Places I've Been

Well, here I am again. And by here, I mean, sitting in my seat on an airplane, vaguely sweaty and slightly nauseous having just sprinted about a mile and downed a 20 oz cup of coffee in approximately 4 minutes.

It’s actually baffling to me how often I’m in this situation. I do this thing if I really want a scenario to go a certain way: I visualize the outcome and then practice. The airport scenario is one I really want to go a certain way. It’s a scenario I’ve visualized about a hundred times. And it’s a scenario I’ve had the chance to practice over and over and over. And I’m about 0 for 1000. Not good odds.

In my constructed environment, I’m the confident strutting international woman of mystery, clothed in a long coat and moving quickly but gracefully through the cheaply carpeted terminals, travel bag resting perfectly on my forearm. I move through the security line at lightning pace, pulling my shoes off and my laptop out in one fluid movement. And I arrive at the gate just in time to board, cup of coffee in manicured hand, only to relax into my seat and smile at the other more nervous passengers as they scramble for coveted overhead storage.

Ignoring the fact that I rarely have a manicured hands or an appropriate travel bag, I’m usually running too late for this to work (I know, shocking). Because I never fail to dangerously underestimate the amount of time it will take me to check-in, get through security, and find a decent cup of coffee (35 minutes, right?), I’m required to awkwardly sprint from the moment I step inside the automatic glass doors, risking dismemberment (or at least shoulder dislocation) by my rolling suitcase that is a little too heavy due to my frantic inefficient packing.

Security is never the breeze I expect, and instead of serenely gliding through the line, I end up standing 3 inches from the person in front of me, neck veins bulging, in hopes that my intensity will magically move people through the checkpoint in a timelier manner (it should be noted that this does not work). Savvy travelers have a system: they get their laptops out and ready, their coats off, and their shoelaces untied BEFORE they reach the little conveyor belt, and this allows them to shave several seconds off the whole ordeal. The rest of the pack has no such system, and I find myself sighing loudly as the family of five unpacks their electronic devices, contends with shoes, breaks down the stroller, inevitably loses and then finds something, and tries to herd the kids through the metal detector. Without fail, one of the kids sets off the alarm, and chaos ensues as the parents try to figure out what the cause is. Meanwhile, I’m having an aneurism, offering unhelpful advice, like hiring a babysitter next time, standing in my socked feet and worrying I’m going to miss my flight.

On a related note, airports these days are creating separate lines for travelers of varied experiences. There’s the family line, the casual traveler line, and the expert traveler line. Of course, I always choose the expert line, because I’m good at everything. This is a trick and always a bad call. This is because everyone thinks they’re good at traveling and chooses the expert travel line to feed their own ego. The TSA doesn’t think about this, however, so they make more casual traveler lines. So I get to have a heart attack because some dude just breezed through the casual traveler line while I’m waiting on the family of four shoving the car seat through the conveyer belt in the one line reserved for expert travelers. It’s times like those when I wish the TSA would relegate more people to crowd control and less to telling me that contact solution comes in travel size bottles that would prevent them from having to test mine every time I go through security. Really? I’ve been wearing contacts since 8^th grade. You mean I’ve never realized there’s another bottle size?

Once I do make it through the TSA process, the next order of business is coffee. I cannot fly without coffee. I do my best work on planes, and this is completely contingent upon me being caffeinated.

In any circumstance, caffeine is a magical magical drug that makes me ambitious, motivated, and focused. When I’m caffeinated, I can do anything. I have the energy to run a marathon, the optimism to commit to lofty goals, and the articulation to craft great pieces of writing. I can save the planet on caffeine. I can run for office. I can compassionately wax poetic about my fellow man. There is one danger of caffeine, though (uh, besides the whole explosive stomach thing): wasting its potential. Sometimes I get sucked into diversions when I’m caffeinated, and then I end up spending high-potential hour upon high-potential hour being the best facebooker ever, only to realize that I could have been doing something good for humanity with all of those wasted minutes.

Which brings us to why caffeine is essential for plane rides: with no other distractions on an airplane, I have a perfect environment in which to achieve. The amount of work I can pump out in a coffee-enhanced trip is truly stunning. So no matter how late I’m running, finding that black nectar is paramount.

Usually, this means sprinting bowleggedly, trying not to run myself over with my carry-on, to the side of the terminal I know houses a Starbucks or a Caribou Coffee or some other chain of mediocrity that I at least know will be drinkable. Upon obtaining my scalding hot cup of joe, I have to run back, risking second degree burns, so I can be first on the plane and get my choice of overhead storage space. In my nervousness over whether I’m going to be able to achieve that end, I down the coffee as fast as I can, burning the roof of my mouth and ensuring I’m going to be counting the seconds until the seatbelt sign goes off so I can relieve myself in the bathroom.

