Recently in travel Category

My friend Tanja went to Turku for the weekend with her husband, and invited me to join up with them on Saturday.  It's only two hours west of Helsinki by train and one of my resolutions was to do a better job at exploring my new country, so duh, I said yes.  Here is how to have fun in Turku:

1. Ride the Train There
   Just show up at the train station and buy a ticket, and then get ushered to a big roomy seat with giant windows.  After so much time on planes lately, I was in heaven.  And after being too excited to sleep the night before, I was also very very tired, so I slept for most of the trip.  At one point I woke up at a station where we were stopped, and saw all these stacks of logs covered in snow, so I vowed to wake up, pay attention, and enjoy the scenery, which was snowy and beautiful.
   
   
   
   
2. Find Your Friend Quickly, It's Cold!
   Tanja's hotel was a short walk from the Turku train station, but no walk is "short" when it's -38432984 C outside.  And the sun was out, which turns out is a bad thing, if you can believe that.  Sunny = no clouds.  No clouds = nothing to hold the heat in.  Confusing.
   
   
3. Go to the Turku Library
   As I mentioned it was super super cold yesterday, so we popped into the Library for sightseeing and warmth.  It's a really interesting building because they kept a very old historical building, and added on a super new modern section...but it's all seamless and somehow works despite the very different styles.  I was most excited about the microfiche machine.
   
   
4. Visit the Turku Cathedral
   The Cathedral is one of the two biggest attractions in town, and as we were walking there I confessed my greatest fear about winters in Finland: slipping on the ice and falling and hurting myself.  About 30 seconds later when the cathedral came into view, I said "wow", grabbed my camera, and started trying to find the ideal vantage point for my photo...and stepped into a little snow hole and fell.  Oh, well.  At least it wasn't ice.
   
   
   
   
5. Go to the Turku Museum of Modern Art and Archeology (?) and Get Tipsy on Hot Chocolate
   At that point we had been walking around for a while and were pretty cold, so we decided to duck into a little cafe at an art museum for some hot chocolate.  This was a contemporary art museum, built on top of some old ruins.  Part of the ruins stick up/out into the museum, and the rest is underground and they have panes of glass in the floor so you can see the hallways of the medieval building underneath you.
   
   We asked the barista to give our hot chocolates a little extra oomph and to add some Minttu (peppermint liqueur).  He obliged, but I think instead of just adding a shot, he did equal parts liquor and hot chocolate.  I bought a postcard of some little Finnish boys playing cowboy (foreshadowing...) in the gift shop and we left very warm and very tipsy.
   
              
   
   
6. Tour the Turku Castle
   I mentioned there were two main attractions in Turku, the cathedral was one and this castle is the other.  It's a medieval castle, with several rooms of exhibitions of Finnish cultural stuff.  They didn't have an English tour, so they just gave us a little booklet in English that explained everything.  I read it out loud to Tanja, and became our very ineffectual defacto tour guide.  My favorite part was the scale model of the castle...which included a toy car parked out in front of it!?  (See middle photo below.)
   
   
   
   
7. Visit "The Restroom"
   Since we had seen all the main sites, we decided it was time for a beer.  As it turns out, Turku also has a bar called "The Restroom," just like Helsinki!  This one held a little truer to the theme on the inside, as the walls were adorned with lots of books about bathrooms and with plants growing out of chamber pots. 
   
   
   
   
8. Take a Sauna
   Tanja's hotel had a sauna, so we decided after such a long, cold day of walking around outside, we'd take a quick sauna before we met up with her husband and friends for dinner.  Just like last time, there was a little boy in there and it's hard not to feel weird about gettin' all nekkid in front of a child...but again, I just had to shut off all my normal prudishness.  It seriously does feel awesome to be so sweatily hot when you've been so numbingly cold.
   
   There was a small balcony off the sauna room overlooking the city center square, and we finally got warm enough that we were ready to stand outside for a moment.  I've been warned/threatened about how people often follow a sauna with a dip in an icy lake or by rolling around in snow...so when I wasn't looking Tanja dumped handfuls of snow on my shoulders!!!!!  ACK!
   
   P.S. These photos have nothing to do with our actual post-Restroom sauna, these photos were from the exhibition at the castle, but whatever...
   
