My stomach was the first to go.
Winter break has finally come to a close, and it has been a stressful week and a half since I returned to campus. So it seems far-fetched that a little more than a week into my first trip to the Big Apple, I was burned out on vacation.
My palate threw in the towel the day my boyfriend and tour guide wanted to go straight from the Staten Island Ferry to Katz’s Deli, arguably the most famous restaurant in the city. By this time, we had swung like harried monkeys from train to train, seen sights aplenty, dodged each other’s snowballs — my first — and eaten our way through the coolest cuisine I could never get in Louisiana.
Pizza by the slice, gourmet macaroni and cheese, the fanciest Eggs Benedict I will ever devour in five minutes, Mamoun’s falafel, specialty meatballs, specialty doughnuts, specialty pudding — I should have been in paradise.
But, on that day, another new food experience sounded like being tossed into a swimming pool filled with pickles and brine. My brain had been overwhelmed with sensation and regressed to the simple relationship it had with food at age five: stick to what you know, and fear all else.
All I wanted, or so I whined as we passed the Statue of Liberty on the way back to Manhattan, was one repeated meal. It didn’t have to be something from home. I wasn’t homesick. I just wanted falafel again, another food New York introduced to me.
My boyfriend, who travels by his stomach above all else, was baffled. He had introduced me to countless dining experiences with success, and now I didn’t want a warm deli sandwich and soup.
I chanted “falafel” in his ear, hoping to spark his appetite and get my bratty way, but he placated me by promising falafel for dinner. At Katz’s, we gorged ourselves on sandwiches, soup, latkes and — in his case — pickled things. We skipped dinner and opted for a walk on the Brooklyn Bridge instead, but we reserved the last day of the trip for repeat meals.
As the remaining days in New York counted down, my stomach got back on track and anticipated every strange, new bite.
But I started to feel exasperated with other vacation elements. I sighed through winding museum galleries. I scoffed at some amazing urban parks. Sorry, High Line.
Close on the tail of this annoyance was shame. I was on vacation in the city that never sleeps, and I was complaining, however inwardly, about an obligation to experience the place before I went home.
Looking back, the trip’s duration was its downfall. My routine had become all new experiences, and I started to resent them the way I resent trips to the post office. The seemingly never-ending obligation to see, eat and do it all was becoming as grating as ordinary obligations.
Thankfully, I managed to shake myself out of it and have an uproarious good time my last few nights in the city. I will only have fond memories of my time in NYC and of properly made falafel.
But I’m still stupidly grateful to be back in Baton Rouge, where I can eat Cane’s every night and nap on the couch every afternoon.