UA 285 BOS IAD 0947 1131 320 21F

In contrast to previous trips, when I seemed to have hit
every available snow and thunderstorm, it appeared that I
dodged pretty well. There was a backlog of passengers
inconvenienced by previous weather, though, so my upgrade
didn't even come close to clearing. I was double digits into
the list. Even on the 320 this seat is decent, with enough
legroom, and as my butt isn't that big, a 6-across is just
fine. I leaned against the coldish exit door with its
stubby armrest and slept a bit. I can't report on the
quality of the service. I took a side trip to the club to
get some e-mail and stuff done and then hunted down lili
at her gate and convinced her to join me at the Lufthansa
lounge, where Martell VSOP and some red abomination were
poured freely by a pleasant but quizzical Arabic-looking
staff. Is it intentional that a lot of these places have
bartenders who don't drink (this is based not just on
appearance, but also on inquiry)? Probably.

Oh, yes, the lounge hadn't opened yet when we had first
arrived so we went to Five Guys and had the usual, and
it was the usual.

Back to the low C concourse, where at boarding time
nothing was ready, so I had my third club visit of the day.

Eventually we returned to the gate and were loaded up;
took off a bit late.

UA 132 IAD MUC 1715 0740 764 5AB

Predeparture Champagne wasn't too bad though probably not
the real thing.

I'd not tried the 2-1-2 business configuration on the 764
before. To achieve this arrangement, the seats are angled
outward (the center ones are angled left, I think), which
is slightly peculiar though not unpleasant. The seats are
a little spartan for a supposedly premium product, and as
usual, the mechanisms are fragile - lili's seat was
broken, which a FA knew exactly how to fix, so this must
not be a rare occurrence. They're okay to sleep in, though,
especially if you can sleep on your side.

No in-flight audio except for the movie channels.

Our flight attendants just seemed to be going through the
motions and were absent pretty much except at mealtime.
This can partially be excused because it's a redeye, but
when my water glass hasn't been filled in two hours,
something can be improved.

My dinner was a pork chop with green peppercorn sauce,
sided with shiitake bread pudding and white asparagus and
broccolini. Other than the meat being trimmed of all fat
and then cooked to the consistency of floor tile, and the
sauce being made with some kind of industrial solvent,
the food did the job and was followed, as food often is,
by ice cream (vanilla). The starter had been two kinds of
salmon. bad baked wrapped in okay smoked, with a sad
little salad next to it. I think lili didn't eat, having
had that burger and not being an aficionada of plane food.

The wines were fine for everyday.

Ch. Argadens 09 Bordeaux was kind of stemmy still but
softish and okay on the palate. Not a whole lot of fruit,
but that was fine with me, as big fruit isn't my style;
I prefer balance, and this had it. Plus I wasn't drinking
it, my seatmate was.

I enjoyed the Selbach Riesling kabinett 12, sweetish
and tartish with a balance of apple and pineapple; sort
of what a moderately optimistic child might imagine wine
to be like.

I slept through the deli plate that came later.

Even though we came in quite late, there was time for a
leisurely breakfast at the lounge before our next flight.
I ate some gummi bears and licorice allsorts; lili dared
to try the real breakfast offerings, I think. Unfortunately,
the regular beer was out, and they just had the Franziskaner
Weiss, which I don't like, so I had nothing.

It was a bit of a hoof to our next gate, but as it was still
in the non-Schengen area, we got there in plenty of time to
find a bunch of disgruntled Turks roaming the area. After a
couple calming announcements in English and German (not in
Turkish) we boarded.

LH1780 MUC ADB 1105 1435 321 7BC

We thought we'd have the row to ourselves, but at the last
minute they boarded some standbys, and a pleasant Indianish
woman took the window. Desultory conversation revealed that
she was going to be in town for a conference (my father had
come here for a conference back in the '70s or '80s and had
liked it very much, so I envisioned this as New Orleans on
the Aegean, which it isn't except for maybe the western-
style shopping and entertainment districts).

Lunch: pasta that lived up to its pastelike etymology with
a sauce flavored with a similar industrial solvent to
Continental's, but with tomatoes. I was hungry and ate it.
Warsteiner beer; some red ink for her.

Immigration was a snap, much easier than Istanbul, but
finding the train station to get downtown not so. You go
out, past a construction site, turn left and go down an
unpromising-looking concrete path, and eventually it's
there. A series of futile gestures and pathetic doggy
eyes with a fistful of lira got us two tickets (with
transfer at Hilal) to Basmane Station, five minutes' walk
from our next destination, the well-reviewed Oglakcioglu
Park Hotel, which is pleasant in a datedly 19th-century
European way, small rooms, ornate lobby, and I guess
you were expected to spend time downstairs.

We had a cheap rate, so we got a small room with a view
of a concrete wall. The quarters were too tight - one of
those places where the twin beds and the double bed are
the same, only the former are equipped with twin sheets.
Anyhow, the bathroom was clean and the beds were comfy.

It was still going to be light for a couple hours, so
we wandered around town seeing the sights and smelling
the smells; went to the souk, or whatever they call it,
and the precincts of the Hisar Mosque (I was wearing my
many eyeletted lace-up walking shoes so didn't bother
going in), and then back whence we came but a few blocks
to the south. The plan was to go out again within the
neighborhood and find a sitdown restaurant, possibly
the one at the hotel, which is supposed to have some of
the best kebabs in town and Efes beer for only twice
what it would cost out on the economy.

So off we went, peering in my case very myopically at
the restaurant menus and poking around the storefronts.
It was still early, just getting dark, but one stall
smelled somewhat better owing to having a wood-fired
oven out front, so we parked there.

I got the iskander kebab, lamb gyro meat and pita triangles
smothered in tomato sauce and yogurt, with very fragrant
(rather smelly) sheep butter poured over, which sort of put
me off; this came with a small pile of generic pilaf that
cut the dairy product adequately. lili didn't want lamb
and so asked for a beef sandwich. This came as similar if
not the same meat, dragged through the garden, on a hoagie
roll. I tasted the filling, and it was also lamb, but she
didn't mind it. After having had several bites she asked me
if the lettuce was safe to eat. I guessed saying no would
have caused a crisis, so I said that I thought so. Right
answer - both reassuring and as it turns out accurate,
thank the gods. To drink: she wanted a beer, so I asked the
guy at the counter if they had it. Consternation. Of course
not. So she got a bottle of water; I had some local soft
drink, not interesting. The experience had been decent,
wholesome, and cheap; all we really needed. A slightly
better and fancier meal, or in fact one that had recently
been kissed by the smoke of that wood out front, would have
been welcome, but feeding two people to bursting for US$7
with drinks, one can't complain.

We were too tired to go out boozing afterward and turned
in pretty early.

Breakfast was included. I forget anything about it.

Though our stay had been perfectly fine, I'd been looking
forward to a weekend at the Renaissance Izmir, less than a
mile up the road, so we dragged our bags there and checked
in. A quite nice circular atrium, polite staff, and a bar
in what would have been the corner if there had been one.
This also serves as the club lounge.

As soon as we entered, some guy grabbed our traps, no ifs
ands or buts. Though I am but Gold here, we were greeted
like the king and queen of Spain and given the last room
on the left on the corner of the seventh floor, a location
I will long remember.

