YumWatch: Thinking Tastes Good

So the British Airways strike has majorly mussed up my travel plans — I received an email from Expedia.com this morning urging me to “CONTACT US IMMEDIATELY REGARDING YOUR UPCOMING TRAVEL PLANS.” Not the most encouraging message to receive three days before you leave the country!

So I called, and turns out our connecting flight from Heathrow to Madrid was straight-up CANCELED. As in, no way to get to Spain, guys! Ha ha ha!!!! Yes, it could have been worse, the whole damn trip could have been canceled, but still — our hotel reservations are basically set in stone AND we have firm plans to meet up with my friend Tom. Rescheduling the flight to another day was not an option, unless we wanted to eat the cost of one night’s hotel AND find a place to stay in London for the night. I spent about two unproductive hours on the phone today trying to get through to an actual BA representative with no luck. (I talked to a couple nice outsourced-Indian customer service reps though! I giggled a lot and thanked them more than once for their time. Three years in telephone sales has taught me to ALWAYS BE KIND TO THE CSRs.)

This is all extra disappointing because I’ve always had great experiences flying BA — comfy seats, great in-flight entertainment (personal TV screens in the back of the seat — and the movies this month include An Education, Where the Wild Things Are, and Paper Heart, all of which I’ve been dying to watch!), tolerable food, and free alcohol with your meal. (Wine + Tylenol PM = Sleepy Time.) I’ve also collected at least three pairs of those funny in-flight socks over the years — WHY? I have no idea. But they’re comfy and bright blue! Socks! I love socks!

Unfortunately BA is pretty much the only carrier that flies from Heathrow to Spain (well, unless I wanted to pay about $1000 extra per ticket), but I did find a reasonable fare out of London-Gatwick. This means, of course, that once we arrive at Heathrow we have to fumble our way over to Gatwick, about a 75-minute bus ride. We have seven hours to make our connecting flight, though,  so I think we’ll be ok! I’ll admit, a teeny tiny little part of me does wish that we had been stranded overnight in London since it’s always been my favorite city in all of Europe…but next time, right? Next time.

So now we arrive in Madrid at about 10pm, but that’s ok because we’ll probably be just in time for dinner. We were planning on using the Metro to get to our hotel, but I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll pony up the cash for a taxi (I love public transportation, but not at 10pm at night while saddled with baggage and a cranky boyfriend). I’m sure we’ll be dead tired and pissy as hell, but I’m just going to keep my eye on the prize — the prize being Rioja, olives, boquerones, and salt-cod stew a la Madrilena, of course.

Fresh strawberries, first dipped in sour cream, then dipped in brown sugar.

(Trust me and try it — creamy, tart, and sweet!)