You know the situations where you’re supposed to go through a door for example, and there’s this other person arriving at the same millisecond at the door, and then both of you hesitate about who should go first. Both of you then end up trying to be polite and convincing the other person to go first. (If you’re Dutch you’re already through the door by now, so just continue reading a bit further down, please.) This will then go on for some time until both of you give up on trying to be polite and you both go through the door – at the same time – with the awkward near collision occurring, which is what you tried to avoid in the first place.
Now, imagine the same behaviour, but with cars, and not with two involved, but four. That’s what you get constantly in New Mexico, and apparently also in the rest of this boot and truck loving country. For some reason, the Americans think it’s a brilliant idea of having four way intersections where all exits have a stop sign. How on this planet are you then going to be able to figure out who goes first? You go. No, you go. Nah, after you. No no, you go. Ladies/biggest/oldest/whatever first. Ok, I go. Ok, I go as well then. You get my point, couldn’t get more confusing than this in traffic.
Once you’ve survived the intersections on your way to the city, you’ll be struck by the next illogical set-up when you try to order beer for yourself and your course mates. (FYI, empirical research has shown that you need a passport to buy alcohol.) When you're about to pick up the three beers to go back to the pool table, the barmaid will kindly inform you that you can only carry two beers at the time. Eh? My first thought was that they might be a bit fuzzy about staining the carpet, but why would you then put a carpet in a bar? No, it’s by New Mexican law. You’re only allowed to carry two beers at the time. Thanks to this regulation, the barmaid shouldn’t be able to over serve you. Eh, again? How about restricting how many beers she can sell you instead? Anyways, all you need to do is to ask the barmaid to carry them for you, she’s allowed to carry as many as she wants, because she’s got special training for it.
As I wrote the other day, I definitely had a good couple of weeks in the world capital of hot air ballooning. Long days in the classroom and hours and hours of homework, but during the second course week we managed to get our heads around to do some food touring in the evenings to clear our minds. Albuquerque’s best Indian food, best sushi, best New Mexican food and best New Orleans Cajun cuisine are some of the experiences that we went through. All thanks to our fellow course mate and food expert from Oklahoma, who had a daily mission of finding the “best of” choice for the evening.
However, the Saturday dinner at Sandia Peak took the prize. It had it all – excellent food, good wine – with passport – and coffee, nice service and an amazingly romantic view of the city. The good company box was easily ticked off as well, and it’s not every year you get to have Valentine’s dinner with no less than five guys at the top of a mountain. And since they all had passed the main challenge of the previous few days of remembering to order flowers for their better halves at home, they could all relax and enjoy the evening comfortably aware of that the flowers were on their way.
The Sandia tramway, at the North East corner of Albuquerque, took us up to the peak and after watching the sunset and the city lightening up in freezing subzero winds, it was time for some high level food – both regarding altitude at 10,378 ft and quality. If the tram would have stopped working, we could easily have rolled down the hill, all the way to Uptown. 
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