The digs - gorgeous. The bathroom and luggage closet were
about the size of the whole room at the other place. Then
there was the bedroom and the semicircular sitting room
with its view across the street to the park and Love St.;
I thought lascivious thoughts, but this turned out to be
just another street, though with nice palm trees - they say
the most perfect in the city - lining it, so it's considered
very romantic by the locals. Bathroom with a rain shower and
a traditional dip bath; separate little toilet room half the
size of the shower if that.

lili said she could spend her entire weekend in the room.

But the city called, and off we went. The chic neighborhood
Alsancak didn't appeal right then, so we walked southward
down the seaside Kordon (not the spiffiest part thereof and
undergoing noisy, dusty renovations); found a place called
Hayat that had a sandwich board that I seemed to understand
some of.

For L10 there was what seemed to be a special of fish and
beer, and L20 got you a glass of wine and some lamb kebabs.

So we sat down and had a pretty good and filling though
unexpected meal. Again using my charm and impeccable
communication skills I ordered our lunch.

Salad and bread came first - perfectly respectable, enough
for a full meal, truth be told.

It took a long, long time for the food to come out. Not
sure if they had to wake up the cook or find the ingredients
or if they were trying to get us to order an extra drink.

Well. I thought I was ordering fried fish. What came was a
big pile of lamb liver cubes with French fries, some onions
tossed in sumac (good) and even more greens. At least I got
the beer right, and a frosty Efes was just the ticket. The
liver was delicious, the fries good enough, and I could
ignore that extra pile of lettuce. More than enough food.

lili's lamb skewers were tasty, though the first one (of
5 or 6) she tried was overcooked. The rest were fine. She
also got those fries and lettuce but in addition was given
a nondescript pilaf and some grilled hot peppers; she ceded
me both, for which I was grateful. Her wine was worse than
the Lufthansa wine.
==
After the leisurely meal we walked around randomly, visiting
the semi-beautiful Konak Square and its clock tower, which
is impressive enough, but the real gem of the place is the
little mosque on the east side of the plaza. The nearby
waterfront has an interesting sculpture that looked to me
like a whale skeleton but is supposed to be the ribs of a
ship; any artistic intent is undone by little kids using it
as a jungle gym and older kids scratching discreet graffiti
on it. At some point we discovered that the Asansor, a 19th
century elevator along the lines of and serving the same
purpose as the ones in hilly Lisbon, was nowhere near where
Google Maps said it should be, so we abandoned that idea.
lili said going there was useless anyway, as there would be
no view, given the clouds, and we didn't need a snack, as we
had just eaten. So back through the souk and to the Agora,
which are what remains of ancient Smyrna. The site could be
a modest tourist attraction but is just being developed
after millennia of neglect. I believe that one may enter
for $5, but there was nobody to open the gate, and one can
see most of the ruins by walking around the perimeter and
peering through the fences and over the walls.

We walked through one of the grubbier areas of town on our
way back to the bustle of Konak and the hotel.

It was time for a visit to the lobby bar, where we were told
that only soft drinks, coffee, and tea were on offer until
5:30, but this news was sweetened with some confectionery,
a couple kinds of cookies and desserts made with dried fruit
such as dates; none of the famous Smyrna figs, though.

Our server was pleasant, and I gave her the standard fiver
for tip.

Now that I think of it, we saw no figs for sale in any of
the markets or stalls in town, so it must not have been fig
season for either fresh or dried. Lots of apricots, though,
and mountains of beans, pulses, legumes all over the place.

We went to our palace for a change and a washup, then back
down for happy hour, 5:30 to 7, apparently the only time
drinks are served here. Our cute waitress had been replaced
by a kid in his early 20s, from whom we ordered an Efes dark
and a glass of red wine, which was a respectablish
Cappadocian product I think.

Some crunchy snacks appeared, including these shriveled
little pistachios of which the natives seem inordinately
proud. We were invited to look at the buffet offering and
have the kid serve us our choice.

There were various tea sandwiches and canapes, breads,
and cheese that included a local one that tasted familiar
to me (I believe from some airplane or other) and that
our server said was a famous local specialty and one that
was just like what we call Armenian string cheese.

For afters assorted pastries.

A refill on drinks and snacks.

A bit later another grumpyish old couple came in, apparently
regulars; they conversed between themselves and with the
waiter in sufficiently clear and sufficiently Parisian
French that I could understand them, so I figured that they
couldn't be French, but I didn't speculate as to what they
really were.

After they left, we were the only ones in the room, and as
it was close to closing (7) the bartender/waiter pressed
more food on us and then engaged us in conversation in
heavily accented English. Also, he offered us last call, a
nice gesture, but having had two we turned him down.

He asked where we were from, and lili said California, and
the kid perked right up and said he had relatives in San
Diego, and he had been there a bunch of times, which meant
of course that this conversation could extend itself
massively if we let it. We asked where else in the US he
had been, and he named some famous and not-so-famous cities,
and ... his grandmother lives in Kodiak, and he had spent
summers there. Of all places. So we told him about our Do
adventures there last year, and we had a jolly old visit,
and we kept him beyond quitting time, and he asked us to put
in a good word for him. Unfortunately, I forget his name,
but they call him Fiorentino, so I hope that's good enough.

We didn't need dinner after all, nor any more booze, and
just fell happily asleep.

The Sky Fire restaurant occupies the top floor and boasts
being the first rooftop dining room and bar in the city -
kind of odd as the hotel is quite new, just a couple years
old, and the city is quite old. The much-vaunted view is
mostly of other hotels, with the sea in the background: I
suppose that in sunny weather it's pretty nice, and on hot
days the breeze would be welcome.

Breakfast there is a buffet with I believe the option of
a la carte ordering, which we didn't pursue. This is mostly
of your worldwide standard hotel items, mostly tasty and of
good quality:

croissants, muffins, and similar pastries, along with
regular European-style breads for the unadventurous;

deli items - salami, olives, and assorted local cheeses;

an egg product that I didn't even look at; potatoes ditto;

"sausages" - teeny weenies made of poultry (this being a
Muslim country with growing tendencies in that direction),
in tomato sauce a l'anglaise, which I tasted just to confirm
my guess that they were unpalatable, which they were;

an assortment of beverages of the usual sort, except that
the juices included cherry juice (like the fluid inside
canned cherries), and the orange was of a local variety and
rather bitter and very aromatic.

There were also a few local things to amuse me - smoked
fishy things including trout and salmon (both cold and
hot smoked) and a "fermented beef sausage," a sour dried
substance that I couldn't quite place, almost merguez-like;
also the expected bastirma. A couple pastries that were
supposed to be unique to the town - I forget their names but
remember principally that if I ever see them again I should
refuse them, politely of course.

[Later found a note to myself: boyoz - not sure if that was
the baked good that was like a stone or the one that was
like a wrung-out Handi-Wipe, but I suspect the latter.]

Our waitress was charming, and we promised her we'd be back
to check out dinner not that night but the next.

Another day of wandering around town, including Konak Pier,
where lili had a lead on the Turkish towels she wanted to
buy (couldn't find them after all), assorted snacking,
modest because of the substantial breakfast, and after
siesta and drinks, back to Alsancak to see what it looked
like in the dark (to me, nothing).

There's a beer street, 12 hundred something Sokak. The
streets are officially numbered, with several in a row in
consecutive order, then a skip, or else the next one is
in a different direction to the others, not very helpful
at all. We found several streets of taverns and were not
certain if we ever found the famous one. All the places
were chockfull and very noisy, some compounding the issue
with singers or guitar players of greater or lesser talent
but all of greater volume. Beers are all the same price
at all the places. We decided to forgo these pleasures and
take a quiet walk back down the waterfront, as we'd not been
to this part of it. It's both better kept than the part
near the center of Konak and seemingly a happier place.
Sculptures and monuments, mostly as far as I could tell to
Ataturk.