   
   
   
9. Have Drinks at the Pharmacy
   I'm sensing a theme here.  Turku has a bar called "The Restroom." They also have a bar (shown below) called "The Pharmacy." And another called "The School," and another called "The Bank." I will forever be suspicious of anyone claiming to go on errands, because I now assume everything is the name of a bar!  "Oh, I have to stop by 'The Post Office' on my way home."  Whatever, drunkie.
   
   
   
   
10. Have Dinner on the Cindy Boat
    There is a river called the Aura that runs through the middle of Turku, and in warm, summery times it is lined with boats that are docked along the sides that are bars and restaurants.  Obviously in the winter, most of these are closed.  Also in winter, the river is frozen over (see below, all that to the right of the boats where those tracks are is where the river is supposed to be.)  This photo was taken earlier in the day, but we went to one of the few boat restaurants that was open for dinner.  Fortunately it was very toasty inside.  Unfortunately, the heating system did not extend to the bathroom area.  I ate a snail.
    




11. Go to the Castle to Hang Out With Cowboys
    All day, Tanja kept mentioning a friend of hers who was excited to meet me because I am a Texan.  Apparently he had visited Texas a while back, and underwent a total transformation while there and returned with a belt buckle, Stetson hat, and thick Texas accent.  I was equally excited to meet him. 
    
    His accent was hilarious and great.  Sadly, I was not able to capture him talking on video.  It would be worth going back just to do a quick documentary on him.
    
    
    
    
12. Ride the Train Back to Helsinki
    Unfortunately I wasn't able to hang out very late, because the last train left at 9.  So I said goodbye to my friends, and hopped on the train.  (I love how you can show up 10 minutes before the train leaves, buy your ticket and still make it with plenty of time to spare.)  I fell asleep against the window, thinking it would be like the trip over and I'd sleep lightly and wake up at every station.  No.  I fell asleep HARD.  I woke up inside the empty train car sitting at the station in Helsinki.  I have no idea how long I was there, or why no one woke me up!!

All in all, lovely day in Turku...goodbye castle!  Goodbye 260 proof hot chocolate!  Goodbye inexplicable Finnish cowboy!

I went back to Texas for the Christmas break, and it was wonderful.  Except for the part where it was 70 degrees on the day before I arrived, and as my plane was circling Arkansas deciding when to land...it was 30 and snowing in Dallas/Fort Worth!  What?  Why!?  Well, I never!

It all melted on Christmas day, and then I spent the next week going around on all my little social calls to various friends.  Shashana had me over for hot cocoa.  Cousin Allison snuck me into Aunt Sandie and Uncle Bob's for dinner.  Morley sacrificed his house so Jackie, Jeremy, and I could have people over like Rhonda and Micah and Rachel, and we stayed up late sitting around the kitchen table eating Little Debbie Snack Cakes and giggling.  The next day we had breakfast at the ol' T&A truck stop.  Staci and I watched the Hangover on PPV and ate popcorn balls.  Holly, Cari, and I downed several bottles of wine.  Val met me for breakfast at a divey diner in FW that I am SO MAD I didn't know about when I lived there.  Then...onto Granbury for some quality time with Jackie and Jeremy who were in town from Seattle.  I specifically wanted to be with them on New Year's Eve, because I've spent the last few New Year's Eveses with them.

So there we were, watching Travis Pastrana jump the rally car over the Bellagio or whatever.  Then the ball dropped.  Everybody on TV was kissing.  Jackie and Jeremy started kissing.  Jeremy's sister and her husband were kissing.  Jeremy's parents were totally making out.  And there I was, the seventh wheel and there was no one for me to kiss but the dog.  So I did. 

The end.

1. Visiting the spot where the cholera outbreak of the mid 1800s started...and not only finding the exact spot where the cholera-spouting pump was, but finding a whole pub there dedicated to cholera!
   
   
2. Making a Q-Tipped-Headed Guard at the Tower of London giggle.
   
   
3. Making shrinky dinks and sitting on the floor of Leslie's kitchen, gathered around the oven ooo-ing and ahh-ing.  There were moments where we were spazzing out all excited like Arsenio Hall audience members.  It kept looking like they were going to roll up and be ruined...but wait!  It flattened back out, yay!  So triumphant!
   
   
4. Playing drinking games at Leslie's local pub:
   
   
• Quick-thinking name game, where I say "Regis Philbin" and so you say something like "Pliny the Elder" and then the next person says "Eddie Guerrero".  Then, much like UNO, if someone does a name with the same letter for first and last name...reversal!  If you can't think of something, drink up.
  