So we’re pretty much up-to-date on how I got here, sweating and nauseous. Standard operating procedure.  Baffling.

Alright, Boston, I’m sold. Though your humidity gives me an unbecoming bouffant hairdo, I’m gunning for a more permanent return to your city limits. I like to think I got a glimpse into my future life, law school and beyond, and it incorporated all of my favorite things.

Becky picked me up from the airport on Friday night and asked if I would mind attending her non-profit’s 15^th anniversary party. Though she assured me that it was perfectly okay for me to sit home and watch TV, I was vehemently opposed to missing out on the chance to make small-talk with awkwardly skinny men in used women’s cardigans and ironic tee shirts who have forsaken material goods in the name of schooling the youth of America. After a primer on the lingo of the program, I was ready to go, and I found myself flaunting a nametag in a room full of inner-city schoolteachers sipping Sam Adams and Yellow Tail.

All of my conversations went something like this:

“Hi, I’m Laura.”

“Hi, I’m —, what do you do here?”

“I’m a friend of the organization.” (I hoped they then assumed by “friend” I meant “wealthy donor”) “Yourself?”

“I’m a CT at the NSA in the MVMPBQ.”

(Nodding my head and smiling) “Very cool!”

(Sip beers. Eat food. Move away in silence.)

After I’d had a small talk conversation with every single person there (which didn’t take very long given my complete and utter lack of knowledge about educating), I crept down the stairs and stood awkwardly in front of the band, singing along vaguely to Motown hits performed by a large woman clad in a vest and poorly fitted black pants. It was vaguely reminiscent of my 8^th grade social circuit, which included a lot of bar/bat mitzvahs, except that there was alcohol instead of Hawaiian Punch (a welcome substitution). Becky was an excellent hostess, however, and upon the arrival of Ben via train from New York, we found ourselves out with a group of program alums hitting the Cantab, a delightful bar in Cambridge with another (remarkably similar) cover band and abundant whiskey ginger ales.

It was here that I noticed the sizeable population of highly desirable men for the first time. The crowd was very much in my favor: tall, dark hair, glasses, and that disheveled look that I associate with the intelligent grad student who has no time to think about fashion. It was literally about 27 seconds before I was engaged in conversation with a young man of my physical liking about insurgency politics in Burma, and then the musical genius and influence of Leonard Cohen and Daniel Johnson, and then the weirdest foods we’d ever eaten in the weirdest countries we’d ever visited. Hooray for the nerd heyday. Sold.

Saturday morning found our dynamic trio covering important pre-wine festival bases at Darwin’s, a coffee shop I plan to frequent with aggressive zeal until the staff knows me and starts giving me my coffee refills for free. I like few things better than perfectly yolky over-easy eggs, bacon, and croissants, but the happy combination of those three foods and the addition of avocado and cheese in breakfast sandwich form is nothing short of blissful. The yolk of my egg spilled pleasantly over the rest of the ingredients creating a well-textured and properly-flavored meal perfect for engaging the palate and preparing the body and soul for excessive consumption. Practically religious.

Then it was onto the trip’s original purpose. The Boston Wine Expo is the largest wine expo on the East Coast. Producers, distributors, and importers pack into the Seaport Center with their line-up, and the public descends, cattle style, upon the goods. Last year, Ben’s and my strategy was similar to my strategy at an open bar at a wedding: maybe move from white to red, but generally just get drunk. Quickly. This year, the first two hours found Ben spitting (I know, what?) and me waxing poetic on the 10% of wines I wanted to try like some insufferable snob. The brunt of this was on Jeff and Haley, who’d joined us from DC and had the unfortunate timing of arriving about half an hour later than us, when I was just tipsy enough to unabashedly share my “knowledge:” “You MUST try the German rieslings. They’ve REALLY brought some pretty stuff.” I would have punched me in the face, too.

Admittedly, the highlight of the Boston Wine Expo was seeing the woman Ben and I nicknamed the Chateauneuf Lady. Last year, after consuming a lot of other wine, Ben and I posted up at the Chateauneuf-du-Pape (henceforth CDP) table and talked for an hour to an adorable tiny woman from New Jersey who happened to be married to Alain Juguenet, the man arguably responsible for the enjoyable CDP trend currently taking the United States of America by storm. Obviously, we didn’t know that then and so were THOSE patrons, commanding attention from the entire Juguenet family until well after the show ended and they finally agreed to meet us across the street for a drink in order to get rid of us.