We walked until the crowds started thinning and our stomachs
started rumbling, and we stopped by a restaurant whose owner
had accosted us on a previous stroll in the neighborhood.
His menu had looked kind of okay, the prices maybe 10-15%
less than the neighbors', so we told him we might be back
later. The awning facing the sea said Meyhane, so I
remembered that. When we walked in, he indeed recognized us
and made this minor fuss to his staff in a way that seemed
to say to our eyes, treat these guys well, but that had that
undertone of, and charge the suckers extra. Fine, I'm used
to paying a modest tourist tax.

I'd hoped that lili would get some delicious grilled thing
or kofte (meatballs) or kebabs, but all of a sudden her
tummy didn't want any of that, and she ordered a fruit plate
instead - this was a bigger portion of what you'd see on the
airplane (maybe she was nostalgic for the friendly skies
already?) and of only somewhat better quality, $4.50.

I might have ordered some fish, as but for the warmth-
preserving plastic sheeting I could have thrown a baseball
into the Aegean from where we were, but the word Patlicani
just jumped right out at me, and who doesn't love Patlican?
So I ordered the meyhane pilav. This was a peculiar ricelike
grain (I'm really not sure what it was, maybe a relative of
regular rice milled in such a way as the grains are broken
in half) cooked in lamb broth and with substantial doses of
lamb shoulder meat, eggplant (Patlican), and mushrooms. The
seasonings: mint, garlic, and a substantial dose of hot
pepper that gave me additional respect for the tastebuds of
the Turks. The serving could have been a double one - it
was the size of my laptop, which is mostly metal and weighs
2 kg; so I figure this heap of goodness was almost a kilo.

We were not rushed, even though by the time we left we were
definitely in the rearguard.

The bill was high for this town but not for the fashionable
seaside neighborhood: some huge sum like $30 for both of us
with beer and a couple glasses of wine including a nice tip.
It had in fact been completely accurate.

I later discovered that Meyhane is a generic word for tavern
- some frantic digging on the Internet revealed that the
real name of the place was or had been at some date Kordon
Ocakbasi.

lili has this thing for breakfast, and I have this thing
against breakfast, and usually she gets what she wants, but
once in a while I prevail, which usually has disastrous
results. This time she agreed that breakfast yesterday
morning hadn't been all that interesting, and today I could
have my way for a change. So we lolled around in the sitting
room reading the newspaper and marvelling at how a big jet
airliner full of people could have gone missing just like
that. At some point the weather sort of cleared up, so it
behooved us to go out and enjoy it.

Alsancak in the daylight thrilled me even less than it had
at night. Of course, shopping in general doesn't. It has
been brought to my attention that lili pretty consistently
defers to me by refraining from spending much time in stores
(except food stores, which she enjoys as well as I but
generally refrains from eating anything that can be bought
there). This trip she had a bee in her bonnet about Turkish
towels. We'd poked about a few places in the past couple
days, and it seemed certain that we'd find some here. We
didn't, which didn't put her off much, I'm glad to say.

But presently, towards noontime, fatigue and other disasters
struck, and someone needed to sit down. Now. Luckily, there
was a luncheon and coffee place, Zeytinyagli, just up the
block, so.

You go to the back, which is a tavola calda arrangement, and
I was interested, until my unacute eyesight and acute sense
of smell told me the bad news - this is a vegetarian, and
possibly even a vegan, place. Argh.

A coarse brown cake soaked in syrup, tasty and sweet and big
enough for two, and a pot of tea came to $3. This native
delicacy, which I would order again if I knew its name, did
not please lili, though, and she soon turned up her little
nose at it, so soon I had another pound of food in my tum.

I should have done this half a decade ago and might have if
I'd owned a camera, but a collection of photos of lili
strolling into a McDonald's in every city in the world might
have been a cute thing. There of course is a McDonald's in
Izmir: she went in; I didn't. Ask no questions.

After our fill of what struck me as another giant slightly
picturesque urban mall, we walked eastward, planning to
cut south intersecting the Culture Park. I guess we were a
little too enthusiastic and walked a couple blocks too far.
No problem, there was a sign for Basmane, and I could get my
bearings based on that, only it was pointed in the opposite
direction from where I thought it should. So we stopped
across from a little old Christian church (not the oldest in
the city, which is St. Polycarp's next door to the Ren but
not open to the public), and as we puzzled over the map, an
old retired professorish guy came up to us and asked in
impeccable English, the first we had heard, even from hotel
staff, whether we were lost, so we explained our problem. He
looked up with some surprise at the sign I pointed out and
allowed that one could get to Basmane by going in that
direction, but that wouldn't have been his choice. He said
something about maybe traffic patterns and pointed in almost
the direction we were going to try next. The Culture Park
was over there, he informed us. And walked us a block out of
his way to make sure the idiot tourists were headed in the
right direction. So we got there, it was a couple hundred
meters away, so we weren't totally off; looked wistfully at
the dry fountains (too early in the season, but there were
mooning couples sitting there, rambunctious families nearby,
and so on, as if the water had been dancing); marveled at
the parachute tower, which apparently until recently was
an attraction for the adventurous young and old alike; and
determined that the museum was closed for renovations. So
lengthily down the park to Love St. and back to the hotel.

I think also it was today we watched the Women's Day parade,
an event that was almost official looking, orderly and with
a brass band in uniform leading it, but also with a slightly
naughty and seditious aroma at the same time. In the
background you could hear people angrily shouting through
bullhorns, probably celebrating anti-Women's Day.

More drinks and snacks at the lobby bar. I'd hoped for the
same guy as previous, as I had tipped him only averagely;
instead we got a taciturn 30-something who was perfectly
adequate and sort of warmed up to us only when he decided
that we weren't going to walk out and stiff him with the
bill. Of course we wouldn't - this was the club lounge,
and everything was free anyway, not that we'd ever try to
pull any such trick.

An Efes light was a mistake, pallid and tasteless compared
to the dark (though okay enough without that context), so
I switched to the other. lili had the same okay red wine.
More pistachios, refilled as before but with less alacrity.

I sort of felt for the guy, as if I were a bartender (not
being cut out for that kind of people work) I'd probably be
equally unbartenderly. I gave him an above-average tip.

Sky Fire appears to be a destination restaurant at night.
We'd asked at breakfast yesterday if we needed reservations,
and we were asked when, and upon hearing the time, 7, the
hostess said no problem, but if we were going to be any
later, then ask now or forever you hold your peace.

We actually got there right around 7, and the place was dead
dead dead. By the time we left, around 9, a DJ was getting
ready to spin his stuff, and the place was getting ready to
hop hop hop.

After turning her nose up at lamb a few days before, lili
surprised me by ordering lamb chops, when beefsteak was on
the menu for about the same price. These came scottaditi,
hotter than Hades, one okay, one good, one perfect. She was
pleased by her choice, as was I, as I got to gnaw on the
bones and get the little bits of fat and stuff off them.

My dinner was just three appetizers: fried squid, lahmacun,
and fried eggplant, all things I could have gotten for a
third the price on the street, but no less authentic and
just as good in this de luxe setting. They were pristine and
delicious. The squid could have been fished out of the water
outside an hour before, the eggplant plucked from gardens
down the way this morning, and the lahmacun, uh, well, the
dough was tender, and the stuff on top, lamb bits and onions
and a sour tomato sauce, delicious, but I suspect they had
been made fresh last year and then stuck in the deep freeze
until wanted, which was now. But good.

