of the highway. He said he needed gas, and didn’t have money to pay for it, so we had to pay for it. Are you KIDDING ME? I started screaming at him in English, I knew he could understand my hatred and disgust at him even if he didn’t know every amazing curse word I used. We are not paying for your gas, you crook! But then he popped the trunk and started pulling our bags out, threatening to strand us along this highway in the middle of nowhere if we didn’t pay up. As much as I despise giving in to people like this, we really had no choice, so I gave him a little money. But no, that wasn’t enough. Apparently gas is very expensive in Uzbekistan or something because he kept asking for more. I really didn’t want to give any more and set a dangerous precedent in case he kept stopping along the way and demanding more money, but luckily that didn’t happen. Just this one instance of extortion so I guess we were lucky. He got back in the car — I don’t even remember if he actually pumped any gas — and flewww down the highway for another hour while I sent him death ray stares from the back seat. He drove mostly in between the two lanes, stopping anyone who dared even think about passing him. I continue to wish him very ill thoughts, naming him like Arya except I don’t know his name but the universe knows who I mean. Get ‘em.
Finally, finally, he dropped us near the border. We walked up to the gate, took a deep breath to get over the horrible experience we just miraculously survived, and then another deep breath to prepare for one we expected to be equally terrifying. See, the Uzbek border brings with it a lot of rules, and a lot of horror stories. We never heard anything as strict and scary as the stories about Uzbek border guards. They can delay travelers for hours, going through every single nook and cranny of their luggage, opening every container, going through pockets, everything. Worst of all, Uzbekistan has a VERY STRICT and VERY SERIOUS no-drug policy, and their list of banned substances includes things that we can get over the counter in many Western countries. So we had to be careful about every substance we were bringing in, and make sure we had prescriptions ready to show. But the banned substance list is serious, and it’s not something you can get around with a prescription. If you try to bring any of them in, you could go to jail. One of the substances on the banned list? Ativan. I know. Because we did our homework (do your homework!), we knew about this trouble before we left for the summer, so I only packed about as much Ativan as I thought I’d need up until this day, so I wouldn’t have to throw much out. I still had a few extra I had to toss back in Kazakhstan, but nothing worth crying over. It’s just so funny and perfect that the one thing that would have helped me deal with the shitshow that was this country was the one thing I had that they outlaw. COOL GUYS.
When we got through Kazakh exit, we were given the forms. We knew we had to declare every kind of currency we had on us and in what amounts, so we had counted up all our shiz on the train. This is more annoying than it sounds when you have traveled to 10 countries! We had dollars, we had euros, we had pounds, we had soooo much Chinese yuan that converted to like just a few dollars but takes up so much space, we had Mongolian money, we had roubles (a significant amount since we would return to Russia after Uzbekistan), we had Kyrgyz money, Kazakh money. Man alive this really makes one appreciate the euro zone. We wrote everything down and then had to declare our valuables, including our phones, readers, and the baby laptop. We had read about other white travelers who had to unpack everything and who were detained for hours so we were super nervous. But, luckily, the border guards on duty for us were SO excited to meet Western tourists that they were pretty much just friendly and trying to ask us all sorts of questions, not about what we were carrying but about us and the west and whatever. We SO lucked out. I mean there were no toilets anywhere to be found but still, quite lucky. I guess I could have brought my Ativan in after all but better to be safe than to end up in an Uzbek prison in the driest desert with no toilets, right.
Oh but then we had to find another taxi to take us to Tashkent. Guyssss. I never want to take a taxi again. But there are no buses! There’s no other way! You just find a guy with a car and you hope that they are trustworthy. Ish. We found an old man with an old car and mistakenly thought ‘hey maybe this old guy will be more legit and somewhat decent than the younger asshat men are.’ We showed him the name of our guest house in Tashkent and he said ‘oh yes I know that place!’ We were relieved. The guy drove us through the nothingness and into the city, where he immediately stopped, got out, and started chatting with two young women. What is going on NOW, we wondered. Then the two women got in the car with us. I know. What’s going on, we asked?? One of the women spoke a little bit of English and she explained that the driver didn’t know where the hostel was, so they were going to help them. Let’s go over this again. The man who told us he was familiar with the hostel not only lied about that and didn’t know it, but DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THE ROAD IT WAS ON. And here’s the kicker – neither did the two women. They were just helping by using their phone maps –WHICH WE HAD TOO. And they showed us that they didn’t know how to read their phone maps, because WE were the ones who ended up instructing the driver on where to turn and how to f-ing drive. It was ludicrous and so frustrating and like, are there ANY taxi drivers in central Asia who aren’t complete assholes?
