How do you tell a resident of a city you’re visiting, “My, what an ugly city you have. Have you considered moving?” I felt like I was propagating a huge self-deception in San Antonio by not saying that. We probably told a dozen people there how “nice” or “beautiful” we thought their city was, to which they always replied with just the prescribed tone, “Yes, we really love it here.” I just hope they were lying too.

San Antonio is dreadful, somehow combining the alienation of a big city (7th largest, we were proudly told), with none of its excitement. The city is grey, desolate, car-centered, and for-sale. The area around– from what little we saw– is brown, flat, and straggly, without embracing the honest barrenness of a desert. The few exceptions are teeming with tourists and Mexican-reproduction kitsch. San Antonio has one redeeming quality– its whole-buttocked mix of Texan and Mexican culture– but we found only one intermittent stretch (near King Williams) that let that shine.

I’m sure that its residents have found the gems hidden from my 2-day-old travel eyes. But I do believe seen better and worse cities, and enough to tell the difference between the two.

Flame’s “Food Representations in lots-of-disciplines” conference was great, and very quickly found the hip under-30 crowd by sitting on the floor at the reception. Mexico City was great. San Jose was mixed. Santa Elena was beautiful, with strangling fig trees. Next stop: Costa Rican beaches.