There were a couple shining bargains on the wine list.
Aloxe-Corton 07 (Jadot) at approximately what I'd pay for
it retail at Zachy's or Total Beverage was one. Okay, it's
not Charlemagne, and the year was sketchy, and the wine is
chaptalized, but, hey, we had been drinking Okuzgogu and
stuff like that for several days. It was a little brothy
and unconcentrated but was the first real French Pinot Noir
I'd had this year, the plumminess giving way to the spice
that is what I really like about this kind of wine. The
thin body, though, meant that the alcohol was too prominent.

After drinks in the lounge and the bottle in the restaurant,
it's a good thing we were just an elevator ride home, one
floor at that.

I forget why we didn't have breakfast. Maybe we overslept
it. Anyhow, our tummies were empty, which they shouldn't
have been, and as often happens we were convinced by the
hotel staff to take the bus an hour before we needed to.

Conveniently enough, the Havas bus leaves from right across
the road. Various sources give the stop as "opposite the
Turkish Airlines office," which is true, and "at the Grand
Efes Hotel," which is a block off, which might put off some.
Hourly on the half hour, $5. The trip is comfy, about 40
minutes, and takes one past parts of town one would not
normally see.

We got there an hour before the Lufthansa counter opened.
No problem, we were getting hungry, and according to the
Star Website, we weren't entitled to lounge access. So it
was up to the food court to check out what was what. The
Izmir airport has a reputation for the most overpriced food
in Turkey; on seeing the posted menus at the two places, I
might be inclined to believe that. There was a doner and
kofte stall that looked to soak you for what a fashionable
sitdown restaurant in the US might charge, and that coupled
with the less than wonderful smells coming out of it made
me steer away and to the only other place open, which was
Burger King. Triumph, lili food. It was only later that I
discovered that she hates Burger King, whereas I see little
difference between the chains, in quality at least. After
several rounds of I don't want anything, you have to eat,
you're shaking, et cetera, and one of I won't eat if you
don't, we came to a truce that consisted of a Whopper Jr.
for her and an order of chicken wings for me. I didn't hear
any further complaints, but I can report that the wings
were mediocre and very salty, and the soft drinks were no
refill and at a price we both balked at, so we went dry.
Speaking of which, the sandwich cost what it would in the
US, and the wings were about a buck a segment, extortionate.

After that somewhat distressing meal, we went downstairs to
find a long line and the desks just opening. We just waltzed
over to the queue-free Star Gold podium, earning us envious
glances from the polloi over there, where a cheery young
fellow processed us in jig time and handed over a pair of
lounge invitations!

So we had an hour to enjoy the Millennium lounge, a square
and spare but not ugly room with snacks and alcohol and a
pretty nice picture window over the taxiway.

Assorted pastries, cheese boerek, and sweet puddings, of
which I tried a pretty deep dark chocolate and a most
ordinary rice one with chopped pistachios. Other snacks
were not investigated.

Booze included Yeni raki for me (I could pour a water glass
of it and pretend I was hydrating, whereas in reality the
opposite was happening), Ballantine's Scotch for her, and
various fruit liqueurs for the infantile in all of us.

LH1781 ADB MUC 1540 1730 321 7BC

This time we got an empty seat next to us so we could spread
out. lili pointed out that a guy on the other side had row
6 all to himself, so I wasn't so special as I thought.

The snack was some kind of sandwich that I didn't eat much
of and can't remember, but there was Warsteiner again.

Landed right on time, passed formalities in a jiffy, and
took the train to our hotel (one quick and easy transfer).

Google was way off again. The directions said that if we got
out of the S-Bahn stop we would be within 150 m of the hotel
but the U-Bahn was 290 m away. So of course I decided we'd
take the S-Bahn, which worked swimmingly, only as we turned
in the direction I thought the hotel was in, we encountered
the U-Bahn stop. As 150 is less than 290, that meant that
the hotel was the other way. So back that way, where it
wasn't. The Google directions were completely backwards,
something I should have allowed for but inexplicably didn't.

I'd been to the Sheraton Munich Westpark a few years before
with VPescado, so I had some idea of what to expect. I
anticipated Heineken at the lounge and was heartened to find
it had been replaced by Furstenburg, so after our missteps
out of the Bahnnetz, and the ingestion of medicinal waters
here, we were quite a bit behind schedule getting dinner,
where my plan was to get the supposedly abundant and
reasonably priced pork platter at Augustiner Bergheim, the
closest beer hall to the hotel. We walked there, it took ten
minutes, and we were seated at the front of an emptying
dining room, where an otherwise agreeable waitress informed
us that there was no more roast pork, upon which I switched
from my rehearsed ordering dialogue in halting German back
to English, which she spoke well and understood better.
lili had to make do with a burger; I got the
Zwiebelschnitzel, which was two smallish unbreaded pork
cutlets totally engulfed in softened onions, on the side a
large quantity of roast potatoes. lili's burger was okay,
even though it could not be served rare, the waitress said,
because of the laws, you know. Her fries were better than
my roasted, so when we were done, her plate was respectably
emptied. The pork, nude as it had been, was a little tough
though tasty. For beverages we had a light, a dark, and a
Maximator and were only minimally tipsy heading the half
mile back.

lili got us the suite directly across from the club lounge.
The keys didn't work to access the private area, but the
attendant buzzed us in. We got that taken care of before
bedtime. It's an odd floor plan: you go in, and directly to
the right is the bathroom, and directly ahead is the closet,
and you go left into a separate dining area and kitchenette,
then right into the living room. The bedroom is another
right after that, and we had some discussion as to who was
going to have to make all those turns to get to the toilet
in the middle of the night. Didn't much matter, as I hardly
slept anyway and pounded the computer much of the time.

We looked at breakfast and passed, deciding that the Senator
Lounge food would be slightly better, so off we went quite
early. Getting to the airport was a snap despite two S1s
coming into Donnersbergerbrucke at around the same time and
me directing us onto the wrong one. No biggie, we just
changed someplace to the S8 and went on our merry way. The
trains are very crowded at rush hour, but after Ostbahnhof
seats opened up.

Emigration and security were efficient and almost friendly.

The lounge was really crowded, but we found places at the
work cubicles in back; not a big deal as after eating there
wasn't much time left.

As many may know, there's a second security before flights
to the US. Premium passengers are directed to a separate
line where the inspection is truly pro forma, and you go
through a detector that is either off or set to a very high
threshold. I don't know what happens if you look suspicious.

UA 133 MUC IAD 1140 1630 764 4AB

This crew was much more attentive and focused than the
outbound one had been. Of course, it was the difference
between the Bright and Early Show and the Dull and Late
Show. Did you know that there really is a Hoople, North
Dakota? No WOOF radio station, though, I fear. Anyhow,
these gals and one guy kept us fed, watered, and amused
throughout.

No in-flight audio except for the movie channels.
Someone informed us that this was due to a computer
glitch that affected all 767-400s in the fleet.

Predeparture Champagne was a decent Sekt if not the real
thing.

Hot smoked salmon and grilled prawn with mango salsa

Okay, though cold-smoked salmon would have been better.
The salsa was actually pretty decent, and I ate it by
itself.

