I just got back from the worst work conference in the history of mankind in Syracuse. It was a conference full of haters and back-to-back lectures for 12 straight hours on Friday and 10 straight hours on Saturday. I can’t even believe I had to spend my weekend doing this. And I didn’t even get good food, which was the only thing I had been looking forward to — I just ate a shitload of food to make up for the lack of quality I was expecting, and I literally gained 5 pounds in the 2.5 days that I was at the conference.
On Thursday night I was headed to Syracuse and with the traffic, literally got to the airport 20 minutes before takeoff. I was freaking out but starving and was ready to risk missing my flight in order to get a free bite to eat. I was in such a rush, though, that all I could find was a thing of chicken salad (where were all the friggen sandwiches?!?!?!) that of course ends up costing like $12. I mean at least I didn’t have to pay for it, but I was at least hoping for a good sandwich to take on the plane with me. So that was a disappointment.
On Friday I woke up at 7am for a day full of hater lectures and got myself a bagel with herbed cream cheese, a bowl of yogurt, granola and berries, 4 cups of coffee with cream, and a glass of tomato juice from the breakfast table. I was so upset by the fact I had to be at this conference by myself that I decided I would make the most of the $10 lunch buffet by running over to the lunch first so I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone and pile my plate as high as I could. The lunch was actually pretty good — greek salad, grilled vegetables, roasted potatoes, pita with tzatziki, onions and diced tomatoes, and grilled chicken and steak strips. Apparently my plate was piled so high that it attracted some unwanted attention. Some older lady comes over to me and comments, “Oh my! Quite the appetite you’ve got there, young lady!” I just smiled at her as she chuckled. Yeah yeah shut the fuck up lady and leave me and my plate alone.
That lunch was pretty good and actually filled me up quite well to the point where I was genuinely not hungry for dinner. But I was so drained from this conference and really felt I deserved a nice dinner on my client, so I decided to get takeout from one of the places that roommate K (who went to Syracuse) recommended — chicken enchilada with mole sauce from Alto Cinco. The $7 enchilada was … okay … but not as high caliber of a dinner as I would have gotten knowing I wasn’t paying for this. I should have gotten a steak with wine.
Saturday was even worse — breakfast was more skimpy than Friday’s and I didn’t want to go back to the conference lunch buffet again, so I decided to order from the nice-looking restaurant next door. I had been eating a lot of crap throughout the conference so I wanted to go healthy and ordered the roast beef sandwich. Turns out I read the menu wrong and it was actually a roasted bbq beef sandwich with fries. Oh well, I tried.
And then dinner was the worst — I ran out of the conference as soon as it was over to catch my flight back to civilization and didn’t have time to grab dinner before I left so I figured I would just have a nice sit-down dinner at Syracuse airport. Except it turns out there were NO RESTAURANTS AT SYRACUSE AIRPORT IN THE TERMINAL I WAS AT. WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT ABOUT. It wasn’t even like I was flying some obscure airline, I WAS FLYING UNITED, and it wasn’t even like I was leaving at an odd time, MY FLIGHT WAS AT 7:30PM RIGHT AT NORMAL DINNER TIME. I was completely appalled that there was no food except for a vending machine available at this airport. This is why I dislike (read: hate) small towns, and any other place that doesn’t have nice restaurants at their international airports, and the convenience of a Duane Reade, grocery store, liquor store and a Chinese food restaurant within a two-block radius from wherever you are — i.e., any place except for Manhattan, San Francisco and Harvard Square.
I was so angry by this point that I was determined to buy myself a nice steak dinner at Washington Dulles (don’t ask me why my flight went from Syracuse to Dulles to LGA). Of course at this terminal the only decent “restaurant” was Five Guys, where I actually got an incredible $5 bacon burger with fries, but it wasn’t the steak I had been determined to treat myself to this entire weekend.
In conclusion, this entire weekend should have been full of steaks and wines and incred meals when really I ended up just eating a shitload of shitty hotel food and takeout food and airport food. I guess I can’t really complain since I gained 5 lbs worth of food on my body in 2.5 days on my client’s money. While miserable, this weekend was still a very good win for poverexia.
Poverexic in NYC 