28/365: Suburban Excess

Today we celebrated our nephew's and my father-in-law's birthday at the Incredible Sinking Mall. I know this makes me sound like the most insipid urban snob, but this mall represents everything wrong with suburbia. For starters, arriving at 3:30pm, we literally could not find a parking spot and eventually had to valet park the car (!!) in order to get to the ice rink on time. The skating itself was perfectly civilized, but afterwards, we tried to eat dinner at Chili's, and were told, upon arrival at 5:45pm, that we'd have to wait 30-45 minutes. Eventually we ended up at a Spanish-themed restaurant (purportedly based on some restaurant in Barcelona, right) that served mediocre tapas (including the ever-so-Spanish wasabi soy tuna sashimi) and, I kid you not, a tango performance between two tables. As if the tango were Spanish.

Maybe next year we can celebrate in the city.