O Canada

Headed to Vancouver Thursday night for one action-packed day of work on Friday. Returned tonight. Was denied from getting biz class tickets (wah!), but Cathay Pacific has quality service in economy, probably better than some American airlines' first class. We also got upgraded to business class on the way home since economy was full. The color scheme is a little jarring - several shades of teal and turquoise upholstery, red/purple/red and white uniforms, disco-brothel mood lighting.

Vancouver is breathtakingly beautiful. The late-night lights on the ski mountains unnerved me a little, but the Hyatt was fantastic. Despite arriving at 2am local time, I slept like a baby. Unfortunately we did not have too much time to wander around, but we will be heading back soon for a longer period of time. The city is being built up, I'm sure partially for the 2010 Winter Olympics, and the view of Coal Harbour from the Imperial Chinese restaurant was already gone. Luckily, the crab with ginger and green onion made it worthwhile.

Stupid Yalie

Do undergrads really think this masturbatory, self-serving, obnoxious self-promotion will actually get them a job?

V-Day

Tonight's menu was

Chicken Veronique (J's recipe)
Wild Rice
(slightly over)Steam Broccoli
a fantastic German Riesling (thanks Tony!)

Subtly Spicy Chili Brownies cut into hearts with Haagen Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream (courtesy of Rachael Ray)

I Got Bourbon-Faced on Sh*t St.

Despite the air travel debacle, I managed to eke out a good 36 hours in New Orleans. J didn't react too well to the mid-afternoon hurricanes at Pat O'Brien, but the muffaletta seemed to cushion my stomach enough to run around into the wee hours. Our hotel was at the end of the parade route, so float occupiers proceeded to chuck entire bags of beads at us. One guy even tried to pitch an enormous Sponge Bob Squarepants at me; I politely declined. We then proceeded to my friend's favorite gay bar at the end of Bourbon Street. Apparently the other one is scary and militant. We both agreed that the bartender was cute and that boys dancing on bars in varying styles of lingerie is icky. We agreed to disagree on the definition of the word "fag hag" and how that term would apply to me since I was accompanying him out. I was then hit on by a lesbian with her questioning male friend, who then hooked up with my friend after I rebuffed their advances. Fun stuff until I had to drag my friend back to the hotel and then yak up the muffaletta.

The next day we chowed down on some yummy Cajun food and did some more walking around before going home. The Dog "Parade" was today, although it did not seem that organized. Luckily, there were no flight dramas

Dump Delta

My trip to N'Awlins was seriously marred and almost ruined by Delta's horrendous delays and even worse customer service in ATL. Here's a summary of what happened:

• The plane is late arriving into LGA and took off an hour late.
  
• We had 20 minutes to make our connection, but we had get from Terminal A to Terminal E.
  
• When the gate agent saw us running down the hallway to make the flight with about 10 minutes to go, they shut the door on us and then yelled at us. Didn't even try to help us, didn't tell us we had been rebooked, just yelled and told us to go to customer service (all the way in Terminal T).
  
• Customer service was rude (whatever happened to Southern hospitality?), told me that I obviously don't fly very often (are you kidding?), threatened to have my boyfriend arrested for exclaiming "This is crap!", and then made us pay for the hotel, hiding behind Air Traffic Control as the reason why we were stranded.
  

The horrible customer service agent was wearing a "Keep Delta MY Delta" lanyard. At this point, US Airways can have Delta, PLEASE! I would expect top-notch service at a company's HQ. Plus, the more I look around on Flyertalk and in Google, it seems that this is an endemic problem and not a fluke.

Restaurant Week cont.

Spice Market was just as good with their prix-fixe lunch as they were for my mom's birthday dinner last year.

Osteria del Circo had a good selection. The boar stew looked better than my fish, but everything was very tasty.

Molyvos was great, but a lot of the more interesting menu choices cost extra. Isn't the whole point of Restaurant Week to have a more affordable menu?

Overall, a tasty week.

p.s. Happy Groundhog Day!