These are Spanish omelettes (or tortillas Españolas) with peppers at the Boqueria Market in Barcelona, Spain.

This was the same food-stand Ronja and I bought our vegetable pita lunches from another day. Even though translated to “omelette,” this Spanish food would be more accurately described as a potato cake, held together by eggs. I’m not a huge fan of super egg-y American omelettes, but I do love the soft and starchy Spanish version!

This is a serious case of lost in translation. When Ronja and I were on our way to Morocco, we found this in the Barcelona airport and cracked up. Since I’m unaccustomed to seeing alcohol-free beer for sale, it took me a moment to realize that this was an understandable mix-up. I just thought it was really funny that the label made it sound like the beer was free (if you ignore the 2 euros part), and then the can of beer is like, “FREE, DAMN!” (damm… whatever that means).

My friend Ronja and I like to visit cities with fantastic markets, and I’m not exaggerating when I say we then patronize them every day. There are just so many options that it never gets old, and almost everything is available in bite-sized portions, which means you can try dozens of different items before getting full.

These lovely, oily snacks are from the Boqueria Market in Barcelona, Spain. My favorite olives are of the garlic-stuffed variety.

For lunch (or maybe it was a very, very late breakfast) I decided to try this peperoncini stuffed with cheese (I’m not exactly sure what type, but it tasted like feta or other goat or sheep’s cheese). It was good, but would have been better smeared on a baguette.

Ronja found this hilarious little pickle-stuffed olive, which I guess is best described as the best of both worlds.

This is the only authentic Moroccan dinner Ronja and I were able to enjoy during our trip to Morocco that unfortunately fell during Ramadan (we were advised to remain indoors once the sun went down, but no one was serving food until after the sun went down). After a day tour of Marrakesh, we made it back by train to Casablanca and our tour guide recommended this restaurant.

I honestly do not remember what these dishes were exactly (definitely not what they were called) or how we knew what to order, but I believe that Ronja had chicken with carrots, potatoes and couscous (the first picture) and my dish was a sort of stew consisting of chicken, potatoes, olives, and lemon. What I do remember is that the dishes were delicious, and it made me very sad that we had to be eating McDonald’s most days instead of being able to experience more of this unique cuisine.

This is a lunch Ronja and I had in Morocco last summer. It was one of the few meals we got to experience outside of McDonald’s, since it was Ramadan and most places were closed all day.

The meal began with salty olives, coarse bread, and sweet butter.

We finished the meal with Moroccan mint tea which I do not have a picture of, but is one of the best aspects of the Moroccan dining experience, in my opinion.

Unfortunately, these pictures are not of very good quality. However, the Viktualienmarkt in Munich is one of the best outdoor markets I’ve ever been to. Pictured above is our mid-morning meal of dark German bread (for me), a baguette (for my friend Ronja), cheese, olives, fresh squeezed juices, hummus, and various German dips.

This market is basically the only thing that got me to drag my hungover self out of my hostel bed each morning.

My friend Ronja and I went to Morocco during Ramadan (mistake) last August. We stayed at Hotel Central which was lovely, minus the fact that we were mugged by a man with a knife about 50 feet from the front door in broad daylight, on our last day (when we were robbed, broke, and afraid to venture out again, one of the hotel employees miraculously procured soda and PIZZA for us, so major props to them).

Anyways, every morning we were served the same amazing breakfast spread on a beautiful little silver coffee table: freshly squeezed orange juice, coffee, two types of bread (as you can see, one was flat and oily- that one was obviously better), apricot jelly and butter. It would’ve been awesome no matter what, but the fact that we were refused service for the rest of the day every day by everyone except McDonald’s because of Ramadan, made it even better.