Since that experience, Ben and I had talked extensively of the legendary Chateauneuf Lady, proudly bearing the CDP temporary tattoos she’d given us on visible elements of our bodies at other wine expos. So when the entire family recognized us, it would be an understatement to merely say that we were pleased. They even remembered what we’d been up to, asking us questions about the wine technology application I was creating (woops) and our sommelier certifications. I flirted my face off with both the son (tall with dark hair… I can’t help it) and the Chateauneuf Lady in hopes that they’d ask me to join their family through either matrimony or servitude. Being much less drunk allowed for recognition of the moment when the social interaction was appropriately over, and we bid our mature adieus, ready to hit the North End for a plate of messy pasta.

The North End is a mass of winding cobblestone streets lined with Italian restaurants, pastry shops, and ice creameries. As much as I like all of those things, the neighborhood stresses me out. The abundance of choice is overwhelming, and the knowledge that the best Italian food in the city might very well be around the next corner is cataclysmically stressful. Normally, I’m equipped for this problem, armed with sound advice or a Zagat guide, but I was unprepared this time. When that happens, I end up stomping from restaurant to restaurant, halfheartedly reading menus and trying to determine whether one place is better than another. Toss in the hour and a half wait at any place worth patronizing and the politics of a party of 7 and the probability of satisfaction with the ultimate choice is frustratingly low. We settled on an upstairs table at a fairly generic spot and got what we deserved for our lack of patience: mediocrity.

Naturally, we merely drowned our sorrows in ice cream, and then Becky, Ben, and I headed back to Cambridge for Atwood’s, a bar that will likely become a staple of my social life. The extensive and delightful selection of beers on tap and the live music invited the three of us to throw the deep switch, riled up about politics and save-the-world complexes and Washington and the economy, and we leaned on the mahogany bar for about three hours, nursing IPAs and getting more passionate with each passing moment while an eclectic blues group sang off key and banged away on a two-string bass that resembled a ukulele.

Sunday was campus visit day, so after another breakfast sandwich at Darwin’s, Ben and I began our epic trek through the city of Boston, armed with just our conversational spirit and handheld devices to conquer Harvard, MIT, and Boston University.

I’ve got to admit, I’m at least a tiny bit remorseful that I popped off to Harvard and effectively eliminated my chances of attending. I’d visited the campus before, but I’d forgotten exactly the feeling of superior delight the colonial brick buildings and tree-lined grounds elicit. Most unfortunately, I could picture myself backpack-laden and heading to class, basking in the glow of America’s favorite ivory tower. MIT was a different story. An hour walk along the Charles later, we were surrounded by engineers and people doing science and 60’s and 70’s architecture reminiscent of the Soviet era. Not my fancy (sorry, engineers).

Over on the Boston side of the river, we wandered through Beacon Hill and brownstone-lined streets en route to the BU campus, which is a long stretch along Commonwealth Ave. We opted to eat lunch at Victoria’s Seafood, a Chinese restaurant with colorful tropical drinks posters in the windows. I like a little sketchiness in a Chinese restaurant, and this covered that base just fine. We really rolled the dice by ordering the lobster, however, and I spent the rest of the night wondering when my comeuppance was going to begin (luckily, it never happened).

Ben had to return to New York after that, and I wandered over to Brookline for a reunion with the one and only Robert (Roberto, for those of you who have followed my adventures since the original Argentina tour). We quickly picked up where we left off about 5 years ago: platonically cuddling in his bed with witty one-liners, tales of recent dating faux pas, and brutal analysis of the attractiveness of a slew of males on our favorite online dating site.

Robert’s always good for a good honest sketch of every neighborhood in the area, so we hit the streets to see what I’d experience if I opted to live in Brookline like a good BU grad student: “Here’s the Jewish pastry shop, and in case you didn’t fulfill all of your Jewish pastry needs there, there’s another right across the street. Kosher Chinese food you say? Fear not. It’s there. In case you need shoes when you move to Boston, here’s a store for that. And yes, they sell them in size ski, too!”

Feasting on Pho and ice cream gave us time to catch up. I regaled him with my recent run-in with a strategy-focused Scrabble-player during a date (at which Robert scoffed, “Oh, please. Two-letter words? Those little tiles are merely a vehicle for me to demonstrate my intellectual supremacy.”). He one-upped me with a tale about a date who had a well-disguised prosthetic leg, the surprising discovery of which rendered understandable inequitable uneasiness.