  
• "The Minister's Cat". This is basically an alphabet game where you all clap out a rhythm, and go around the table inserting an adjective with that round's letter to describe the Minister's cat.  "The Minister's cat is an awful cat."  "The Minister's cat is an aerobics cat."  Etc... If you can't think of an adjective, drink up, and proceed to the next letter of the alphabet.  Andy was awesomely hilarious at this one, he was getting all in a twist: "THERE ARE NO MORE K ADJECTIVES!!!!" 
  
5. Getting a million British Invasion songs stuck in my head, particularly:
   
   
• "Going Underground" by The Jam, stuck each time I passed a London Underground sign which was every 12 seconds.
  
  
• "Waterloo Sunset" by The Kinks, stuck when I passed Waterloo Station and wondered if Terry and Julie would be meeting there on Friday.
  
  
• "Pictures of Jimmy" by The Who, which was me absent-mindedly getting confused between "Pictures of Lily" and "Dr. Jimmy and Mr. Jim."
  
  
6. Learning that Leslie (if given the proper sunglasses) can do a ridiculously amazing Yoko Ono impersonation.  "The sun is down.  It's getting...so dark."
   
   
7. At customs, the customs agent yawned in my face, and I smarted off to him saying that he wasn't allowed to yawn when I was so tired.  He said, "Oh, it's just that I read your occupation is a web analyst, and I couldn't help but yawn."
   
   
8. Unexpectedly happening upon a big Christmas caroling session at Trafalgar Square.  And unexpectedly not being able to sing along.  Did you know that there is a whole other violently different melody to "Away in a Manger"?  And if you try to sing the American version along with the English version, it does NOT magically harmonize?  And then you just end up looking tone deaf?
   
   
9. Discovering that the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum are not those kinds of marbles, but the crumbled remains of the Parthenon.
   
   
10. Pumpkin pie.  Not, not THAT kind of pumpkin pie.  When I say "pie," think Shepard's pie kind of pie.  We went to a traditional English comfort food place, and I was so confused when pumpkin pie was listed with the entrees and not the desserts.  It was explained that it was more of a casserole, filled with big chunks of cooked pumpkin all gooey with cheese and topped with a pastry cover.  Amazing.
    

I had a lovely time in London, and I am looking forward to going back a few more times in the next year.  Stonehenge, get ready!  Wimbledon, look out!

Here is a long list of things that I learned during my time in Beijing:

1. It is quite possible to have all sorts of meals that do not contain: turtle heads, mice, chicken feet, monkey brains, or eels.  I did eat: duck, beef tendon, fresh water shrimp, and lots of dried banana chips dipped liberally in Nutella.
   
   
2. They are not joking around about the swine flu.  They use infrared to take your temperature as you go through customs at the airport.
   
   
3. Communism = I couldn't access Facebook.
   
   
4. Beijing has a Chinatown!?
   
   
5. Street vendors are very aggressive.  And vocal.  And they grab at you.
   
   
6. Oh my gosh, the drivers are insane.  The bicyclists are insane.  The pedestrians are insane.  Every time we got into a cab, it was like NASCAR x bumper cars x Death Race 2000 x Critical Mass.  I was certain I was going to die about 4,000 times, yet somehow, miraculously we never crashed into anything or were plowed over.  It's so bad apparently, that if you get into an accident, your insurance premiums don't go up because it is totally certain that you WILL get into an accident.
   
   
7. A lot of the people riding bicycles wear these leather knee coverings...sorta like leg warmers, but made of leather and hiked up so they go from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
   
   
8. Everybody smokes, and they smoke everywhere.  Even in the office, people were smoking out by the elevator and in the stairwells.  (Thankfully, no one was smoking at their desks.)
   
   
9.  The currency is the Chinese Yuan (CNY), but everyone there calls it RMB.
   
   
10. Most of the toilets were the typical Western kind, with a commode.  I only encountered one where it was the hole in the ground with the footholds, and I was specifically seeking it out.
    
    
11. The Forbidden City isn't really forbidden, you can pretty much walk right up to it. I didn't have much time for sightseeing, but I did get up at dawn one day and walked down to the Forbidden Palace and Tian'anmen Square to check it out:

More pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haleebot2000/sets/72157622568644189/

I tried to figure out how to go home to Texas for the week of Christmas, really I did.  But it was just excessively expensive, and I thought a nice quiet Christmas in Seattle actually sounded really nice.  (Note: my family's big holiday gathering is at Thanksgiving, and we do presents and everything at the end of November so we don't have to fuck with it in December. It hasn't been required to go home for Christmas Proper in about 10-15 years.)