Fresh seasonal greens, tomato, dried fruit, mini apple
and croutons with your choice of creamy tropical fruit
dressing or balsamic vinaigrette

The fruit dressing is new, so I tried it - a sort of
ranchy thing with vaguely fruity undertones, surprisingly
not sweet at all. It got me to eat my salad. The mini
apple, if you were curious, was a pickled crabapple.

Tandoori breast of chicken, coriander tomato sauce, saffron
rice pilaf and curried spinach

A surprise winner, the chicken reasonably tender but not
overbrined, actually tasting like chicken; the sauce was
uninteresting and could be pushed off to one side. Rice,
what can you expect from an airplane? What must have been
close to half a pound of spinach stuffed into one of those
molds and blopped onto the dish; unfortunately the kitchen
seemed to have forgotten the seasoning, but there's little
that butter and pepper can't remedy.

Tenderloin of beef, red wine sauce, chanterelle mushroom
onion medley, potatoes, broccoli and carrots

lili claimed that the potatoes were the best thing on her
tray and shoved one into my gob. It was okay. The beef as
usual could have been Fiberglas insulation with sulfuric
acid sauce, so it went mostly uneaten.

Finca La Escondida Malbec 12 was well mellowed out by the
food pairing and showed very well by comparison.

Ice cream again. She had hers with fudge sauce; I had a
small scoop with a Courvoisier.

Prior to arrival: chicken and mozzarella cheese sandwich,
fresh fruit appetizer, Mediterranean-style salad, dill-
cucumber yogurt and chocolate

The sandwich was actually palatable, if one ignored the
cheese. The chocolate, Lily O'Brien's truffles, was
unbearably sweet and didn't taste like much (one was
orange and the other some caramelly thing).

As usual, the better flight was too short just as the less
good one had been too long, and we got in almost an hour
early. The cabin crew gave what seemed to be genuine smiles
when we left (not happy-to-see-us-go smiles, you know what
I meant).

UA 591 BOS IAH 0750 1119 319 21A Ch9^^

I couldn't check in so went to the desk to see what was
what. After rummaging around a bit the agent said with some
surprise that there was another pax with the same last name
as me on this flight, so they had to do a manual (or perhaps
visual) checkin. Peculiar. I've had some odd security
happenings lately; maybe they're worried that some
suspicious character has stolen my identity or something.
She noted that "they gave you the exit row seat with nobody
in front of you," which of course meant that my 320, which
last I'd checked had 3 seats left up front, with me second
on the list, had been swapped for with a 319. It's okay, I
rather like the throne and do not care for breakfast on
United. As we were about to push back, someone a couple rows
up got asked to come forward and bring their belongings with
them. The FA sent to assist him added "and follow me off the
plane." I believe that it was a rather lame joke; anyhow, no
ruckus was raised, and I am presuming the guy was seen to a
more cushy place and a hot but nasty breakfast.

After sending an envious glance toward the lucky passenger,
the guy in 21C (we had an empty B seat) stole an envious
glance or two my way. He wasn't substantially taller than I,
so I made no offers. Actually, someone would have to be very
tall, almost Lew Alcindor tall, before I would willingly
cede the throne.

A pilot in uniform had 21F; used to be that you'd see a
lot of employees in first. Now they are rare there but tend
to occupy the more attractive coach seats, especially the
unspoken-for Economy Plus spots.

Our captain announced Channel 9; with this soothing lullaby
I stretched out and snoozed for almost all of this flight.

But wait, there's more. As we were about to turn onto the
takeoff runway, I groggily heard "uh, United 591, we, uh,
have to go back to the gate," and so we did. It turns out
the nose gear had sounded funny, and investigation had shown
that all the gas that cushions it had leaked out. Finding
that out and remedying it took an hour plus, so we headed
out again an hour and half late with promises that they'd
try to make up as much time as possible. Which, owing to
huge headwinds, was zero - in fact, we lost time and landed
about the departure time for my connection.

I went to a kiosk, where I was told I was still booked on
my original flight, which gave me a glimmer of hope, so I
raced on to the other gate only to discover, of course, that
the computer was wrong, and the plane was gone. Luckily, the
club was nearby, so I gave the agent my tale of woe and
after a few taps on the computer was told that there was
one seat left on the next flight, but it was "a good one."

I had time to check my e-mail and out of curiosity looked at
the seatmap and upgrade list - it turns out that I was both
3B and 3F, an anomaly that seems to happen when one is
handled both manually and automaticallly at the same time.
My boarding pass said 3B. By the time I got to the plane,
off near Pappadeaux', zone 2 was being boarded, and I found
a rather smug young creature sitting in my original place.

UA1607 IAH PHX 1430 1527 738 3B was 3F
was 1147 1248 1345 739 3F

But nobody next to me - until departure time, when the gate
agent did the running down the aisle thing, and a youngish
man came up dragging along a small child, who proceeded to
get put in the empty place with the usual admonitions to be
good. When I'd had enough drinks I wandered back and asked
the guy whether he wanted to sit with his son, but he said
that was okay, he had a whole family with him in Economy Plus,
but he'd gotten the battlefield upgrade and decided to give
it to the kid.

The kid played on some small electronic device for most of
the flight and was bored for the rest of it but didn't
fidget too much. I had feared that he would be a bit bao bei,
but he turned out to be fine.

Service was pretty good. The guy in 2A communicated to the
staff by hand gesture only, which I thought odd, and which
put off the purser, a black guy in his 30s, who appeared to
take this as a racial issue, which on reflection I think it
was. Thenceforth, he had other flight attendants serve our
area, which was no problem for me, as one was rather pretty
in an eastern European looking way and the other gorgeous
and statuesque and milk-chocolate-colored and attentive.

Courvoisier was better than usual.

I'd feared that having missed my lunchtime flight I would
go hungry, but in fact a meal was served.

The lunch choices were green salad topped with shrimp and
ranch dressing or a chicken burrito. I said I didn't care
but liked the ancho chipotle sauce that comes with the
burrito. Perhaps I could have had a special order of
shrimp salad with a couple packets of that sauce, but that
is retrospect talking. The burrito was actually okay, sort
of a chicken pot pie in a wheat tortilla. The chicken, which
actually had small bits of fat and gristle as if to prove
its animal origin, tasted like food. Some strange tough
green bits, some of which were peppers and some of which
weren't - perhaps bits of overage scallion or something,
perhaps a nod from yesterweek honoring St. Paddy's day?

The meals came with cream of mushroom soup, barely lukewarm,
not as good as Campbell's, with similar tough green bits.

A white chocolate chip orange raisin craisin cookie for
afters. The kid, who had politely refused lunch, got two
of these, and the FA offered me the same. I thought she
was joking, but when I looked up she had one in hand, poised
to give it to me. I asked for more Courvoisier instead.

My buddy from olden days Swisher was there to pick me up,
and the plan was to take him to the promisingly named Hap's
BBQ not far from the airport. Okay, I'd recently had lunch,
but why not - we weren't going to be in the neighborhood for
a while. It's an ordinary fast food looking joint (its motto
is something like Slow Food Served Fast), but the smells are
reassuringly good.

I asked for a half pound of fatty brisket, which came as a
pile of chopped with enough fat to make it interesting, but
also dragged through the lube pit, as I call it. The meat
was tender and tasty in a pot-roasty way, mildly smoked. I
forced Swisher to down an ounce or two of it; he pronounced
it good.

His pulled pork was a little on the lean side, nothing
special, but juicy and unobjectionable.

