Pit Stop in Moscow!

  

When I booked tickets, the best way was flight into Moscow and a separate flight into Irkutsk and Vladivostok. Which meant I got to spend a night in Moscow on the way home! I met up with the SRAS Josh Wilson who is based in Moscow. We did a bit of a walking tour/cafe stop in the center. Then I had dinner while he went back to his family. 

Even Lenin had a tree!

The hotel room was weird- it was an entirely internal room: no windows. I mean the bed was comfy and it was pretty sound proof with the airport nearby, so I'm not complaining. It was a long journey back to the US. When I landed in NY, and went through customs, I realized I didn't leave the orange I brought on the plane- so I declared it, so they could appropraitely trash it. Now I realize I could of been a bit tired, but when I got the customs person who deals with agriculture he asked if he could "see" the orange. I thought that was weird, but 7 months of translating things in my head, I just held up the orange. Note that this is after I had alrready offered to give it to him and apologized. He gave me a stare and asked if he could hold it. So I gave it to him. He looked at it, calmly placed it next to him and said he had to keep it (Commentary in my head- duh.) and said I was free to go. 

It was nice to be home in Lexington and get to see and hug Bobby in person!

Vegan in Dublin!

A quick warning about restaurants in Ireland.  They will try to charge you Dollars instead of Euros. Unless you have a ridiculously high transaction fee, do NOT do this.  They are price gouging you and making extra money.  They are supposed to ask you, but they often don't/.

The Bakehouse

I had breakfast here after the red eye from Newark.  It was good. I went all Basic and got the avocado toast. It is easy to get to downtown and within walking distance of most bus stops.  They had other breakfast options as well when we went there.

Apertivo
This was a walking down the street find. We were hungry after walking for so long after the tour.  I got a Vegan VLT and my friend got a vegan pizza.  We both thought they were delish! Mine was totally messy to eat, but so worth it. It was tasty and toasty and just what I expected.  It was a great snack/lunch item.  Not too much food, but good.

Noble House Chinese
This wasn't on the food tour, but it was next to my hotel in Dublin. I had the tofu and veggie sweet and sour here. There were WAY too many peppers and onions and not enough other mixed vegetables for my taste, but the sweet and sour sauce was right up my alley. My friend said they had the best pad thai he has ever had, it was so good, he went back three or four times to the same place while we were there.

The Rolling Doughnut
These were yummy, if you like doughnuts! They have vegan and non-vegan options.  I got the little three box that all the Irish liked to carry around. Two stuffed doughnuts (blueberry and raspberry) and vanilla glaze.

Food Tour
On one Saturday, I took a Vegan In Ireland Food Tour, and man did they show me to some great places! We visited 6 stops, but 2 were clothing related.

Cornicopia
We started here and had curry and goulash as a main bowl and potato salad and a cucumber/brocolini/pumpkin seed salad. I still dream about the potato salad.  I'm actually going to buy their cookbook Cornicopia at Home because their food was so good.  After the food tour, I went back twice more (insert blushing emoji here). That's how good it is, and also a take on how often they are open compared to others, especially on the weekends.

Blazing Salads
We stopped here for an egg roll and man I wish I had time to go back.  The food is not all vegan, but it is mostly vegetarian. A great place to grab a quick lunch or food to go.






Difontaine
This place had the best pizza I have ever had outside of the U.S. Seriously. It tasted just like a U.S. based pizza- fresh from NYC. It was super salty, but super tasty! I actually went back another time.


Thunder Road Cafe
According to their website, they actually have tons of vegan options here!  We went to try the English version of Beyond Burger. If you like Beyond, then you will like this.  These types of burgers will taste like meat if you are someone who doesn't like the taste of meat.






Brother Hubbard
All the Irish people loved this stop. But I just wouldn't go back. They were a weird fusion place. When I want falafels, I want them to taste like falafels, and these didn't. They had a smoky eggplant that tasted like pure smoke.

Vegan In Ireland

In August 2019, I got the chance to go to Ireland.  And surprisingly, it is extremely easy to be vegan in Ireland. Except for breakfast. All allergens (at least the 14 most common) have to be legally available in a list, if not on the menu exactly. So that means that eggs and milk have to be listed as an ingredient.  