I was sad to leave the next morning, but relished riding the T (my friends are well-equipped with vehicles so the practice of my public transportation hobby was mostly unnecessary) and taking in the Boston business-culture scene, which is markedly less of a scene than New York.

Generally? Boston is an endlessly pleasant place filled with smart people with whom I enjoy socializing. I like the bars. I like the restaurants. I like the aesthetically pleasing neighborhoods. I like the slightly-less-aggressive-than-New-York East Coast intensity. So now I’m hoping against hope that Harvard accepts me—while getting comfortable with the idea of BU. Boston fits. Here’s hoping I’ll see you in the fall.

… and now likes to compulsively update the blog.

Bring on the Cats

During this year’s annual month-long chick flick marathon usually undertaken to allay my fears that I’m undatable, I’ve had an interesting realization: recent (if you can call the past two years “recent”) antics suggest I relate most to the cold-hearted bitches doomed to lose the dude and die alone. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Those girls probably just weren’t feeling it, but as they were flattered by the attention, they chose to leave their relationships in a comfortable gray area so as to hold on to some hope of friendship and not step on any delicate emotional toes of a dude that’s probably good in bed, good at choosing restaurants, or a good response to the nagging question, “Who are you dating these days?” Though Hollywood oft portrays those girls as crazy and desperate once their man runs off with Cameron Diaz or Julia Roberts, what’s probably the case is that they’re happy to finally be out of the mess, and they’re shaking their heads knowingly, having accurately guessed that their mediocre man would be lured in by good looks and mediocre personality. Just saying.

Harvard (wo)Man

Harvard Law contacted me encouraging me to apply because “every year [they] end up admitting students who never thought they had a chance at getting into Harvard.” Obviously, this immediately inflated my ego and made me reconsider my prospective school list, until I realized the email was addressed “Dear Prospective Student.” Apparently, Harvard Law has been taking lessons from Harvard Business School, feeding on the insecurities of barely unqualified candidates in order to collect the $85 application fee. Well played, Harvard, well played. Economic times are tough. I applaud your ingenuity.

America. F- Yeah.

I was combing my childhood home for a car title and savings bonds yesterday when I stumbled upon a tasty little artifact from culture-shocked life in Argentina: a hand-written, cleverly decorated list of things about America that I will never take for granted again. Most of these were food, horrible cultural stereotypes, and political issues, all of which I, of course, immediately resumed taking for granted upon my return to the states. Some highlights: Jelly Belly (which I have eaten about 5 times in my whole life), Texans, healthy not skinny (ha haaaaaa… right), children flying kites (what?), things that close early (note that this is NOW one of my biggest irritations in life), Taco Nazo (pre-hepatitis scare, natch), and a good New Yorker (what foresight). A little too much Jeff Buckley, if you ask me.

Bad question gets bad response.

I’m tired of the question “what are you training for?” This is an appropriate question in zero situations. If you ask me at the gym, I’m going to be irritated that I have to slow down the treadmill before I finish panting out my mile run to tell you “nothing.” If you ask me while making small talk, we’re both going to feel incredo awkward when I tell you “nothing,” and we’re also going to have nothing else to talk about. If you ask me while hitting on me at a bar, I’m going to wonder if you’re subtly making a jab about my lack of shape. Anywho, I have a new response:

“What are you training for?”

“Not being a fat ass. It’s a long hard road, but I’ll get there.”

            Sometime between the veritable tantrum I’d thrown upon exiting the Ventas metro stop around 2:30 in the afternoon and the moment 4 hours later when I found myself in the blazing Madrid sunshine with my eyes covered with my hands, I’d realized what happens to the bull at the end of the bullfight.  Or what usually happens to the bull.  At 2:30 in the afternoon, when I was cranky from the lack of sleep caused by my incredibly un-Spanish hostel’s rules that its guests get out at 11 am after a “cultural” night ending at 7:30 am, it had seemed exciting to partake in a the event Franco made the national sport during his autocratic rule.  I pictured it like a lazy afternoon baseball game, drinking light beer in the sun over mindless chatter, only with guys waving capes instead of swinging sticks.

            Adam, bless his heart, tried to talk me out of it.  Another less bloody Spanish cultural experience was taking place that evening:  the Real Madrid vs. FT Barcelona soccer game.  He seemed to be more interested in meeting his Spanish friends in a pub, drinking good beer, and watching 22 men in shorts run around for a couple of hours.  He preferred the drama of a potential but easily avoided bar fight to the drama of an unavoidable death.  But at 2:30 that afternoon, I forgot that bullfighting is about death, imagined it was simply a spectator sport akin to the rodeo, and stood firm.