Finally, after we screamed NO, LEFT – NO YOUR OTHER LEFT about 40 times, we found our guest house, yelled at the driver to get out of our sight for ever and never come back here again, and entered the house eager to shower and relax. Naturally, the room wasn’t ready yet.
We’ll talk about that guest house and about the rest of Tashkent in the next post. Until then, I need to go take an ativan.
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Another Three Days of Train: From Uzbekistan to Volgograd, Russia
Dear little baby laptop diary,
The day has arrived! We are finally leaving Uzbekistan! Who would have thought we would be so happy to return to Russia? We feel a little bit like traitors to our country (obviously not as much as our government heyooo) but we really loved Russia and the thought of soon returning to a more modern place is exciting! But first we have to get through this train journey, crossing two borders. First we will go back through Kazakhstan, around the north part of the Caspian Sea (maybe we will see Ursula!), and then into Russia to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. They changed the name from honoring the scary man to honoring the river! I like! What I don’t like is that this will be our second longest train journey of the entire epic adventure, and I believe our third longest ever. Two nights and parts of three different days! Ahhh! Luckily we bought the entire 4-person cabin so we can relax without scary strangers.
The day has arrived! We are finally leaving Uzbekistan! Who would have thought we would be so happy to return to Russia? We feel a little bit like traitors to our country (obviously not as much as our government heyooo) but we really loved Russia and the thought of soon returning to a more modern place is exciting! But first we have to get through this train journey, crossing two borders. First we will go back through Kazakhstan, around the north part of the Caspian Sea (maybe we will see Ursula!), and then into Russia to Volgograd, formerly Stalingrad. They changed the name from honoring the scary man to honoring the river! I like! What I don’t like is that this will be our second longest train journey of the entire epic adventure, and I believe our third longest ever. Two nights and parts of three different days! Ahhh! Luckily we bought the entire 4-person cabin so we can relax without scary strangers.
Or so we thought.
We boarded the train and made our way to our cabin, holding our four tickets for beds #5, 6, 7 and 8. Remember in China how we often had to kick someone out when they were in the wrong place? Well, gird your loins, because not only did we have to kick someone out again, we had to kick FOUR someones out. People were laying on every single one of the beds in the cabin we booked out. Are you FLIPPING kidding me. We got the conductor and explained that they were in our beds. He appeared to be mute. He went into the next few cabins and started counting spare beds, looking for spots where we could go. Hell no! I yelled out to him in Russian explaining that we bought all four beds you fat dink! Ahhh such bullshit! Finally it clicked for him and the four people moved into the next cabins. Like FFS why would you not go to the places you had tickets for? Why are PEOPLE?! Did they not have tickets in the first place, maybe? Why is everything such bullshit?
So this was quite the start to the next three days. Man alive. The toilets were disgusting, as expected. I am so pumped to get to Europe, I really can’t wait. I am counting the minutes…which isn’t very efficient because there are too many minutes so I guess I am counting the days. We have three left. Sure the third day is just a baby sized bit of it but what if we experience delays?! I have to be ready for that. Oh my god please don’t let there be delays. Remember our 11-hour delay from Urumqi to Kashgar? No don’t think about that. Think happy thoughts! Everyone who voted for Brexit should be forced to ride Uzbek trains for weeks so they can experience the unmatched joy that the mere thought of being in Europe will bring. (But they should get stranded in Uzbekistan FOREVER. Europe was too good for you asshats? THEN YOU DON’T GET TO GO.)
I cannot wait to eat lunch at Fresh in Moscow again! Big fancy salads! My favorite!
The mute conductor keeps making funny faces at us, which I don’t really understand, maybe he is trying to apologize for the trouble with the four lunatics who don’t know how to use trains? No that can’t be it. Maybe he is making fun of us. Cool game bro.
The mute conductor keeps making funny faces at us, which I don’t really understand, maybe he is trying to apologize for the trouble with the four lunatics who don’t know how to use trains? No that can’t be it. Maybe he is making fun of us. Cool game bro.