Breakfast is difficult- the full Irish breakfast is meat meat more meat and eggs.  They will also have mushrooms and tomatoes.  Hotels will probably have oatmeal (there was a really yummy golden syrup oatmeal at my hotel).  Below is an overview of the delicious vegan meals I had outside of Dublin. Dublin meals in a different post.  

I do not subscribe to the vegan alcohol aspect, so I do not know if all of the delicious cider I drank was vegan or not, but it was so fresh and tasty. 

Howth

We went to the Abby Tavern. It has a good mixture of vegan, vegetarian, meat eater, and all sorts of allergy menus. I had the Stovetop Flatbread (Cherry Tomato Passata, Roast Cauliflower, Chickpea Croutons, and Sweet Potato Fries).  And the best part is that it was edible. I personally didn't like it, but it just wasn't to my taste. The chickpea croutons were just dried chickpeas. I also had the  Frozen Berries (Warm Vegan White Chocolate Sauce, Raspberry Sorbet, Pecan Vegan Praline).  Now the sorbet was delicious! The frozen berries were just that- frozen berries. Odd, but still good. I still recommend this as an option because a place with decent menu options for all is hard to come by. 

Malahide

Now this restaurant, was so tasty.  It was also 30 euros for my meal. We ate at Siam Thai restaurant.  I had the Yellow Curry (without the fish sauce): A mild and creamy yellow curry with coconut milk, onion, potatoes, pineapple and topped with fried onion, it’s very easy to eat, and is the mildest of the curries.  I have never had tomatoes and pineapple in my yellow curry. But dang...it was so yummy! Afterwards, we walked to The Fish Shack and got ice cream and sorbet.  So yummy!  If you like Thai food or sorbet, these are a great place to go!

Athalone

We stopped at the Michelin recommended restaurant called Thyme.  They don't upload their most recent menus, but the website and reviews said that they had a vegan option.  So when we got there and they handed me the menu. I asked for their vegan options/allergen menu.  The server looked at me that I was CRAZY. She said they don't have a vegan menu, but they might be able to make something for me, so she would as the chef. The chef said they could, so I had whatever he wanted to serve! I also finally took pictures of the food. 

The three course menu was as follows:

Appetizer: salad with house pickled vegetables. Actually pretty yummy, even though I:m not a big pickle fan. 

Main: Some sort of gnocchi and vegetable dish.  The surprise- it was cold! The little beet red things around the side were so tasty!

Dessert: 3 types of sorbet- peach, rhubarb, and raspberry?

Shannon Airport

Two words for you here: good luck!  You need to investigate the food closely. There was a pasta salad that had ham hidden in it. There was a spicy salad option. 

Dublin Airport

Go to Marquette in Terminal 1.  They have a hot vegan main option every day and numerous salads that are vegan as well.  In Terminal 2, there is a breakfast option that has avocado toast (that you can get without the egg). 

Dublin Hilton Airport Hotel

This is where I stayed (they were great while I was there, but they never sent me a receipt).  Their breakfast did have the Full Irish Breakfast.  They did have oatmeal as an option.  They had a dinner with a superfood salad that was so utterly bland that I can't recommend you getting it unless you just need food that is somewhat healthy and don't care about taste. 

Safari Park!

One of the places I wanted to try to go see, but Lonely Planet said you needed a guide to go, was the Safari Park where two tigers live.

Well SRAS must of known we would want to go- so they organized it for us!

It's about 1 to 1.5 hours car ride outside of Vlad. So you need an organized group or to rent a car to get there.

On one side they have bears, an otter, a badger, foxes, raccoons, and wild cats in one enclosure, and birds of prey in the other.

I took a few pictures on this miserably cold November morning of the bears climibg trees, figuring they would be behind cages when we went (foreshadowing).

The Russian guide lectured to us (it sounded like what not to do), but we didn't really understand everything he said, but just shrugged and figured all would be ok, you know cages?

THERE ARE NO CAGES!

THERE ARE BEARS AND FOXES AND WILD CATS AND A VERY FRIENDLY OTTER RUNNING AROUND FREE.