            4 hours later, we were climbing to the uppermost level of the historic bull-fighting ring (I’d managed to convince Adam of the activity only by agreeing to buy the cheapest tickets and leave after the first bull).  “I hope the bull wins,” I remarked jokingly.  The bull never wins.   And it was with that utterance that it slowly dawned on me what “winning” means.  As the opening ceremonies began and men in elaborate pirate-like garb strode into the rings brandishing sharp weapons, my stomach clenched.

            I leaned over to Adam, hoping he’d allay my fear.  “Do they kill the bull in the end?”  At this point, his eyebrows shot up and his face contorted in a half laugh.  When he realized I wasn’t kidding, he buried his shaking head in his hands.

            “No.  They doctor them up real nice afterwards.”  Dense as I am, I got the sarcasm.  I was beginning to regret my rash impulse to come to this event.

            And so the action began.  One of the pirates galloped into the rink on horseback brandishing a knife while a couple of his compadres hid behind the hollowed out boxes.  After some showmanship that reminded me of old 50s Westerns, they let the first bull into the ring.  It was a sluggish creature, showing only a passing interest at the flourishes of pink and red flashed in its face. 

            “They save the wild bulls for later,” Adam noted.  Apparently.

            When the first knife went in to the bull’s shoulder blade, my hands took the place they would remain for the rest of the spectacle:  firmly in front of my eyes, where I could clamp my fingers closed should the viewing become too grotesque.  I employ this method in all horror movies, no matter how benign, and it reduces my nightmares later by at least 25%.

            Knife after knife went in as the crowd cheered, but the bull kept standing.  In fact, as more sharp objects penetrated its skin and muscles, it became livelier.  I can’t imagine why.  I’m sure getting stabbed repeatedly is a really relaxing event.

            “I have a bad feeling someone’s going to get gored,” said Adam after the bull still seemed to be going strong.  For the animal’s sake, I wanted it to be over.  Eight knives in a shoulder seemed like an unnecessary amount of torture for a peaceful creature oft depicted in pastoral scenes.

            Apparently, the matador thought so, too.  He abandoned his horse and came back into the ring, where the exhausted bull was spiraling back and forth between the helpers, who were finally brave enough to venture out of their holding boxes.  Showing the crowd the knife meant to deliver the final blow elicited a wave of cheers (and a gagging motion from yours truly), and the fighter approached the bull.  What seemed to be monotonous series of movements and flourishes finally ended with the matador driving his sword into the animal…

            …And then all hell broke loose.  The bull, evidently pissed off about this latest assault, bucked wildly- and gored the matador.  The matador curled into a tiny ball while the bull continued his offensive.  A team of uncostumed handlers and medics rushed into the ring to help the injured man, while the compadres, now visibly a bit shaken, tried to distract the bull away from him. 

Against all odds, the bull had won.  My first reaction was to think, bloody well right.  My second thought was a bit more compassionate for my fellow man:  the death of the matador might be the only thing worse than the death of the bull, I hope he’s all right (we read the next day that he had several contusions, but was alive).  And finally, I hoped they’d let the bull go.  I thought his victory meant the handlers would take him back to his pen, congratulate him for a job well-done, and maybe let him nurse a glass of scotch while they tended to his gaping flesh wounds.  Not so.  Instead, they sent in a back-up matador to finish the job.  This unwilling subject made a couple of attempts to no avail. 

Finally, as the muttering crowd of conservatives began to loudly voice their embarrassment with the cruelty of the sport and looked on the verge of calling PETA and declaring their allegiance, an animal handler was sent in with a herd of bovines, meant to herd the injured steer out of the eyes of the crowd.  The animal was exhausted and refused to follow, creating a downright pathetic scene that made the tension in the crowd skyrocket.  I felt nauseous, my hands now being used to cover my eyes and my mouth.  I imagined even the staunchest opponents to animal rights felt a tug at the heartstrings.  When they finally did get him to the edge of the ring, they made one more attempt from the side to kill him swiftly- and failed.  The bull reared up and galloped, nearly goring his offender over the rail.  They had no choice but to corral him out of sight, where they likely finished the job with a stun gun.  I, for one, couldn’t take it anymore.  I was ready to retreat to the safety of an Irish pub and less primitive national past times (as a sidenote, I find that participation in soccer rivalries is one of the most interesting and telling cultural experiences one can have- much more interesting than an event one can’t even watch without looking through fingers).  The booing crowd seemed to agree with my sentiments. 

Already illegal in more liberal areas of the country, bullfighting will likely be outlawed everywhere in Spain in the near future.  I respect that the sadistic event is part of Spain’s storied past, but I can’t say I’ll be sad to see it go.  And before my next hamburger, for which I’ll need to slowly build up an appetite, I’ll silently raise my glass to my food’s mistreated Iberian brother.