I asked if they sold ribs by the each; answer "of course,"
so we had one each - very good, lightly brined before
being given a good smoke. I thought that they were not
properly trimmed, so there was a big blob of lean loin
meat atop each. The part you expect in a rib was perfect,
though - just the right ratio of lean to fat and just the
right toothiness (none of this falling-off-the-bone
silliness - I hate getting ribs that are like meat porridge
with sauce). The loin meat was excusable - it was just a bit
of free Canadian bacon on top, after all.

The famous house barbecue sauce would have been better if it
had been ketchup mixed with liquid smoke.

No booze, so Swisher had iced tea, and I had a pint of the
heavily caffeinated Dr. Pepper.

Our castle a few miles down the road - the Days Inn and
Suites Tempe on W. Elliot; I had initially thought I'd
booked the one in downtown Tempe, but luckily this one found
me in its computer. We got an actually kind of okay suite
with two regular double beds and one pullout double sofabed
in the TV room. Slightly dark, remediable by opening a
curtain, giving us a great view of people using the stairs.
and they of us. So we didn't use the window much.

The beds were just a little lumpy but eminently sleepable.

The Days Inn breakfast approaches realness and is slightly
nicer than most free continentals, offering actual protein
in the form of pork sausage, somewhat spongy but okay
tasting, and eggs that were among the creamiest I'd ever
had. Perhaps they blenderized the powder before cooking,
not that that's a bad thing. A good variety of breakfast
breads; fresh whole fruit; waffles via self-service maker;
Froot Loops and some flake cereal.

Mariners @ Cubs 3-0

This is the inaugural season of the new Cubs Park on Rio
Salado, and I was eager to check it out. Traditionally the
staffing for Cubs home games has been done by a local
fraternal/charitable group called the HoHoKams, and up
until last year the Cubs played at HoHoKam Stadium in Mesa,
but in the offseason they had a new park built also in
Mesa to replace the aging HoHoKam. Next year renovations
to HoHoKam will be complete, and the Athletics will move
there, leaving the rather nice Phoenix Municipal (the main
improvement to which, I would have thought, would have been
a better beer selection) to the local university.

We picked up our friend Carl at his house a couple miles
down the road and luckily got great parking not far from
the entrance to the new stadium. Tip: if you approach the
park from the east, via Rio Salado, you get better parking
than if you approach it from Dobson.

We found the friendly HoHoKams working here as though
nothing had happened. I didn't get a chance to ask what was
going to happen next year, whether they are going to stay
here or return to HoHoKam Stadium, or both. I made a quick
inquiry to see if my friend George was working this game but
after a round of people who didn't know who he was much less
if he was working, I tried no more, turning my attention to
beer first and what I could see of the game next.

There is an array of Goose Island products, inconveniently
sold at different places, so here (as many places) one has
to do a bit of scouting to find out what is to eat and drink
where. I started off with a fairly decent Honker's Ale, hard
to find, because the dominant Goose Island product in such
warm climates is 312, a nastyish wheat beer. I had to trek
out to behind the left field lawn to find it. When that was
gone, halfway through the game, I had an IPA, buyable closer
to home.

Otherwise this is a Busch house, and it is astonishing how
many of the palate-dead there are who persist in trying to
seek out Miller and Coors things. Folks, there's not much
difference, and your choices are being informed by the
Super Bowl ads.

Down the right field line is an area with food trucks - an
attempt to capitalize on the latest new thing. The two
places getting any kind of business were the Iowa Hawkeye
guy and his pork tenderloin sandwich (formerly seen at
Scottsdale Stadium I think), where the line was about 20
long, and the Green Chile Cafe, whose line was half that.

So I got tacos de carne asada for lunch, ordering mine as
hot as they could do, and Carl said make it two. I assess
the heat level as medium minus, and that combined with the
precooked nature of the meat downrated the food quite a
bit. I'd give it a gentleman's C, okay, C+. It came topped
with lots of cilantro and a bit of decent guacamole.

Speaking of home, I'd been in charge of hotels, with Swisher
taking care of the tickets, so in deference to my eyesight,
he got seats as close to the plate as available; this meant
that even though he chose seats on the third base side, we
were in the sun longer than he was comfortable with (I tan,
he burns), so every couple innings he would find a shady
spot to park for an inning and cool off. This time we were
well in front of any shelter, so our seats were in the sun
most of the game, and we wondered why such a new stadium
should have been built with such scanty overhang.

Oh yes, the game. Some stellar plays in the field, and on
the whole pretty good pitching. The visiting Mariners
blanked the home team by 3, new acquisition Robinson Cano
going 2 for 3 with a walk (I don't like him, but my friend
who works for the Mariners is high on him) and my old fave
Dustin Ackley went 3 for 4.

We picked up Carl's wife Ellen and all visited the Royal
Thai Grill, one of the great unsung restaurants in the
valley. Chuckie the proprietor greeted us with the news
that the door was busted again, so Carl the handy person
took a look at it and seems to have got it fixed.

We started with larb neua, fairly spicy, which came with
raw cabbage on the side to cut the strong flavors. It was
pretty good. This and the next dish came and went well with
sticky rice.

The pork jerky (cured with coriander, dried a bit, and then
deep fried) was very spicy and not a favorite at the table.
The others took a token strip of it and left the rest for
me, which I was fine with, and I polished it off after
dousing it with hot fishy sauce.

Catfish with basil as usual was delicious and came with
regular rice.

Chuckie suggested we get tofu with vegetables, as he thought
we were eating too much meat and fat. The rest of them ate
all the vegetables. I, the meatarian, got the tofu, which I
normally enjoy modestly but today was extra welcome as it
helped me rest my taste buds.

With a Singha a person, we spent maybe $12 or 13 each.

Back at the hotel, Swisher decided we needed more beer, so
off he went for six-packs. Presently he came back with a
twelve of Dos Equis for him and a twelve of ... Stella ...
for me. Luckily Stella, bad Belgian that it is, tastes more
like bad beer than Belgian beer.

Indians @ Rockies 14-3

Swisher hadn't seen the new Talking Stick at Salt River,
home of the Rockies and Diamondbacks. This week the Rockies
had it to themselves, while the D'backs were off in Japan
falling into premature regular season last place courtesy
of the Dodgers.

We parked in the faraway parking, being too proud to use
the handicap area and too cheap to use the VIP lot. We had
plenty of time to hobble across the VIP lot and make it
in to our place before the festivities. To be fair, the
park offers free cart shuttles to the elderly and infirm.
To be unfair, the drivers ignored us and instead offered
places to the young, cute, and female, preferably it seems
all three.

The guy who took a seat next to me asked if I was a
Cleveland fan (we were 5 rows behind the Indians' dugout),
and I said, well, I'm certainly not a Rockies fan, which,
after an initial awkward moment, he took pretty well and
engaged me in a several-inning conversation about the
Rockies' prospects for this season, a subject about which
I know nothing (except that it's a lousy team) and cared
about as much.

This stadium offers Four Peaks products in among the regular
junk. Kilt Lifter is the strongest and the tastiest.

There's a Pima Indian fry bread stall, so I got one with
powdered sugar. It was tough and resilient and cooked in
rather old oil. A disappointment.

The Red Men ruined the day of the homies by an astounding
14-3. I understand that the favor was returned next day
by 14-6.

After this we decided to give China Magic another try: this
is the unassuming noodle house that CNN called one of the
best Chinese restaurants in the country. We had a decent
though flawed meal here a couple years ago with TW1, and I
was getting a hankering for chewy noodles and spicy Asian
food, for reasons beyond me. Swisher was a good sport.