This is the "lean towards the bear for a picture, but really hope they don't charge me" smile!

Suddenly the Americans were joking that we should of paid a bit more attention to that speech....

We couldn't pet the bears, but they were happy and playing and ignoring us. If we had come in April, they would of been litter and you could hold them!

The otter and the badger were very friendly towards the group and kept running towards us and through the group.

HI!!!!

The otter really just wanted out of the cage...

Then you go into the next cage and there are birds of prey. This part was a little sad- they din't have enough room for the size of the birds. I hope they rotated them so they could all fly in the large cage that smaller cages were a part of.







Then we had a quick lunch break, before going to explore the other side.

While we were waiting, the wathogs(?) were making the most pitiful noises ever.

Which we figured out why, once we were in there. Apparently with every tour, they get milk. 

We walked through to see the two tigers, which were in separate cages from each other. I did wonder if the cages had US regulation hights or what the Russian regulation (i know, funny) was...but the tigers were acting like cats too much to care...AKA the were totally just sleeping.

Then on the same side as the tigers, there were.....deer. Cuz that makes sense. I mean the tigers couldn't get to the dear, but still.

This time the deer were anxiously looking at us when we walked in.

We give them food/breadcrumbs.

After the gigantic walk though of deer, with multiple families, we drove back to Vlad. This was actually quicker. I timed it both ways, so it's not just "you think it is quicker on the way back" no it was legitimately quicker on the way back.

Russia.

See you around the globe!

Four days of good bye...

As the title of the post suggests, we faced four days of good byes before we all left. At this point, Daniel was already back in Arizona and we hadn’t seen Naum in a few weeks. While an emotional time for us, it was also just what we needed for closure. We started off in Tetovo with Jen’s last kids club at the American Corner. They gave her so many gifts, so many kids loved her. And boy the car was packed! We barely had any room to sit.

On the 2^nd, we had out last goodbye party. It was at our lovely little kebab place we found. Everything with food for what felt like 40 for pretty cheap. We had a blast just sitting around talking with everyone. A nice mixture of people just mingling. We then went out to a club afterwards. It was a perfect MK ending to the year.

After a day of packing and just hanging out with friends, we spent the next day relaxing at a spa. We all had massages and either a pedicure or a facial. The prices were so great I wish I had done this about once a month. We all then went to join Erin at Ajana’s. This was one of the first places I ate at in MK and one of the last ones. It was touching and difficult to understand how 9 months had already passed. We saw Lizzie off to Bulgaria where she was going to catch her plane.

My last day in Skopje was spent hanging out at home and with new friends. I made sure to go see Hyun and Vancho one last time. As well as my friend from Macedonian 2025 before I left. Jen and I had made up our mind to not go to sleep before leaving thinking it would help us re adjust to US time zones. I think it did help, but boy was it super hard to do so! I have to admit, that I think the bit of wine and coffee helped us both.

We headed off to the airport at around 2:30 in the morning. The last bit was epic! We had been told by United that whatever we got to take over the Atlantic, we could take on every leg of our trip. We already had to pay for three suitcases so we went and paid for them, then we stood in line to check them. We also had our two carry on’s, which we thought were fine. Then we went to security….and we were only allowed one bag. At this point we didn’t want to pay for another over limit bag for our 4^th checked bag. We tried explaining what had happened and got mad, threatening to complain to United…speaking really fast in English at the same time (I felt a little bad afterwards) but I think they decided to left us go just to get rid of us. We kept talking about how we were going to complain to United until we got past security…we looked at each other, laughed and said there is NO WAY we are complaining…this was the best last minute gift from MK.

The planes were nice and almost empty the whole way home.  In case you don’t remember, we had to go from Skopje à Vienna à Zurich à New York à Houston/Chicago à Home. The first transfer was super easy…Switzerland was a bit, well stereotypical….line and directions and organization and comfy waiting locations and free wifi. And we had to go through security all over again. I thought Erin was joking when she told us about them looking at her weird with her glass bottle, but no they totally did. We barely had time to get through the airport before the plane loaded. We had to go through one last security checkpoint where they asked us questions about “Have you had your electronics repaired recently?” I mean is there a terrorist out there going “I only accept and repair electronics that are flying internationally so I can set you up to take the blame and blow up the plane?” oh well, it wouldn’t totally surprise me. We had a whole row to ourselves on the transatlantic! Totally nice. It was hard to say good bye in New York, but we knew we would keep in contact over FB.