That first night, we went through Uzbek exit customs at 1:20am, which lasted until 3:30am. I REALLY don’t understand the need to have such long exit customs. It’s so unnecessary. Just make sure none of the people are criminals you don’t want to lose track of and then let us gooooo. I had to pee so badly! Remember, they lock the toilets during stops. Hoo boy. We got to the Kazakhstan entry point at 5am, which was an hour early, which you think sounds great but that just means we stay stopped at customs longer. Longer without a toilet! The guards loved asking us questions about our lives, which is so fun to do when you haven’t slept or peed in so long. We left the border at about 7am, back in our old friend Kazakhstan, and after we moved a few feet Z said to me: “Guess what – we are out of Uzbekistan!” and we embraced and cried tears of joy like the diplomats at the fucking end of “Argo”.
At this point, we hadn’t really slept more than an hour so we slept till about 11am. Then we made ramen for lunch with our little emergency stash that we could finally burn through (back to civilization means back to guaranteed food for me!), adding braised canned tofu from the Marigold brand, which was actually really good! This was my favorite meal in days!
At this point, we hadn’t really slept more than an hour so we slept till about 11am. Then we made ramen for lunch with our little emergency stash that we could finally burn through (back to civilization means back to guaranteed food for me!), adding braised canned tofu from the Marigold brand, which was actually really good! This was my favorite meal in days!
name one person who takes better food pictures
There is this little girl next door who keeps coming in and staring at us. She isn’t responding to our Russian shouts of ‘go away’ and ‘leave us alone’ and ‘why are you the worst’ and it’s really annoying. I bet you think that sounds adorable but she is a monster who literally keeps opening our door and coming into the room! No! Devil child! Devil child! And a man on the other side of us sits right up against the doorway so his legs are in the narrow hallway. It’s like he saw the news about how manspreading is a problem in the west and he was like, I can do that and then some! He stares too.
Oh man I have such a headache and I’m so nauseous why! I hope it’s not from my bulk pretzels from Nukus. Pretzels would never betray me right? Even ones that are out in uncovered bulk bins?
Oh man I have such a headache and I’m so nauseous why! I hope it’s not from my bulk pretzels from Nukus. Pretzels would never betray me right? Even ones that are out in uncovered bulk bins?
Speaking of bulk bins! In our cabin, up top where you are supposed to be able to store your luggage, there were plastic…I don’t know, bed pans??? And lots of them! What the heck was this nonsense! I’ll admit, part of me liked having these buckets of unknown origin – they might come in handy during our super long border crossing stops.
Okay so the conductor omg we saw him talking to someone! He is not mute! He just refuses to talk to us! What the hell man! Now we don’t know if he’s just being rude to us or if he is just frugal with his words. This is so f-ing weird.
The next car over is the restaurant car, so I went to explore. It was dire. There’s no menu; I asked the cook what they had and she said plov. That’s it, just plov. The cast of characters sitting among the booths looks the same as in our sleeping car, down to the old man at the far end wearing a smelly white tank top and not much else.
After an afternoon of reading, we crossed the Ural River – meaning we were officially (maybe? how does it work?) back in Europe! For the first time in almost three months, since we left Yekaterinburg! Omg! We did a little dance.
When we stopped at Atyrau, Kazakstan, it was 35 degrees out! That’s in Celsius, which I still don’t know well enough, so that’s 95 in Fahrenheit. We were baking in the sun through the window, and no wind was coming through (more like a wind-no am I right). I like saying Atyrau.
To celebrate our imminent return to Russia, we made kasha with the boiling water from the samovar, to mix with the jar of tomato sauce with mushrooms and beans, the jar we had been carrying since, well, since Yekaterinburg actually! So we had this emergency food jar keeping us company/adding pounds to the bags for literally all of Asia! That’s ridiculous. It was really good too!
To celebrate our imminent return to Russia, we made kasha with the boiling water from the samovar, to mix with the jar of tomato sauce with mushrooms and beans, the jar we had been carrying since, well, since Yekaterinburg actually! So we had this emergency food jar keeping us company/adding pounds to the bags for literally all of Asia! That’s ridiculous. It was really good too!
of course we had tomato ‘salad’ too, of course
I’m so nervous for the 4 ½ hour exit customs stop from Kazakhstan. Four and a half. WHY. Someone explain to me why that is necessary.