I planted the seed in my sister's mind that she should consider coming up to visit me, seeing as she has the whole week off, too.  She is smarter than me, and was able to find a decently priced plane ticket.  And I suggested that maybe, just maybe...she and I could spend a couple of days in Vancouver while she was here.  Vancouver holds a special place in both our hearts.  For no apparent reason.  Once we played one of our dumb list-making games during a long trip in the car.  One particular round's list was our top 3 vacation spots, and we both chose...Vancouver?

Staci and I have been on vacation to Canada together once before.  It was 2002, aka Wrestlemania XXIII.  We bought a WWF Travel Club package to go see Wrestlemania at the SkyDome in Toronto, and spent 3 days immersed in total WWF-itude.  It seemed appropriate to try to incorporate something wrestling-related into this trip to Vancouver, too, so that Staci could have the privilege and honor of saying that she attended wrestling matches every single time she ever set foot in Canada.  I set to work finding a regional wrestling alliance in the Vancouver area.

And lo and behold, I found Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling!  And fortuitously, there are wrestling matches on December 26 when Staci will be here!  Tickets were only about $12, but of course I sprang for the $15 "FRONT ROW" seats.  No crappy Canadian wrestling match seats are too good for my sister!

Epilogue:

When I was buying the tickets, there was a typo in the PayPal checkout and "Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling" was transformed into "Extremely Canadian Championship Wrestling."  I think I prefer that name.

We didn't really have concrete plans for my second night in LA, so we did what seemed most logical: to head down to the neighborhood of THE Church of Scientology International Celebrity Centre and snoop around.

1. We walked up to the center, fully knowing every move we made would be videotaped, and every word we uttered would be recorded. I took that opportunity to loudly reiterate my confusion between "dianetics" and "diuretics."
   
   
   
   
2. As we walked around to a dimly lit side street alongside the complex, a bicycle cop / security guard / Scientology Overlord stopped in his tracks, turned around, and started slowly trailing us.  I still managed to snap off this shot of both the parking dungeon and the castle where they keep the snails or Xenu's ashes or whatever.
   
   
   
   
3. There was a set of apartments directly next to (maybe even physically connected to) the compound.  We wondered if that was just an unfortunate location for some tenants...or if this was some sort of safehouse for wayward thetans.  Then we came across the most exciting find of the evening.  What appeared to be an actual E-meter machine sitting on a cart just inside the apartment gate!!
   
   
   
   
4. Then suddenly, a real, live Scientologist shuffled past us!  I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly, but I think he had on a tuxedo.  (For some reason, in my mind all Scientologists always wear tuxedos.)  He hurried by, and did not offer to audit us although he was clearly making a beeline for that E-meter.
   
   
   

The next day we watched this documentary on a disillusioned (and highly vocal) ex-Scientologist, but...it put us to sleep.  No one could stay awake through this thing.  I looked over at Kris when we both woke up and realized we had both nodded off and she said, "Shit.  I think I'm a Scientologist now."

Remember this dumb idea?  Where my friend Kris and I were going to attempt the impossible and get me from LAX to the theatre downtown in about an hour, with the goal of making it in time to see the beginning of the "9 to 5" musical at 8pm?  Well....welcome to the exciting conclusion!

I flew on my first Virgin America flight ever, and I must say I'm pretty impressed with the airline.  The seats were roomy and comfortable, the aesthetic was really space-agey and clean-looking, the in-flight entertainment system (particularly the game Anagramarama) was truly entertaining, and the cherry on top was the fact that I was surrounded by about 25 twenty-something boys from Italy. But I was not impressed with their airspeed.  We were supposed to touch down at 6:20, and when Kris called me at 6:25 asking if I was on the shuttle yet, I had to sadly report that I was still on the tarmac.  My confidence level on a scale from 1 to 10 slipped to about a 6.5 that we would make it to 9 to 5 on time.

I finally got off the plane and speedwalked to the shuttle stop, hoping I would just catch the one going by since they start at Terminal 1 every half hour on the hour.  I figured since I was outside at about 6:35, there was no way they could make it from Terminal 1 to Terminal 6 in five minutes, and I'd be gold.  I was not gold.  I must have just missed the last one, because I ended up waiting/pacing there for 25 minutes.  Confidence level dropped to 5.0.