There is, most unfortunately, no such thing as a free lunch.  That sucks.  I like lunch.  I like free.  The blissful union of those two things is something someone somewhere should get on.  There may be a Nobel prize, or at least a James Beard award, in store.

There is, however, a custom in Madrid called “tapas” which I gather to mean in English “free bar snacks.”  Typically, this consists of a basket of salty chips or peanuts, tossed on your table so that you might order another round of drinks.  This normally works.  The salt parches your throat so that you can barely rasp “another round” to your friendly server.  Which arrives with more salty snacks.  A vicious, beautiful cycle, that.

There is at least one place, however, that goes above and beyond a salty snack and delivers the closest thing to free lunch I have ever seen in the non-communist world (uh, or in the communist world, for that matter).

It’s possible to spot El Tigre from a block away.  Even on a Sunday afternoon, young Spaniards with trendy haircuts and acid-washed jeans block the door, oft clutching a glass or bottle of something that looks vaguely alcoholic.  The ceilings are low, the décor rivals the best and dirtiest dive bar with unsteady tables, wall kitsch that has little rhyme or reason, and barrels filling in so more patrons can crowd into the tiny space, set things on a flat surface, and pretend that they are involved in some semblance of comfort.

Flat surfaces are important.  Order a caña in El Tigre, which is a juice glass full of light beer, and you get plate of authentic Spanish tapas that range from tortilla Española to ham on tostados to croquetas of fried cheese and dough.  The closest thing to a potato chip you’ll see is a fried potato, dripping in salt and grease and doused in salsa brava.

It’s hard to hold your food and drink at the same time, hence the tables and barrels.  It’s also hard to have just one round (huh, I spot the revenue model here).  If you’re like me in your lust for free and delicious, you’ll feel obligated to eat until you’re about to explode, which will cost you approximately 5-7 euros, depending on how healthy your appetite is (mine is healthy.  Very healthy.  If this had been dinner, I would have spent 7 euros.  As it was a snack, I spent 3.50).  On a continent where it’s hard to spend less than $50 a day even if you’re living po’, El Tigre is a godsend.  Just watch yourself.  If there’s anything worse than an alcohol hangover, it’s a fried food hangover.  And at El Tigre, you’re likely to get both.

Being an exceptionally tall human, I am no stranger to public transportation with legroom for dwarves.  My turn to yoga was one part desire to get in shape, one part desire to touch my toes, and 900 parts necessity, since without flexibility, I am unable to contort myself in ways necessary to fit myself into the Polly Pocket-sized compartments that seem to abound this earth.

No munchkin-land impression, however, compares with my flight on SpanAir.  Not a one.

I was forced to take SpanAir from Frankfurt to Madrid because I paid with miles.  When you pay with miles, you don’t get normal amenities.  You don’t get upgrades.  You don’t get seat requests.  You don’t get special meals.  You may as well get shoved in the cargo area of the plane.  They aren’t making money off of you, and, therefore, they have no interest in making you comfortable.  Last time I flew on miles, I had a middle seat on an Asian airline from San Francisco to Jakarta, Indonesia.  Luckily, I also had a good friend named Ambien along for the ride who allowed me to sleep in that middle seat the entire way and wake up with just a moderate crick in my neck.  No such luck on the Frankfurt to Madrid leg.  My health insurance changed and turns out most doctors don’t just prescribe Ambien because you might want to take it recreationally during a long flight.  Who knew.

I eyeballed the lack of leg space immediately upon drowsily boarding my flight.  Hoping it was just my lack of spatial awareness flaring up again, I tried to suppress the imminent panic attack building.  I looked at my ticket again. Definitely a window seat.  When I reached my row, I couldn’t get into my seat the normal way, so I crawled over the first two seats then busted out the Crisco to grease myself down between row 23 and 24.  I had 2 carry-ons, and I did my best to stealthily put both in the overhead compartment and was promptly caught by a flight-attendant with an overzealous love for rules.  She told me in Spanish that I had to put my second bag under the seat in front of me.  I pretended to not understand (hey, being a foreigner might finally pay off!), so she proceeded to tell me in French, German, and English.  Great.  Guess I can’t pass for Japanese (see aforementioned height affliction).

