Today I had the option of a Spainish buffet or a Chinese buffet for lunch. I asked my host to choose and ended up at The Wok, a very busy and fabulous chinese buffet -- I think maybe the best chinese buffet I have ever been to. :)

There was one moment of terrible concern when I was at the grill and passed over my plate of raw shrimp and veggies to be flambayed...and the Chinese chef asked me something...and my host was nowhere to be found! Do I panic over being lost in the desert of Senegal at midnight? No. Do I panic over being locked out of my train car in my pajamas on an all-night train in the Ukraine? No. Do I panic over what the chinese chef could possibly be saying about my veggies? You betcha. ;)

Thankfully the woman next to me in line took pity and said something about sauce. Another moment of panic because not only did I not know what my choices were, I wouldn't know how to name them if I did. Another thankful moment when the nice lady pointed at the ceiling and I saw a sign with six options -- I chose the Wok because it was the only one I could pronounce. Well no, I guess that's not true. I recognized one other, but I don't like curry.

Afterward we had a very Spainish cup of coffee. I was offered the local version which I think they called cordoba but I'm not certain, or an American version. I said, what the heck, I'll try it once. It was rather humorous to me because you bellied up to the bar to order in the midst of smokers and drinkers of more than coffee and they slapped down something barely bigger than shot glass. I watched a guy a few spaces down get his coffee with a bonus of some sort of hard liquor added in, but mine came with only milk. It was pretty good actually -- they told me it was very strong so I was expecting something like Turkish coffee. If you can manage to choke down one sip of that you're up all night. Of course I'm still up, so who knows.