Once on the shuttle and on the freeway, I saw nothing but a sea of brake lights, and my confidence temporarily dropped to a 3.0, until I realized we were allowed in the HOV lane and were blowing past everyone and it returned to a 5.0.  I was on the phone with Kris, giving her a play-by-play of which exits I was passing so she could coordinate train timing.

I pulled up to Union Station at 7:50 or so, watching Kris sprint past the bus to the ticket counter to buy my tickets.  Once I was allowed to disembark, she and I took off running to the underground subway tunnels.  We breathlessly arrived on the platform, only to see that the next train didn't arrive until 7:57.   Confidence level 2.0.

But at 7:54, our train was inexplicably early!  We got on it and stood at the doorway as if we were in sprinter's blocks, ready to explode out of the train at our next stop and haul ass to the theatre.  It stopped.  We ran.

We didn't exactly know which way the theatre was, so we took a few gambles and ran up several flights of stairs.  After running so far with my heavy bag and Kris in heels, we started to slow down.  Confidence level and lung capacity sank to a 1.0, when we finally made it to the doors of the theatre, only to find it was a whole theatre COMPLEX and we were at the wrong one!  We still had about a block to go...fuck!  I was just ready to lay down and die and forget the whole caper.

We limped and stumbled to the right theatre, and surprisingly the front doors were still open and attended by ushers.  No music.  7.5.  We realized we had to walk up three flights of stairs to get to the balcony.  7.0.  We made it to the top and were greeted by a smiling usher who uttered these magic words...

"You just made it."

We were all wheezing and sweaty, and sank breathlessly into our seats at 8:10.  Literally one minute later, the lights dimmed and the curtains opened...

Tomorrow I run away to Texas.  We have a client meeting in Austin on Tuesday.  The rest of my workie friends are heading down on Monday night.  I am leaving tomorrow.  You're probably thinking that's a bit early to arrive 5 days early for a meeting.  (15 minutes early?  Yes.  5 days early?  Slightly excessive.)  Well, Seattle "summer" has been disappointing weather-wise, so I decided to take advantage of a free trip home and the holiday weekend to go bake in the heat for a few extra days.

My sister understands how badly I miss the heat.  She delivered this weather report to me today:

Weather Forecast from NBC5 meteorologist Jennifer Lopez...

Thursday 98 - sunny

Friday 98 - sunny

Saturday 96 - isolated storms (which means nothing)

Sunday 98 - stray storms  (which is less than isolated, so again, probably nothing.)

Apparently JLo can't predict out to Monday, but there seems to be a trend of 98 degrees.  Can we get any more boy band and pop diva in our weather this week!!!  WHOOO!!!

Last entry about Portland, I swear.  Yesterday (Saturday) the weather was totally perfect...the sun was out, it was about 80 degrees...it's the kind of weather I've been waiting for for the past 8 months.  I purposefully spent most of my day walking around outside, soaking up some much-needed sun. 

• I walked up and down 21st and 23rd streets, which are part of a funky little neighborhood full of independent retail shops and weird bars and cafes.  The Goodwill Store had a very high percentage of Jim Nabor albums in their vinyl section.
  
  
• Powell's Bookstore - my god.  Someone said it was the biggest bookstore ever, and shit, they were not kidding.  It reminded me a bit of Recycled Books in Denton...rooms leading to other rooms which lead to nooks which lead to secret hallways, which lead to a whole other set of rooms!  Every section was color-coded, an organizational detail which I of course appreciated.
  
  
• On that note, I should also mention that 21st and 23rd are part of the Alphabet District, where all the east/west street names are in alphabetical order: Burnside, Couch, Davis, Everett, Flanders, Glisan, Hoyt, Irving, Johnson, Kearney, Lovejoy, Marshall, Northrup, Overton, Pettygrove, Quimby.  I love the organizational aspects of that, too...but if I were a city planner I totally would have mandated that all the establishments on those streets had to start with that letter, too. 
  
  
• We went down by the riverside and watched elderly hippies juggle sticks, then went for a sky tram ride to the hospital.  (Why the destination of the sky tram is the hospital, I'll never understand.  That doesn't give me a tremendous amount of confidence in the safety of the sky tram.)
  