It was only about 15 minutes from the stadium, a straight
shot down 101, so we got there during the pre-dinner lull,
with us being only about the third or fourth party there.
By the time we left, most of the tables were taken.

It's hard to eat here with just two people, as you want
to get at least two different kinds of noodles plus other
stuff. We just got the basics.

You order one of four kinds of pasta - thin, regular, wide,
or shaved - in one of several preparations, very simple
but very versatile. Thin and regular are familiar to all,
the counterparts to say vermicelli and spaghetti; wide are
like chow fun or pappardelle; and shaved are curiosities
knife cut from a chunk of dough. For me, the thinner the
better; the problem is that as with Italian pasta, the
thinner the harder to get just right.

Thin noodles with ground meat sauce - a dish that can go
two ways, one with hoisin, quite sweet, delicious in its
way (this is what you often get under the name Peking
noodles), the other with la dou ban, extremely savory.
Thankfully, this was of the latter sort; it was pretty
good but unthankfully very unspicy, and with the mass of
chewy starch (almost properly cooked, not quite) the hot
oil on the table could hardly do the job, and when we
left, half the bottle was gone. Oh, the meat was pork or
a mixture of pork and beef; it had been fried pretty hard
and so acted as a textural contrast as much as a flavoring
or an ingredient.

Beef noodles (medium) with XO sauce and vegetables came as
a standard southern stir-fry complete with overtenderized
meat; the noodles were chewier and more satisfying than the
rather limp thin ones, which as I mentioned are very hard
to get right. I should have gotten the ribbon noodles, which
are cut rather than pulled but stand up well to a saucy dish
with chunks of ingredients. The XO sauce was not much in
evidence, offering just a touch of heat, not enough, and a
touch of fishy umami, not enough for me, just right for
Swisher, who doesn't eat fish.

Iced tea - the place doesn't have an alcohol license, and we
had beer at home anyhow. The lack of license is reflected in
the low prices: our meal was under $10 each.

Tex @ KC 4-8

We packed up in the morning and drove up 17 to the Hilton
Garden Inn Phoenix North Happy Valley, arriving around 11.
I threw myself on the mercy of desk clerk Keisha, who very
accommodatingly found us a room that was already ready for
occupancy. It was a pleasant though smallish room; the view
might have been nice at one time, but now it was a good
panorama of the mountains with lots of warehouse and office
space between them and us. As elites we got free water,
cocktail at the bar, and breakfast. We used just the last,
as we had places to go and things to do.

Surprise ballpark was half an hour - actually, with the
traffic, closer to an hour - away. It is the regular field
of both of these teams, and I guess they must alternate
homeness when playing each other. Swisher hadn't been here
either and had no excuse as this is by no means a new venue.
In fact, we went to four games together, all in parks new
to him. Sort of cool, I guess.

Notable things about the venue: it's in the middle of
nowhere, so it offers free parking; it's a small park with
no bad seats or blind spots but still doesn't fill up well;
it offers Shiner Bock. I think that counts for two balls
and two strikes.

Another great day for baseball, and this time we got a
little shade due partially to the design of the park and
partially due to a few clouds that came and went.

The Rangers (whom I don't care for) took their medicine
from the Royals; Alcides Escobar was the hitting star,
going 3 for 3 with 2 doubles and 3 RBI. It was a quick
though sluggerly game, and after the 8 1/2 necessary, the
teams agreed to play a bottom of the ninth to let some other
nonregulars get their licks. Few patrons stayed to watch,
and nothing happened anyway. We did and stuck around a bit
afterward, as we were early. Then off to do a little
shopping, then back up to Glendale or Peoria or something
to JanAZ's for dinner.

JanAZ looks good; her son is getting married this year,
which means that time has flown shockingly. In deference to
Swisher, who has little interest in the minutiae of the
frequent flyer world, we talked about real subjects for a
change. Dave, sad to say, was called away to some faraway
land and couldn't join us. He's still the road warrior, and
JanAZ reaps the reward as a million-miler spouse - she gets
1K without having to fly. I used to run into her all over
the world, mostly Asia. Now I see her only on her home turf.
Life has changed so much. There are bunches of people I used
to see in exotic climes. Now not so much, though I am still
putting on them miles, mostly for pointful but pointless
purposes and leisure.

Hey, I'm a 2 million miler, does that mean I get to give my
status to two spice? No? Poop.

TransWorldOne flew in from Vegas to join us - we've been
seeing spring training games together for over a decade
now, but this year he could only fit one into his busy
schedule. Of course as soon as he arrived the conversation
veered off to the things we know and love the best, and
Swisher quieted down all of a sudden. He flies one round
trip a year, basically, with his cat, in first, on Alaska,
and that's all folks. His life is perhaps normal compared
to ours.

Steak night, nice 16-oz 1 1/4" strips, grilled just right;
smashed taters; broccoli; Norton Reserva Malbec 10, which
was somewhat better than acceptable and went quite well.

It had been a long day for everyone, so we called it quits
fairly early. The trip back was easy with the lack of
traffic, and soon the question arose: drink coupons at the
bar or just collapse in bed? The latter won.

Garden Inn breakfast was better than most. The continental
was generous, with a greater variety of mostly sweet things
than usual, and of pretty good quality. The full includes
a plate of eggs any style, breakfast meat, and home fries
with peppers and onions - I guess you get to pick and
choose, but I got a pretty standard eggs sunny with bacon:
pigs is pigs, so you can guess I have no objection to that.

I'm not regularly an egg person, but at least they're not
sweet and not cereal. I like to trim the white off an egg
and shove the yolk into my mouth whole, letting it explode
inside; this is fun with up to large eggs, but extra larges
pose a problem. These were extra large bordering on jumbo,
and one of them caused me to drool yellow a bit.

The waitress was genial and treated us well, though she
did spill something on another guest, who took it okay.

One quibble: the grapefruit juice was cocktail, so I input
more sugar than I normally would and less fruit substance.

Not having much to do back at the room, and not knowing
how long our journey would take, we checked out an hour
early and went on our merry way.

MIL @ CIN 9-1

I'd picked the Brewers because TW1 is from Wisconsin.

The game was at Goodyear Stadium, right next to the Goodyear
Airport and boneyard. Much farther than Surprise, but it
takes less time to get here, owing to the preponderance of
full-speed freeway travel. We allowed a ton of extra time,
neither of us having been there; it was a piece of cake, and
we were quite early so got to do a walkaround the park and
a detailed investigation of the catering options before the
game. We found Sam 24-oz bombers for $10, in three flavors,
Cold Snap, Summer, and the lager at one place and Dos Equis
on draft, $8.25 for 20 oz, at another.

Still early, we chatted at random with one of the ushers;
Swisher had bought a souvenir minibat to murder fish with,
and the conversation revolved around salmon catching, a
subject that I have scant interest in except regarding
the consumption thereof, so he got his revenge for the
previous evening. Toddled down to our own row, where we
found a quite attractive usherette of maybe forty-something
summers, so we had a conversation with her as well before
finding our seats, which were way in front and well in the
sun. I stayed down there to drink beer - I'd gotten me a
double Sam lager - and watch ball; he spent most of his
time up under shelter.

Just before or after the first pitch, we got a phone call.
Through some misunderstanding TW1 had gone to Surprise,
where the surprise was on him, and he was heading down as
quickly as possible, poor fellow.

The game started with a bang, the Brewers having a 5-run
either second or third inning. TW1 showed up around the
fourth, after all of the scoring had happened (except maybe
for one or two that were futile or redundant).