It might be sad, but the first thing I bought was Auntie Anne’s Pretzels…delicious and American. When I got into Houston, I was dead. I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid of missing my flight, I couldn’t eat because I could barely stay awake, but I needed food. (Chili’s with a veggie burger and fries). And then my plane was a bit delayed.  But eventually (or so it felt) I made it on the plane and was finally going home.

It was nice to be home, to see family and friends. But I still miss the lifestyle of Macedonia and the food. I want to go back. I will go back, who knows when, but it will happen.

See you around the globe!

Last Day of Ohrid, First day of Thessaloniki

The last day of the Ohrid conference started with a change in schedule. The Foreign Minister was unable to attend so we had to switch the day up a bit and move the President’s speech up to 11am, which meant people stayed in bed a bit longer.

It is actually really cool to see the President of Macedonia speak. And shake his hand/talk to him for a bit! (Are you able to ask harsh questions to the President if it isn’t your country?) He had some very good quotes, and some interesting commentary on MK’s future. He used to be a lecturer at the University and I can tell why! He can speak and he has presence! He started off showing us some maps of the world (some of which had been shown to us the other day at this conference, but I thought it more appropriate to highlight it here. This is a traditional world map:

This is a world map where the equator is exactly half way on the paper, with as close as the right ratio as possible:

The thoughts of how we think about the world are shaped by our education, though history and geography. We are the “audiovisual generation” according to him. He did start to say things like all of our beliefs come from religion. But freedom is the source of knowledge and the dominant idea is “the idea of freedom.” What was ironic, is that he started talking about how we are supposed not be eurocentric but then starts showing videos that are really eurocentric about how republics are formed. Is money the new reason for conflict? He claims that freedom isn’t the idea that now moves people but rather wealth is. And the new form of slavery is debt. Another good line “People who only look to the future fly as I they had red bull!”

Did you know that 2 people are killed in conflict every minute?

He claims that most of the political spectrum is on the right now. Most politicians are on the right hand side of the political spectrum, even those of the left. He argues that we use the term “right” in almost all languages to symbolize the conservative side. Daniel thinks he was saying that to be on the “right” is the “right (correct)” move. But I just got that through history people were more conservative and thus the correct version was to be more conservative and that is how it got the name.

The first thing he said that was *ugh* feeling is that there is a problem assimilating due to maintain your own culture. And that this is a challenge that needs to be overcome. (WHY does this need to be overcome?) Also you need to learn to speak the language where you live because “those who communication integrate. And those who don’t communicate live in a ghetto.” (Once again….ummm…not all the time.) He claimed that the internet is a great leveling tool and has helped make territory loose it’s importance. He also claims that if the EU doesn’t start switching for the future and adopt for the new needs of the youth, it will be become a “museum for the Chinese/Indians/Brazilians to come and look at the past.”

I really wanted to ask him “How can you keep stressing freedom and democracy when your country, which you represent, is only listed as partially free according to Freedom House?” But I decided not too, when talking to him I wasn’t sure how much English he actually understood, or if he was just exhausted form speaking.

Daniel and I were going to meet with Andy, a Fulbright researcher who lives in Kosovo and was in Ohrid visiting a friend to drive down to Thessaloniki together! Since Daniel had decided to go to the Ohrid Conference at the last minute we had to change car rental companies and the price increased and we had to get a manual transmission. So Daniel was the only one who could actually drive the car. The lady was about 20 minutes late in showing up to give us the car (which ended up with us arriving RIGHT on time to our next conference). We were able to rent the car and get on our way!