  
• And probably the best part of my day other than the $1.75 PBR tallboys and pinball I enjoyed at the bar later that night, was the Velveteria Velvet Painting museum.  I highly, highly recommend this to anyone ever visiting Portland.  The two people who run it (who I had read about on the website) were there, and could not have been nicer or more interesting.  The place was pretty dead, so they walked me around and told me all sorts of neat stories about all the paintings.  Of course it wouldn't have been right for me to take photos, but goodness me...they had some ridiculously amazing stuff.  The best I can do is share my list with you, and let your black velvet imagination run wild:
  
  
• Dog the Bounty Hunter
• Mr. T with actual gold beads glued to the painting for his necklaces
• Macho Man Randy Savage
• A slightly monoloid-looking Hulk Hogan
• Dolemite
• Jack Lord
  
• A overly manly ballerina who looked like a love child of Gorgeous George and Ric Flair
• The Heaven's Gate Cult leader
• A whole section of black light paintings, mostly focused on sad and/or gambling clowns
• A whole section of nudie paintings, mostly focused on Filipino boobie girls
• A whole section of Elvis paintings, mostly with him crying
  
• A whole section of bandido paintings
• And most importantly, a whole section of unicorn paintings called "Unicornucopia" which included:
• Glam rock unicorns
• Satanic unicorns
• A genie lamp with a vaporous unicorn coming out of it
  
  and the pièce de résistance...
  
  
• A unicorn with an extra long mane, which ebbs and flows into a giant wave, which then becomes the long hair of a beautiful woman.  Carl and Caren lovingly refer to this one as "Unicorn Combover" and I am happy to be able to show you a half-assed picture of it:
  
  
  

Also, I should stick in a plug for them as I'm sure my massive readership will really add a spike to their sales...but they've written a book on black velvet paintings that will be coming out soon.  Note to whoever: I would love to have this for my birthday.

And thus concludes my visit to Portland.  I will definitely be going back, as I did not get to go to Big Al's bowling alley or to try the macaroni and cheese at Savoy.  And next time, I'm going to take the long way home up the coastal 101 for some scenic beach driving with the sunroof open.  Summer, please hurry up.

Something everyone should think about is...if you are going to be executed, what would you choose as your last meal?  I would choose macaroni and cheese as my entree, and S'mores Pop Tarts as my dessert.  Macaroni and cheese has been my favorite food since I was old enough to chew.  And many people have told me that Portland has the greatest macaroni and cheeses in the whole world, particularly the versions from these three restaurants:

1. Gravy
2. Montage
3. Savoy
   

I was anxious to investigate these claims during my trip to Portland, and was dedicated to eating as much macaroni and cheese as possible.  Unfortunately, after eating nothing but macaroni and cheese on Friday...I totally overloaded and was not able to eat it again the rest of the weekend.  So I can only present my reviews for #1 and #2:

Gravy

• Portion Size: a very very deep, very hot bowl that I would approximate contained over 2 cups worth of noodles.  (I could only put a dent about 20% of the way in before I began to feel the onset of a coma.)
  
• Pasta: big textured, curved macaroni noodles, as you can see in the picture one noodle was about the size of my thumb.
  
• Cheese: some sort of hybrid...the orangey color and mild sharpness suggests there was cheddar involved, but the texture was too creamy to be only cheddar.  But not too creamy to be runny.
  
• Topping: slightly sweetened breadcrumbs held together with melted cheddar to create a protective covering that was very effective at holding in the heat of the dish.
• Optional Side: the most deliciously savory tomato soup that has ever passed mine lips; it was so, so creamy and chickeny and had the perfect ultra-pureed consistency, no nasty tomato chunks to navigate around, or weird onions to dodge.  I could have eaten it with a straw.
  
• Price: $7.75

Montage

• Portion Size: a bowl that I would approximate contained roughly 1 cup of noodles.  I was able to polish off the entire dish.
  
• Pasta: medium-sized curved textured macaroni noodles, closer to the size of my pinky or ring finger.
  
• Cheese: a smooth white, creamy cheese...perhaps maybe a hint of alfredo sauce thrown in?
• Topping: a mound of shredded parmesan or romano cheese, sprinkled with a bit of paprika for color.  The saltiness of the parmesan/romano nicely offset the dairiness of the cheese.
  
• Optional Side: n/a
• Price: $6.50

I told my boss that I would come up with some weighted formula to mathematically calculate the winning macaroni and cheese variant, but sometimes math can't explain everything.  I can state it best like this:

The macaroni and cheese at Montage was so good it made me happy to be alive...but the macaroni and cheese at Gravy was so good it made me wish I was dead.

WINNER: Gravy.