Out to eat

LUNCH

I had intentions to eat lunch out. It was a hot day. I recalled a place named Bar Sitio (Bar Place) that wasn't too far away and always seemed to have a group of girls eating in front of it. I made my way, arrived, took a seat outside, but only a pair of teenage boys sat drinking beer at a nearby table. Oh, well. I was hungry. I had my book with me.

Not too long thereafter I reckoned that it was indeed too hot to sit outside, so I let the waiter know of my desire and changed tables and moved inside. The ceiling fans made their cool noise, no doubt; yet I started to sweat with greater intensity. At that point I looked up to the ceiling and noticed that I had unwisely chosen to sit under the one ceiling fan that did not work. It sat there motionless, clueless, much like myself. Furthermore, the clientele was solely comprised of men over 50. No women, no girls. I took out my book - Amuleto by Roberto Bolaño - and started to read.

It was a nice lunch: steak sandwich w/ lettuce and tomato, french fries, agua mineral sin gas. Just what I had wanted. I only had some thirty pages left in my book, so I thought I might stay there and finish it, despite the heat. My earlier buzz had by then completely faded. (Dani, one of my hosts, and made me a mimosa around 1pm, when I was still in my bedclothes, my thin arms covered in mosquito bites from the night before in spite of our best efforts to keep them away. Later that afternoon I would ask him if he had any insect repellant that I might use to spray in my room. He did. "Do you know how to use it?" Dani asked politely. I did.) I had heard once that when it's hot outside it's better to drink something hot, which made me then remember how an ex-girlfriend once told me that hot tub water is good for your complexion (this latter piece of advice being a true bourgeois remedy). Red wine seemed like the closest thing to a hot and alcoholic drink that I could think of, so I asked the waiter for a glass.

"We don't have any right now," he started. "Wait, actually, we have _____ in either half bottle or full bottle. Which would you prefer?"
"Well, can I just have a single glass?" I replied, not sure if I had heard him right or not.
"No! Half bottle or full bottle!"
"Ah...Half bottle then, por favor."

I had thirty pages left in the book and 7/8ths of a half bottle (7/16ths of a full bottle) in front of me. I went to work. Who knew what I would finish first. Red wine tends to go straight to my dome.

DINNER

I had just bragged to my father in an online chat session about how I hoped my next meal would be "something other than steak." I was serious, though. Steak the night before, steak sandwich for lunch earlier that day. So, I went to a restaurant that I had been to for the first time just days before called Bar España (Bar Spain), where I had had a tasty fish dish for lunch and received excellent service. The fish had been one of the daily specials that day, which meant a cheaper meal, and I went for the daily special again this evening, not really knowing what it was: riñoncitos al verdeo. When in Rome! I knew I recognized the word riñon, but couldn't exactly place it. The dish arrived. It looked stranger than I had expected as the waitress served some on to my plate. It smelled strange, too. It wasn't until I took my first exceedingly chewy bite, however, that I remembered what riñon meant in English: kidney.