You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2008.
I very, very rarely eat Chinese food. There are far too many places that peddle horrible food and you never know what you are getting yourself into at a random Chinese restaurant. For some reason, my father is a big fan, and tries to get it at least once while on most vacations despite being in new and unfamiliar territory. Today was one of those days. I nearly had him talked out of it, but in the end, I was outvoted. I’m pretty sure my suggestions were vetoed simply on principle, because they came from the troublesome (pseudo-)vegetarian that had been making mealtimes difficult all week. I considered going off on my own for some alone time and to find something I actually wanted to eat, after several days of being subjected to crappy, unhealthy, and unsatisfying food. I conceded mostly because my knee is still really bothering me after the trip into the Grand Canyon yesterday and I didn’t feel up to walking anywhere, and in the hope that veggies and tofu would be a fairly safe and somewhat healthy choice.
Fast forward about 15 minutes after I finished eating to me trying not to puke on the sidewalk. Jump ahead a few more minutes to when I was trying not to throw up in our 15 person van, or in the parking lot of the night sky talk we were hearing. Several hours later I am still taking deep breaths, drinking cold water and trying to ignore the feeling in my throat and the lingering bad taste from the meal I never should’ve eaten…
April 24th of 2008 may mark the last time (at least for the foreseeable future) that I ignore my better judgment and make the mistake of having Chinese food.
So, for anyone reading this who doesn’t know me very well, you might be curious about why the name of the blog is I Shouldn’t Travel.
Here’s an example of why:
My day started out with nervousness over missing my first flight out of DIA to Detriot, where I would pick up a connection to Erie, PA. Why an employee based out of Colorado is flying to Pennsylvania instead of someone from Connecticut is beyond me, but logical thinking has never been very highly valued at my company.
Northwest has had this cute little habit lately of their flights actually leaving not just on time, but a few minutes early. They are sticklers about being on board 15 minutes prior to departure, as evidenced by the time I was crying and waving frantically trying to catch the pilot’s attention. He saw me and gestured or called to the gate agent. The plane was still on the ground, still attached to the gate, yet the gate agent still took it away after seeing that another passenger had arrived. I spent the next seven hours in the airport waiting for the next flight out.
Thankfully, today I left the house with just enough time to arrive at the gate as boarding was in process. Despite the babies surrounding me on the plane, I got in a nice nap and awoke shortly before landing. I even grabbed a gourmet vegetarian dinner, described in my previous post. I should have (WordPress apparently does not recognize should’ve as a real word) taken a picture…
I apparently misjudged how much time I had between flights, and forgot that DTW is actually fairly large with lots of escalators and long hallways. Including a weird seizure hallway. So, essentially, writing my last post nearly made me miss my flight. Me and time don’t get along so well.
I was the crazy looking person half running, half speed walking through the airport. I am a bit out of shape and getting over a nasty cold so I was more with the speed walking… and still managed to get very painful shin splints. Awesome right? There is just a dinky little plane that goes between Detroit and Erie, which departs out of this separate section of the terminal down an escalator. The walls are composed mostly of windows, and I was able to see the gate that my plane should have been in. Should have been. SHIT!!! My bags are too heavy to really pick up and carry down so I was just anxiously awaiting the return to flat ground. I reach the end of the escalator and run to the nearest gate, as the door to mine was closed. I ask if the Erie flight has departed, and the gate agent looks at me like I am crazy and wants to know what flight number it is. Are there really that many flights leaving for Erie within this 15 minute timespan that I could possibly be asking about lady!? Turns out, the flight is delayed! We are told, at 5:20 that the new departure time is 5:30. The plane is not here yet but somehow they expect to get all the passengers off, clean it, and board us in ten minutes. Sure, why not.
So, I imagine several of my posts will have to do with the challenges, and as well as hopefully some rewards, that come with traveling and a meat free diet. Those of you who have made a similar decision for yourself know what I’m talking about. The response I usually get when asking clients where I can find a restaurant with vegetarian options is “Oh so and so place has nice salads.” (That, or “Ummm I don’t think there are any around here.”)
Now, don’t get me wrong, salads can be good; they can even be filling. But usually, they suck. I don’t fuck with iceberg lettuce and orange tomatoes, and that’s what you find in most places. That does not qualify, in my opinion, as a “nice salad”. In airports, its even worse, as something like 90% of all salads have chicken or ham on them. Airport food has become one of the banes of my existence.
Today, my airport experience is set in the Detroit Metro Airport. After deplaning, I walked through a section of quick dining and snack options. Most of these joints have the menus posted outside, and I usually quickly scan for something I could eat. I found one sandwich that would work, the Motown Veggie. Now comes the problem of never knowing what you are going to get with a veggie sandwich, particularly in airports. I was told that the veggies included tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, and onions, marinated in Italian dressing. Not too exciting, but it’ll do. Or so I thought. My grilled veggie sandwich more closely resembled a grilled cheese with a couple small chunks of tomato, onion and zucchini and shreds of lettuce. Not OK! It was bad to the point of actually telling the waitress that that’s what I thought of it. Now, I don’t ENJOY complaining about food – but I’ll do it. Honestly, it makes me really nervous about what they might do to my meal when it is out of my sight. But this was just not gonna cut it, and was certainly not a $9 sandwich.
The embarassing part is that I told her I wasn’t comfortable complaining and didn’t want anyone to spit in it. I am SO awkward sometimes haha.
The waitress was very nice about the whole thing, and after a few minutes brought out a new Motown Veggie panini, with extra veggies. It was better it terms of quantity of vegetables… but it still wasn’t good. I hate this crap…
By the way, I am literally LOLing right now at a woman who just walked by – in her 50s at least, wearing very tight jeans that are most likely about as old as I am (25)…. that are red and black, printed. Like… they were printed with the black image (which I unfortunately did not have the time or wherewithal to try to make out) was printed on probably stone or white washed jeans, then all dyed red. She also had ridiculously high clunky red platform shoes on. I effing love people watching in airports.