I'd noticed a Mexican stand near the first-base-side
entrance that smelled decent and found another outlet of
the same down in the depths of left field. As left field
was way less crowded than the entrance, I went down there
for an order of taquitos. Paid my eight bucks and left
a tip at the cashier's and went aside to wait for my food.
The cook told me that he didn't like the way the predone
ones looked, so he was going to make a new batch. This
isn't such a big deal - instead of taking the already
cooked ones and refreshing them in the fryer, he took some
frozen ones and did the same thing but twice as long. I
appreciated this, though I'd have sort of enjoyed premade
ones as well (greasy fried food is still fried food, and
fried food is good). These came, an order of three, each
the size of a large cigar, with salsa, a big ice-cream
scoop of guacamole, and another big scoop of sour cream.
Sour cream? Yeah, I had my pills with me. A handful of
cilantro on top. A lot of food, a bunch of Calories.

The taquitos were actually decent, pretty tasty pot roast
meat inside, crisp and not too greasy shells, the sour
cream thick and fresh (contradiction?), and the guac, though
still with a few ice crystals in the middle, reasonably
spicy, reasonably tart, and very rich.

Had we been speaking of doubles? If not, the Brewers hit
7 of them this game, with two by Logan Shafer and two by
Lyle Overbay; there was also a home run from Jonathan
Lucroy, who had 3 RBI.

The Reds also had doubles by Jay Bruce and someone else. I
don't know how many times I've been to a game that had 10
extra-base hits.

The final was 9-1, again in favor of the visitors.

After the game we piled into Swisher's car and drove out to
TW1's, way out in the boonies where you have to park when
you arrive way late. Transferred my bags and bade Swisher
safe travels as he drove back westward.

It was an hour back through appalling traffic, and as we
inched along we suggested various reasons, including this
being the result of all the west side ballgames letting out
at once. Presently the reason became clear - we merged left
and saw an upside-down (luckily mostly intact) silver
compact being cleared from one of the center lanes. Yuck.

There had been no stadium booze good enough for TW1, so he
showed me to the Last Drop at the Hermosa Inn in Paradise
Valley, where he's friends with Travis the bartender. I
looked at the draft list - it was happy hour, and local
micros were on special - and chose the Sonoran Smooth Rebel
double IPA. TW1 ordered what appeared on the bill as "Trust
Cocktail" - you trust the bartender and get what you get.
Of course, you describe what you want to drink and maybe
suggest a favored ingredient to give him some basis to work
from. The IPA was not really so double, in fact its modest
bitterness was almost undone by a syrupy sweetness. Still
not a bad glass, but I resolved to put Travis in charge of
my second. Which I did, suggesting orange flower water, gin,
and almond: not unsurprisingly he came up with a maitailike
thing but not red and not sweet. It was pretty good. TW1
kept testing Travis. Most of the results were good as well.

There's this happy hour special where if you order 3 snacks
(normally 8-15 each) you get the lot for $15. We did that
plus two pork belly tacos with pickled onions and cilantro
crema at $3 each. The tacos were excellent, as TW1 said they
would be. Our snacks:

truffled ricotta croquettes with romesco sauce - I read this
as "risotto" so ordered them happily. They turned out to be
made out of this dry ricotta salata, and I scrambled for the
lactase pills. The coating was impeccable, the filling not
too fake truffley, which made me do a dissection that
revealed some shreds of truffle peel that must have helped
out the truffle oil, the result actually being rather good;

duck empanadas with "mole sauce" and pickled onions I found
pretty average, with duck that could have been guinea pig
meat for all I could tell, the mole a bland chocolate peanut
goo that was less than average;

Berkshire chorizo empanadas and chipotle ketchup were
totally ordinary but good pigs in blankets with a spicy
ketchup that, sadly, wasn't housemade but a commercial brand
with powdered peppers stirred in.

I should have ordered 5 more pork belly tacos instead of all
these frou-frou things. I'd have gotten at least 2 more, but
TW1 had a plane to catch but had lost track of time chatting
with Travis and his wife Cheyenne who showed up at some
point during the proceedings. I had to remind him to get his
butt out of there and on the road.

The original plan was for him to run in and check a bag,
then drive me to my motel, then drop off the car at the
rental car facility, then return to the airport, a plan
that would have been fine but for the last cocktail or two,
so I proposed to call the hotel shuttle and leave him to
his own devices, which is what happened. He must have made
his flight, as I didn't hear otherwise later.

I called the Econo Lodge PHX Airport for a shuttle and was
told that I should wait for a van labeled Sky Harbor Airport
Parking. Apparently they subcontract.

There was a pretty sizable crowd when the van showed up; it
just sat there for a while, enraging some of the customers.
Turns out the van has a spot where it's supposed to be, and
that spot was occupied for a while, so the driver really
couldn't do anything.

The vehicle soon filled up; several people couldn't fit on.
The driver promised them that another van would soon be by
to accommodate them. To give him credit, he did call his
dispatcher and describe the situation.

Of course, the parkers had priority, and so I was last off
the bus. I could have walked to the hotel from the airport,
twice, in this amount of time, oh, well.

Efficient checkin by a young fellow who is clearly cut out
for better things. My room was halfway down on the right.
It was fairly big, the bed fairly comfy. The toilet and
shower room smelled a bit mildewy, though.

I'd planned on eating at the Knock-Kneed Crab a couple
blocks away but had had enough food, plus it was dark
(not that bad of a neighborhood, but I might fall into a
pothole or something), so just went to the Circle K on the
next corner for salty snacks and a couple beers.

[Aside: I'd told TW1 of this plan but had forgotten the name
of the joint and referred to it as "something like the One-
Clawed Lobster." TW1 said, "you mean the Knock-Kneed Crab?"
"Yes, that's it." He just laughed evilly. I didn't take that
as a good sign.]


Word to the wise: Jamaican-style jerk Slim Jims have nothing
in common with Jamaica; Beck's Sapphire has nothing in
common with Beck's.

I tried to set the alarm, but the radio didn't work. Told
the guy at the front desk, who said that there was no reason
to equip the rooms with good clock radios, because the
guests would just steal them; that's how classy this place
is. So they buy truckloads of cheap pro forma appliances and
don't care if they work or not or if they walk or not.

The bed was comfy, and for me beer is a good sleep aid.

More importantly, the wake-up call I ordered as consolation
actually happened and actually woke me up.

UA1206 PHX IAH 0500 0925 738 3B

The desk guy hadn't let me reserve onto the 0400 shuttle,
not enough time, he thought, so I had to take the 0300,
with an 0200 wakeup call. It seems that the 0400 would have
worked okay, as security took mere seconds, even despite
this gem from the TSA person working the belt, who made me
take my computer and liquids out - "You're PreCheck, but
your bags aren't."

A yummy breakfast sandwich, to wit, a both soggy and tough
English muffin that tasted like moldy fruit housing an
egg puck topped with chopped and formed cured pork product
(but not too salty) topped with melted pasteurized process
cheese food. Given my lactose issues, it is a tribute to the
quality of the bread that I scraped the cheese off it - and
ate the cheese.

On the side your standard fruit cup and a tub of some sort
of yogurt.

UA 435 IAH BOS 1020 1459 320 7C Ch9^^

I was buried down in the double digits on the upgrade list
despite my lifetime platinum and annual 1K status. No big
worries, I just slept through the flight anyway, but this
time for a change lunch actually smelled good. Oh, well.

Again, Channel 9 was advertised and delivered.