Much Too Much Of Too Little

I’m back from Barcelona and boy, am I hungry.

I’d love to tell you that I had a wonderful time, or that I managed to find some time to sightsee or even leave the hotel for any great length of time. But the truth of the matter is that I basically arrived in Spain, went directly to the hotel, worked for 16 hours each day and dragged myself to my room to sleep a few hours before getting up and working another 16 hours. The only time I had free was on Saturday afternoon, from 2pm to 6pm, when I frantically ran around Barcelona trying to take in the sights and take a few pictures before running back to the hotel to finish working.

And don’t get me started on the food.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Spanish food. Tapas, in particular make for a wonderful meal every once in a while. But the problem with going to a foreign country for business reasons instead of for a vacation is that unlike during a vacation where you can explore new and exciting places to eat, I was stuck eating whatever the hotel could provide. And after a week of eating nothing but tapas I have made a life-altering discovery.

You really can have too much of a good thing.

Case in point; tapas. Now, I like tapas as much as the next guy, ordering many different small portions of delicious finger food makes for a very enjoyable meal every once in a while. But when you are eating the same delicious finger foods every meal for four days straight they begin to lose their appeal. And when the tapas are always room temperature you might find yourself desiring something edible with a temperature hotter than your own skin. And should you be a meat eater, like I am, you might become discouraged on the third or fourth day of eating nothing but fried cheese balls, fried potato balls, olives (stuffed with, of all things, anchovies! blech), skewers of shrimp still in their shells and some pieces of fruit.

By dinner on day three I was ready to eat my own fist.

To give you an example of my Barcelona meal menus, I took the liberty of writing Thursday’s menu down for posterity’s sake. So, here is what I ate on Thursday, which is exactly the same thing I was served on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

• Breakfast
• Little pieces of fruit
• Cookies
• Cheese wedges
• Dinner rolls with sugar on top
• Coffee, tea or juice
• Lunch
• Cold potato omelets (plain or spinach)
• Cold shrimp (still in shell)
• Cold fried cheese balls
• Cold fried potato balls
• Stuffed olives
• Sliced deli ham
• Rolls
• Cookies
• Small pastries
• Coffee, tea or juice
• Dinner
• Salad (lettuce, tomato and cucumber)
• Tiny medallions of cold pork in peppercorn sauce (skewered on a toothpick)
• Cold potato omelets (plain or spinach)
• Cold fried cheese balls
• Cold fried potato balls
• Stuffed olives
• Rolls
• Cookies
• Small pastries
• Coffee, tea or juice

Mealtime became the most discouraging time of day for me.

The worst thing about mealtime was that, even if it was cold, all the food was tasty and delicious. It wasn’t as if the food was bad, inedible, or of a type that I personally wouldn’t eat, like fish or snails. Everything tasted great; it just wasn’t what I considered food. At one point during a meal I turned to another member of the crew and remarked that I felt as if what we were eating amounted to food-flavored air, because no matter how much we ate we were doomed to be forever hungry. He agreed with me and postulated that perhaps that’s why most Americans are fat while most Spaniards aren’t. I told him he was crazy.

But when I got home I realized I lost 6 pounds in 5 days. Go figure.