I arrived at the Charlotte airport around 5:00 p.m. yesterday evening in spite of the fact that they’d had some sort of bomb scare earlier in the day which is so weird because the last time I flew I was delayed at Dallas Love Field due to a bomb scare. If it happens again I may develop a complex and be forced to never leave my house again.
Once I arrived at the hotel I met up with Sophie and Annie and we headed out in search of mediocre Mexican food because that is what we do when we’re together. It’s a sickness really. It’s like my head tells me no, but my heart just can’t believe that there are parts of the world missing out on delicious chips and guacamole. I have no doubt that if I ever find myself in some exotic locale like say Spearfish, South Dakota that I will immediately ask the concierge at the Motel 6 where I can find the best Mexican food, head to El Grande Burrito on his recommendation and then walk away totally surprised that it was a less than satisfactory culinary experience.
Annie had her Garmin GPS system at the ready so she immediately pulled up the names of several Mexican restaurants located in the vicinity. Unfortunately, Garmin doesn’t realize that we’re in the midst of some tough economic times and that many of these restaurants are no longer in business.
After driving through some questionable parts of town, we still hadn’t located any of the Mexican eateries that Garmin had promised when all of a sudden I spied the words “Mexican Restaurant” on the side of a building as we drove past at 60 miles per hour. We decided we’d make a u-turn and check it out because obviously it must be okay since it’s managed to stay in business while the other forty-six restaurants we’d tried couldn’t survive the competition of the Taco Bell.
We pulled into the parking lot and got a closer look at the signage.
I don’t know that the Hispanic version of Chuck E. Cheese instilled a lot of confidence in the whole dining experience. There’s something about a rat in chaps, wearing a sombrero, that makes me know without a doubt that I’m not in Texas anymore, Dorothy.
But we decided to live on the edge and went in to experience Andele! for ourselves. As we got out of the car, I immediately felt better when I saw a car parked next to us that had several Hispanic bumper stickers. If the people in that car were eating at Andele! then it must be okay.
And it was. It was okay. In fact, it may have been the best mediocre Mexican food I’ve had in all my vast experience dining at restaurants that call queso “cheese dip”.
So we finished our dinner, bid Adios! to Andele! and then headed back to our hotel. Or at least we attempted to head back to our hotel but Garmin decided that we needed to take a scenic route through all of Charlotte and we drove for about twenty-five minutes on a straight path to what appeared to be nowhere until we finally stumbled back into some semblance of civilization that seemed to be near the hotel.
We saw a Walgreens and decided it would be a genius idea to stop and load up on some candy to get us through our planned viewing of “Real Housewives of Atlanta”. As we pulled into the parking lot I was stunned to see the exact same car that had been at Andele! with all the bumper stickers. In fact, I took a picture of it because that is what I do.
You will notice that the bumper stickers translate to various things such as “I’ve decided to follow Jesus” and “My confidence is in Jesus Christ”. None of them translate to “Follow me to enjoy delicious Mexican food”. But still, what are the odds we’d see that same car after driving all around Charlotte for a sweet forever?
Of course what are the odds that there would be a bomb scare at two different airports the last two times I’ve gotten on an airplane?
And while we’re kind of on the subject of language translation, I have a message to the person who found my blog the other day by googling “A Mexican man called me ‘feo’ what does it mean?” I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my friend, but it wasn’t a compliment.
Adios, amigos.