Oh I know why! It’s because every single guard on duty wanted to come into our cabin and ask us about America!! Every single one, I’m not joking, came in, sat down, and asked us what state we were from. They didn’t believe me that I was from Pennsylvania, because they didn’t believe that Pennsylvania was a real word. One kept saying ‘No…Washington D.C. or New York??” and I was like listen Joe, there are more places in the USA than D.C. and NYC. And Joe (not his name) would look confused and then repeat “Washington D.C. or New York!” and I would say Pennsylvania! And he would be like ughhhh that’s not what I mean! I mean what state are you from! I eventually pointed to where it says Pennsylvania in my passport and he actually got angry.
We were done with the border business in less than an hour, so this is just incredibly stupid to be waiting here for three extra hours. The train men are sleeping in their cabin. After almost two hours of that 4 ½ hour stop, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked mute/nonmute conductor to open the toilet. He laughed and said ‘not for four hours’ and I was like, listen this is not funny, you lied to us about not being able to speak, so unless you want to talk about how I’m going to pee on the floor, you will open this.” He opened it and said ‘bistro bistro!’ which means fast, and I realized that no one else had used the bathroom in almost 2 ½ hours! What are people!!
I listened to music for the next two hours, not able to concentrate on reading when my brain is so anxious, and then I couldn’t wait again and went to the toilet and praise jebus, it was still open from the last time! The guards are outside having conversations over the loudspeakers. At first we thought it was kind of funny and we were imitating what we thought they were saying in a most hilarious skit, but now it’s annoying because this is an insane waste of time.
We finally left, we finally entered Russia, and we finally got to sleep. The next morning, we landed in Volgograd. We said goodbye to the possibly funny, possibly really mean and rude non-mute conductor. We were super smelly, exhausted, hot, thirsty, and so excited to be reunited with the motherland. We have a lot of trains left but none would be quite like the central Asian horrors of the past few months, so this might be the last entry I need to write in the baby laptop diary. I hope you enjoyed our time together.
Oh I know why! It’s because every single guard on duty wanted to come into our cabin and ask us about America!! Every single one, I’m not joking, came in, sat down, and asked us what state we were from. They didn’t believe me that I was from Pennsylvania, because they didn’t believe that Pennsylvania was a real word. One kept saying ‘No…Washington D.C. or New York??” and I was like listen Joe, there are more places in the USA than D.C. and NYC. And Joe (not his name) would look confused and then repeat “Washington D.C. or New York!” and I would say Pennsylvania! And he would be like ughhhh that’s not what I mean! I mean what state are you from! I eventually pointed to where it says Pennsylvania in my passport and he actually got angry.
We were done with the border business in less than an hour, so this is just incredibly stupid to be waiting here for three extra hours. The train men are sleeping in their cabin. After almost two hours of that 4 ½ hour stop, I couldn’t take it anymore and I asked mute/nonmute conductor to open the toilet. He laughed and said ‘not for four hours’ and I was like, listen this is not funny, you lied to us about not being able to speak, so unless you want to talk about how I’m going to pee on the floor, you will open this.” He opened it and said ‘bistro bistro!’ which means fast, and I realized that no one else had used the bathroom in almost 2 ½ hours! What are people!!
I listened to music for the next two hours, not able to concentrate on reading when my brain is so anxious, and then I couldn’t wait again and went to the toilet and praise jebus, it was still open from the last time! The guards are outside having conversations over the loudspeakers. At first we thought it was kind of funny and we were imitating what we thought they were saying in a most hilarious skit, but now it’s annoying because this is an insane waste of time.
We finally left, we finally entered Russia, and we finally got to sleep. The next morning, we landed in Volgograd. We said goodbye to the possibly funny, possibly really mean and rude non-mute conductor. We were super smelly, exhausted, hot, thirsty, and so excited to be reunited with the motherland. We have a lot of trains left but none would be quite like the central Asian horrors of the past few months, so this might be the last entry I need to write in the baby laptop diary. I hope you enjoyed our time together.
Trump Hates It? It Must be Awesome! We Return to Baltimore!
Are you curious about what ‘living in hell’ is like? It’s pretty nice (and vegan-friendly)!
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.
benches don’t lie mufucka
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!)
