Memory Card Special :The FÍS Travelogue : Day Three

I wish I could have slept in forever, but even at the weekend breakfast had a time limit. I went down at 10:30am and had a similar assortment of fried foods. I made a sandwich out of some bread and cuts of meat offered and smuggled it and some grapes back upstairs for later.

Wanting to take advantage of sharing a building with so many game developers, I sent out some missives hoping to arrange interviews with people before I left on Sunday morning. I was just too tired to work, so I went back to sleep until 4pm, at which time I ate the food I’d brought up and sent emails to everywhere under the sun. Not for this or any related piece but a story I’m working on called “Nintendo Doesn’t Need To Cut You A Deal”. No-one got back to me, so look forward to that in your inbox sometime before the 5th of June.

After a short, if tiring, day of work, I got dressed up and went down again for dinner. Emboldened by the room service messages, I asked for a razor at the reception as my chin was feeling bristly. The man on the desk was happy to provide one and at no extra charge!

This was to be my last night eating at THE Radisson Red, so I wanted to make the most of it, no matter the cost. I eyed the seabass, but upon looking up the Romesco sauce, I saw it would contain garlic. Fun fact about me : I can’t do garlic. I asked a server if they could check what wouldn’t have garlic in and among their suggestions was the pork schnitzel, so long as they didn’t include the salsa. 

After ordering, I went to the disabled bathroom to freshen up and use the razor. It had two sinks! I was feeling pretty dazzled by my hotel experience, tempered by how weird it felt to come back to a freshly made bed. I’m no lady of the manor. I was also taken with what I’m calling the nipple lamp. Each table had a lamp that you could increase and decrease the intensity of by twisting the nub sticking out of it.

The schnitzel was pleasant enough; like a fancy chicken nugget, but drier. I had the same dessert afterwards and asked a server if I could take some grapes back upstairs with me. I was getting pretty accustomed at this point.

A short while after coming back up, I had to go to the toilet. I won’t go into lurid details, but I had cause to suspect there was garlic in my meal after all, or something else I shouldn’t eat if not garlic. In any case, I went back to reception to ask for the meal’s recipe. The same man who had provided the razor earlier was there and called up his supervisor after I explained my issue. He referred to me as “he” several times on the phone, not missing a beat when I corrected him to apologise or correct himself on the phone. I don’t subscribe to binary views on gender or insist people fit a certain mould to be gendered correctly, but if I saw someone dressed like I was, I would not have reached for “he”.

I waited in the same seats I’d chatted with Maezza Romero in until the supervisor came to meet me. It was the same person I’d asked about grapes earlier, but she was much less helpful this time. She went to the kitchen and came back saying that it was “just pork and breadcrumbs”. The bulk of the meal might have been the schnitzel, but it was also served with garnished potatoes and vegetables. I tried to explain this and that all I wanted was to see the menu so that if it was indeed not garlic, then I could identify something else that would cause me trouble, but she simply repeated that it was “just pork and breadcrumbs”. I tried a few more times but we were at an impasse. This was all in the same polite tone of voice that everyone working at the hotel had spoken to me in and undermined my whole experience thus far.

I went back upstairs and used the rest of the toilet paper.

I went to bed angry that night, not feeling listened to or seen as a person, let alone as a woman, by the night staff. When speaking with some friends about it, they were all fully in my corner. One suggested that I should report the hotel for food hygiene concerns  since they didn’t seem to know what was going on in their kitchen beyond “pork and breadcrumbs”.  It was generally agreed on that I should give a bad review, but that is not the end of this story.

I'll see you tomorrow for the final part of my trip to Ireland. If you can't wait, consider signing up on Patreon to read the whole travelogue now and the rest of my writing one day early. Or if you'd rather not subscribe, send a one-time donation through Ko-Fi.