The views were beautiful driving through the countryside of Macedonia. I would have never seen this part without having to drive to Thessaloniki! We drove through Bitola on the way there, that was the closest Greek border to Ohrid. The border was super easy and we flew right through! Then it was into Greece with more countryside that is beautiful and nowhere to stop for food! Luckily I had though ahead and bought some snacks!

even the Greek cities needed a city with a cross on a hill

When we checked into the hotel, they said under their breaths (some Skopjian just parked in our parking spots) because we had moved the thing to park in front of the hotel to check in. Immediately after checking in we went up to our rooms and then right back down to go to the opening reception at a local artist studio. The guy was on a Fulbright to study art and is very active in the commission in Greece. His studio was kind of cool! And they had food. Lots of greasy baked food. But yummy orange flavored potatoes. No dessert sadly. But free Greek wine. We tried to go out to a pub, but after they decided which pub to go in to, I helped this girl find her way back to the hotel. When I went back to the pub they had left! So I went back to the hotel and just checked my email and stuff!

See you around the globe!

Bled

We finally made it to Bled on Friday. We got up early and were going to catch the 8 am bus, but misjudged the time it would take us to get ready. So we decided to wait and go get the 8:30 bus. It takes about 25 to 30 minutes to walk form the hostel to the bus station. When we got there, we walked up to the counter and said “Bled.” We then had this conversation:

Her: The 9 am bus?
Me: isn’t there one at 8:30?
Her: Yes, but you have to change buses and it takes longer.
Me: o....k....

According to the bus station website the bus at 8:30 got us there just as quick at the 9, but who were we to argue with her. So we killed some time at the bus station waiting for the bus, when we got on it was pretty empty. I got to sit in the front seat and watch the Alps come towards me. Kinda cool. Just saying.

We stopped in a few stations along the way and I WISH I had gotten out at one and taken a picture. As we were rolling in, I glanced up and saw an add for the “bus pub.” Except for it was a bunch a elementary school kids looking out a school bus window with “Bus Pub” written in black on the top of the bus. No, you read that correctly. We stopped for 5 minutes and I debated getting out, but decided not to. So  so wish I did.

We made it to Bled in about one hour. We stopped at one stop that said “Bled” and I looked around, like...uhhh...here? The bus driver turned around and said “Here town. Next stop lake. ok?” So we waited for the next stop. At the next stop he said “Here lake. Go that road to lake, and that road to castle.” We started off going to the lake. We had planned to walk all. the. way. around. the. lake. And climb up a few different viewing points, and the castle. I didn’t think I would make it through the whole day. It was very pretty lake. Not as pretty as Ohrid, but pretty none the less. Part of the attraction was that we were in the ALPS! I mean come on! Pretty awesome! It took us a long time to walk the lake. We tried to follow the map to get up to a viewing point, and the only thing I kept thinking was “this is a really bad idea. A really bad idea.” But I couldn’t tell Jen or Lizzie that I wanted to back out because they were too far ahead of me. So I just walked really slow and tried to find my footing. Luckily I didn’t get hurt, but I slipped a couple of times.

Lizzie went up to the top while Jen and I went down. Then we waited about 45 minutes for her sitting by the lake. It was cold. Then we continued walking around the lake. We came upon the national rowing practice for the Olympics. Then continued walking towards the castle.  There were some beaches and even a water park for the summer.

We walked up this cliff to get to the castle. Inside the castle there was a print making shop (complete with the first printed book in Slovenian), beautiful views, a small museum, and a wine shop (where you could bottle your own wine for 15 Euros).

Broken? Use duct tape!

First book in Slovenian

Then we walked back down the cliff and caught a bus to this island with a church that we had been walking around (for 12 euros. eek!). In one of the houses on the island they had a small museum with an exhibition of clay dolls with folk dress from around the EU.

Then there was a church, with a bell we could actually ring! Apparently it has some significance as a wishing bell, but at the time I didn’t know that.

We then took the boat back to the mainland and went to this Wine and Chocolate shop. Where we got to taste local wine that Lizzie really loved served to us by a Macedonian man from Prilep! I know weird huh? He came over in the army of Yugoslavia and then stayed to start a family. He goes back to Macedonia once a year. We bought some chocolate. Then with an hour to kill we went and ate Bled Cream Cake at the original place it was made. I’m not sure if this would have been famous if it wasn’t for the tourist advertisement.

But it took longer than anticipated and we had to run to the bus stop. But we made it! When we got back to Ljubljana, we just relaxed in the hostel and planned our weekend. :)

Cave-ing!