My oversized purse taking up a cubic foot of my precious legroom meant that there was no way I would be able to sit straight in my seat.  Praying that I wouldn’t have seatmates, I arranged myself in a modified side-angle pose, propping myself up with one elbow and shoving my butt forward toward the seat in front of me.  Naturally, it was a full flight.  As soon as my seatmates arrived, I was locked into place, doomed to either breathe through the hip opening position I was in for the next 2 ½ hours or die of muscle cramps.

To get through it, I began to imagine the Spanish flavors I would be reintroduced to upon my arrival in the Iberian peninsula.  This was particularly difficult after the flight attendant dropped off my mid-flight snack.  Far from the fat-laced jamon de Iberico I was preemptively drooling over, I was forced to stress-eat a crustless whitebread sandwich with bad cheese and too much mayonnaise.  I then asked my seatmates to let me out no less than 11 times so I could “go to the bathroom” (which probably made them think I had kidney failure or irritable bowel syndrome) and yelled “come ON” a little too loudly when armrest-grabbing turbulence dictated the pilot turn on the fasten seatbelt sign, ending my 95th lap up and down the aisle.

Finally, just as my heart was about to explode from excessive palpitations, the pilot announced that we were about to touch down in Madrid.  Hallelujah.  But as some cruel twist of fate and test of my patience, my rowmates, with that smug look of superiority that clearly says, “I am god because I am better at sitting still than you are,” waited until everyone else deboarded the plane.  Guess what.  I don’t care.  And furthermore, I’m going to walk like the tinman for about 6 days straight because of what you’re putting me through.  I don’t know god, but if I were him, I’d banish you to the 9th circle of hell for that move.  It’s akin to beating a puppy.

Finally, after sweat broke across my brow, I was freed from my SpanAir confinement.  Crisco was again necessary to bust out of my improvised yogic pose, and my stiff limbs flailed a bit, nearly taking out the very flight attendant that made me put my bag under the seat in front of me.  Serves her right.

It’s lucky Spain is a culture of pork.  Otherwise, this totally wouldn’t be worth it.

I knew it was going to come to this. I knew my actions that night were going to cause me to have to sleep on my side like a pregnant woman, moaning in discomfort, and trying not to get crushed by my newly acquired mass. And even though I’d known, I’d entered the affair with unflappable enthusiasm, because as the kid who indulges in too much Halloween candy knows, sometimes it’s worth it.

3 hours earlier, I’d marched purposefully up a quiet street in Buenos Aires to a palace of kitsch and Italian food. Guido’s stands out against its marble-faced neighbors, but is easy to miss if you don’t venture off the main drags of the city. Once on the street, however, it’s easy. Just look for the place with wall-to-wall posters of the mafia culture of 1950’s U.S.A. and listen for a scratchy radio blaring an indecipherable mix of tango and old Italian hits. Once you enter, make sure you notice all the details. I recommend a game of I Spy to get you started, and don’t forget the bathroom art. There’s more here than the crazy old cat lady’s cluttered apartment, and you get to observe it without the weird smell.

What you’ll find in this admittedly abrasive aesthetic is organized chaos: no menu, exquisite Italian delicacies dropped at your table at your waiter’s dizzily-paced whim until you quit or throw up, and a bill based on your popularity among the wait staff. You have only three choices to make:

1. Red or white?

2. Meat course?

3. Dessert?

You want your popularity to surge? Go for broke- order everything. Then make enthusiastic conversation in broken Spanish or wild gestures about how amazing the food is. After course one, this probably won’t take acting. And after enough wine, you’ll be able to communicate your love with no problem, language barrier or no.

That night, I pulled open the doors and was surrounded by the cast of characters that had greeted me 3 years earlier: Carlos and his crew. Carlos is the man behind the magic. A large friendly Italian man and surrogate grandfather to all, he respects eaters, wine-drinkers, and patrons who like his soccer team. He is instantly your family member, encapsulating you in a hug, kissing you on the cheek, and preparing to feed you at his table. After Argentine kisses with everyone and finding my old picture above the bar (it was still hanging, 3 years later), I was shown to my table as if I were VIP, whether the crew actually remembered me or not. Once you’re part of the family, you’re always part of the family, and you’re always welcome at Carlos’s table.

And so it began. Question 1: red or white? There may be only a couple of bottles of wine available in the restaurant, but wine-lovers shouldn’t turn their nose up at the lack of a dictionary-sized list: Carlos’s son has won several national sommelier prizes. The man knows wine. He just likes to control what’s served with his food. As we were in Argentina, home of Malbec and always-improving Cabernets, we chose red, and were treated to a well-balanced Malbec, a perfect table wine for pairing with a variety of food.

