Back!

We are back in New England from Denver after a FIVE HOUR PLANE DELAY thanks to a storm in Boston, a “strange smell” in the galley that had to be investigated and an issue with our plane’s brakes.

I am completely knackered, so this is just a quickie post.  Denver was one of the least comfortable cities I’ve ever visited.  I couldn’t figure out why I was so sore and why my workouts (which were easy by my usual standards) felt like I was moving with huge lead weights on my legs.  Our friends pointed out that the altitude takes some getting used to.  OH!  That explains it.

Um, and there were some late nights at a pub thrown in as well.  Maybe that had something to do with it?

Anyway, food-wise, everything was pretty uneventful.  The suburbs we were in outside of Denver were strip-mall city, so I had Berry Oatmeal at the Egg & I every morning, some sort of iceberg lettuce-based salad with no dressing and bread for lunch and was on my own for dinner.

Denverites are so freakin’ lucky to have the Cuba Cuba cafe so handily located.  We had an amazing meal there (and some pre-pub drinks, which also could account for the nastiness I felt the next day).  I had the Mariquitas Cubana to start, then the Ensalada de la Casa and a side of black beans.  I also had a Coconut Daquiri (coconut rum, lime juice, sugar syrup) which was INCREDIBLE.  I had something else called the Tropicale with coconut rum, mango and some other kind of juice, but it tasted mostly like suntan lotion.

Sunday, we met up with my sister, who lives outside of Boulder, to see her new house and check out her ‘hood.  Boulder is way more vegan-friendly than any of the other cities we were in.  We had lunch at The Med, but I was suffering from a blistering hangover thanks to Cuba Cuba and some boy drinks at the pub so I just had some tapas — the falafel with no yogurt sauce and the hummus platter.  The Thai Curry hummus with honey was AMAZING.  The Roasted Red Pepper and Harissa Hummus was good too, but I wouldn’t order the Black Bean Hummus again.

Later, we met up with friends at The New Saigon Vietnamese restaurant in Denver.  It’s considered the best Vietnamese place in Denver and there was a super-long wait for a table.  I found one dish that was vegan-friendly and actually had a liberal amount of veggies included (everything else was pretty much starch-based).  It was okay, but based on that one dish, I would say the restaurant was overrated.  I missed my veggie pho.  They did have a great Boba Tea menu though.

This morning my stomach was still messed up (I have been nauseated, headachey, sore, and suffering from allergies all weekend) so I just had a soy chai latte with an Amazing Grass bar.  I grabbed a spinach, mushroom and tomato pizza from Wolfgang Puck’s (no cheese) to take on the plane and ate it over the course of our 8 hours on board.

Now I’m home, nursing some mint tea and an Ezekiel muffin and hoping my body gets back to normal soon.

That’s the speed-reading version of the weekend.

Peace (and there really IS no place like home!)

-E.