The next day we woke up early and went to the caves in Slovenia.  We caught a bus to Divacha where we killed some time drinking “coffee” before we started the long hike to the first cave we went to. It was called Skocjanske Caves, and it is an UNESCO World Heritage site.  It was granted this honor in 1972 due to being the largest known underground canyon in the world and as an an example of some really cool things that happened a long time ago (they have names, but I didn’t understand them, so you can just go look at the page yourself!).

Anyway, we started walking, looking at the map and guessing which way to walk. There were some shots needed to document that we were walking along a highway with no sidewalk. We were a little confused because the signs for the cars were saying 5 KM the opposite way from which we were trying to walk. We were also following the directions “Go through the next village, and turn right at the church.” Umm...excuse me? THROUGH THE NEXT VILLAGE?!?!?!?!? There were a few signs that were very little, but once we got into the next village, there were these signs.

It was a muddy, cold, and uncomfortable. Very slippery, but once we got up onto this hill, there were some pretty cool views. It would have been a bit better had it not been cloudy, but oh well.

 

When we finally made it to the caves, we bought our tickets and waited for the tour to start  in about 15 minutes. We were not allowed to take any pictures once we went inside the cave. But here are a few shots of the entrance and exit.

 

 

In the cave, we followed the river backwards. There were only about 10 of us on this tour. We even saw this really cool bridge over the river. It was really cool, and totally scary if you are afraid of heights. But, we don’t have pictures because we weren’t allowed to take any. However, there were some lines where the first explorers made their entry into the caves. They were oh about 300 feet off the cave floor. But I guess if you couldn’t see down, it wasn’t that bad. Maybe. In the large chamber, where the really cool bridge was (the huge one, the reason that they got their UNESCO recognition) has flooded in the entire cavern. That is interesting, at least when you see how high that cavern was.

Then we went off with a ride with some new found friends to the city center of Divacha (they left and we stayed). There we ate some lunch and caught a bus to Postojna, where we were going to our next cave. When we got there, there was no real signs about how to walk there, so we stopped and asked a tourist agency which way to go. And about how to get to the castle. It turns out it is 10 mk away from the caves. It would be nice if that would have been in the brochures. Anyway, in case you wanted to know, you turn left out of the bus station towards the town, then take the first street on your left, follow it to the right and keep walking past the curve in the road. Then there will be signs. It is about 1 KM away from the bus station. More info about the caves can be found here.

 

We walked around a bit, then bought tickets for the caves and the aquarium. The aquarium thing was rather interesting with some info about the caves, the “human fish” salamander, and even an exhibit about butterflies!

 

Then we took the 3pm tour. There was a train ride, where we were took a 2 KM ride into the caves. Then it was an hour walking tour through the caves with a English guide. When we got off the train there were these signs with “German” “Italian” “English” and “Slovenian” where people were waiting for the tour to begin. THERE WERE A LOT OF PEOPLE! We of course joined the English tour.

 

 

It was rather interesting, but in the end, it was a cave. There were different named rooms, Spaghetti, Red, Blue room, etc. There was one interesting fact to me. There was this little bridge that they built to cross from one side to the other. It was built by Russian POWs in WW1. It was sad for me to think of it in that way, with history. I know that is a dark period in history, but to think of POWs doing forced labor just because they happened to be enemy soldiers is disheartening.  Here is an illegal movie of the inside of the cave. Sorry for the shaky camera/weird angle.

When the walking tour was over, we caught the train back to the entrance, and went souvenir shopping.

No Running After the Train?

Then we walked back to the bus station, where we sadly had a 45 minute wait. A very boring cold and lonely wait for the bus.  Then a longer bus ride back to the city because we went through the villages rather than the direct route.

Then we went to this little market to pick up some goodies for snacking on while we were there for the week.

All in all, a decent day. This is really not my thing. And the fact that we had no real plans or things decided before going, or knowledge of how to get there, was extremely aggravating to my planning self. Not to mention that I had twisted my knee some how and every step was extremely painful. I wasn’t in that good of a mood. And then when none of us together can make up our minds about anything = more wasted time and increasing aggravation. But we are still friends and we still traveled together the rest of the trip.