The red wine was barely poured (no wine glasses, just old-fashioned glass cups) when eggplant lasagna, Italian meatballs, and focaccia drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with sundried tomatoes and a touch of parmesan cheese came flying out of the tiny kitchen and onto our old wooden table. My party came prepared to eat, so these were inhaled instantly. The waiters were ready. We were still chewing when the next round of appetizers came, lemon-marinated zucchini, mozzarella and tomatoes, poached chicken in basil and citrus. And so on.

When the waiters were satisfied with the number of appetizers we’d consumed, they began bringing the pastas. Raviolis of different winter vegetables were stand outs, as were creative variations on spaghetti carbonara. And no Italian dinner in Argentina is complete without some form of gnocchi, done that night with a hint of tomato sauce.

The beauty of the food at Guido’s is that nothing is particularly complicated, each dish merely focuses on simple Italian flavors combined to induce maximum pleasure on the part of the eater. Everything is meant to be shared, and dishes are meant to be consumed in large volumes. In other words, come with friends and come hungry: this is a glutton’s marathon. If you’re not sick by the end of the pasta course, you aren’t doing it right. Eat through it. There’s more to come.

We were graciously granted a breather after pasta, perhaps because the wait staff was baffled at the amount of food we were able to consume and they were obliged to call in reinforcements. It was halftime, and along with loosening our belts, we were encouraged to engage with the eclectic crowd. This is, to some extent, an orchestrated event. As you inhale your first courses at Guido’s, the waiters continue to pour your wine. Once you take a 30 second break to let that catch up, your new confidence in your Spanish language abilities coupled with the proximity of the tables in the tiny space nearly guarantees you’re going to loudly compare experiences with parties around you. Guido’s is the kind of place where it’s not against the rules to yell or fall out of your chair, and nothing makes Carlos happier than seeing all of his friends talk to each other.

Carlos made his rounds, introducing regulars to new guests, and kissing our cheeks over and over, asking why I hadn’t been back in 3 years. Believe me, my friend, I’d love to live in your restaurant. Just carve me out a little hole in the back and I’ll spend my years here, scavenging scraps from the tables and entertaining the crowd. During this break in the action, we learned about Carlos’s soccer abilities from a couple of his club mates, toasted some very intoxicated Japanese tourists in a mix of Spanish and English, and promised at least a dozen people we’d meet them out at bars around the city. Everyone was hitting a euphoric high, and suddenly energy was on par with the environment and pace of the meal.

Just when the raucousness was reaching its height, the next course arrived to placate the crowd. Choice 2: Meat? The meat platter is the weak point in the line-up. In true Argentine tradition, this course consists of a platter of grilled steaks, sausages, and chicken. No sides, no marinades, just protein. This concept is amazing, but more enjoyable when you are not subjected to 50 different dishes beforehand. At that point, meat becomes a passage into a purple haze and a likely reason to skip dessert. And who wants to skip dessert?

We opted out of meat Or actually, we were cut off from this one. We’d asked for extra appetizers and pastas and the wait staff told us politely that we’d probably had enough. It was a good call. I was approaching the puke and rally point, and as one member of my party noted as we debated whether to indulge, “This is not healthy.”

Carlos nodded knowingly when we turned down choice 2 and moved us right into choice 3: dessert. He signaled to the kitchen and we were presented with 5 variations on vanilla. One member in our party was celebrating a birthday, and Carlos rose to the occasion by decorating the plate with candles and instigating a restaurant rendition of Happy Birthday. It was off-key, it was in at least 4 different languages, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Riding the energy of the moment, we dove into the sweets as though equipped with 2^nd stomachs for dessert, and we licked the plate clean of panna cotta, flan, ice cream, and cakes.

Post-dessert, the crowd began to quiet down into the drowsiness that comes with digestion. Carlos was ready for it. Out came the espresso, after-dinner cookies, and obligatory limoncello. He toasted us all jovially, assuring us we’d always have a place at his restaurant and thanking us for being his friends. Finally slowing, our group began to experience that scene in Monty Python: “Just one more thin mint.” Someday, someone in that restaurant is actually going to explode.

2 ½ hours after it had begun, the end had come, along with the check: more food and wine than I’d ever consumed in my life for around $25. Distended bellies, purple teeth, and idiotic grins, we bid goodbye to our new friends, took more pictures with Carlos and his crew to add to his collection of friends above the bar, kissed and hugged our Guido’s family again and again, and then waddled back to our apartment. The inevitable pain began, and we assumed our positions on our sides, competing with each other for the loudest moans. It didn’t matter. As I said before, once you’re in the family, you’re there forever. And next time I’m in Buenos Aires, I know I’ll certainly make it a point to visit the relatives.