Fun Stuff in Spain Part 1

First, I completely agree that the airport concierge/babysitter thing was hugely kind and understanding of my husband to put in place.  Second, Steph asked very reasonably why I didn't eat for 15 hours. Sometimes when I fly all I do is eat. Flying always makes my stomach a bit queasy and sometimes just continuously putting food in it makes it better. I can have lounge oatmeal and grapefruit and then an hour and a half later happily accept the in-the-air omelet. Almonds and cookies? Bring 'em on. If we have to get up crazy early, I sometimes get a gross, greasy breakfast sandwich - don't ask me why it helps, it just does. 

I had a very good meal for dinner on Air France at about six o'clock. They offered more snacks, but I wasn't hungry. For every successive lounge and flight I think I was just so anxious that my stomach tightened up to the point where eating sounded really unappealing. In all fairness, many of these hours were overnight ones where I should have been sleeping, but they still offered food on every flight. By the time I landed in Malaga all I wanted was a shower, and then we were going for dinner anyway at 8:30, which was 2:30 back home so really I had just skipped breakfast and lunch, but drinking wine under those circumstances did not feel like a wise decision. 

I did not maintain the same decision-making capabilities for the remainder of our days in Malaga. I would get up in the morning and set out on whatever I was doing. At some point I would get a smoothie or juice because their fresh-juice game was STRONG. Then I usually wouldn't eat much again until dinner, because I was on the go and alone (a couple of times I did have a giant beer and some kind of toast in a cafe, which was lovely). This often did result in having a drink before I got any substantial food. I don't think I ended up causing any international incidents, and apparently the reports on me from Matt's colleagues were mostly positive, but I won't make a habit of it. 

The first day I went to the terrace in the hotel to take a breath and read a book. It was empty and the bartender seemed rather desperate to make someone a drink so I ordered a gin and tonic. Rather than the reserved little rocks glass it is served in at bar night, she brought this large goblet-type thing which I now know is called, delightfully, a copa de balon, or gin balloon. She had a strong Russian accent, and as she started pouring the gin she said something, which I didn't process until I was already mesmerized watching her pour in a circle. Then I realized that what she was saying was "tell me how strong you want it" and I yelped WHEN! She dribbled a little tonic in and walked away, leaving me to consider my life choices.

A bit later Matt and his colleagues arrived for a one-hour reception. There was supposed to be food, but this ran up against the manager of the restaurant who was perpetually cranky and unaccommodating. The hotel had no ice machines, so the front desk people told us to get it from the restaurant, which he seemed to find infuriating even though the restaurant was usually deserted. So Ice Nazi who kept dooming us to drinking lukewarm water also wouldn't give us any food except almonds, olives and tortilla chips with no kind of dip. Not only this, he started coming around whipping the bowls away at ten minutes to seven. We didn't want to complain about him, but we were getting increasingly prone to fits of hysterical laughter (not least because some of us were now drinking on empty stomachs again). 

At the end of the reception, Matt's colleagues Camille (who I've hung out with in Ottawa and San Francisco) said she was just going to order some pizzas for anyone who didn't feel like going out again. She was going to walk next door to the mall to pick them up, and Cheryl the marketing manager was going to go with her, but she had been managing stuff all day and looked exhausted so I said I would go instead. You know what GPS doesn't show you? How far above the ground a particular location is. You know what was really hard to find in this stupid mall? The third floor. We wandered for what felt like hours, Camille finally saying "what's really embarrassing about this is I'm not even drunk". 

We finally found the pizza place, grabbed the pizzas, then stopped at the grocery store to get paper plates and plastic forks. Except there were no plastic forks. Or knives. There were only spoons. Plastic spoons. We got back to the hotel and went to where we'd seen an empty terrace that you walked through the little hotel gym to get to. 

It was dark, and we asked a employee if there were lights that could be turned on. She said no. So we went back to the restaurant terrace, where naturally Mr. Sunshine said "outside food? Not possible." He said we could eat on the other terrace. We said there were no lights. He said they would turn some on. They did not. We were rolling with it. We were ready to eat our salads with plastic spoons. Then we opened the pizza boxes.

The pizzas were not cut. 

It is extremely difficult to cut a pizza with a plastic spoon. 

We ended up tearing them and basically eating like animals, in the dark, and drinking wine out of the bottle. We had really great meals the night before and all the nights after, and this is the stuff good conference stories are made of, so *shrug emoji*.