If you’ve ever traveled, whether it was across town or across the world, the one thing you wanted more than unlimited outgoing calls from your room was something familiar that reminded you of home. In my case I could think of nothing better or more familiar than passage of those golden arches through which kids come out happy and cows come out hamburger.
Sick of a full day’s worth of airplane snacks and the local flavor afforded to us (at tremendous cost) at the hotel restaurant, we headed out to find something remotely palatable and what we found was exactly that… remotely palatable.
But it’s the little things that make the travel so unique. Instead of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, they call it a Quarter Pounder con Queso. And, more importantly, although we call it a Big Mac, they call it a McBurger Supreme.
Oh “the Caribbean,” how perfectly odd thou art!
Left – I can’t imagine what an Auto-Mac is, but I’m just sure I’d love it, whatever it is… perhaps a device that feeds the fries of France (or Freedom, if you’re a holdout) into my mouth without hesitation, or a driving-lane by which the beef-tellers simply read my mind. In any case, I’m all about it.
It doesn’t much matter, since we don’t eat Big Mac’s home or abroad, but the oddness persevered to no end. They wouldn’t give us refills gratis, but rather required us to purchase whole, additional drinks, even though we asked (in English) that our meals be Super-Sized (to no avail).
I tell you, this foreign place is straight up wacky!
We did get to take a stroll so very “not-so-quick” the chaperones grew weary, wary and a bit wiry to boot of in the McPlayland. It’s so strange because they aren’t covered or closed off in glass rooms like they are back home. Instead they are open to the very air that breathes life into this place, the same air that never dips below about 75 degrees.
Still, warm weather and all, we’d have just as soon paid about 15% less for the same twice-recongealed chicken bits back home without the distraction of the swelter to shorten the parental attention leash of our fun-having.
When traveling with kids understand that your desire to do that which is different may not be shared by your junior-folk-in-tow, who just want an ounce of whatever is familiar… Not to say we didn’t have a great time, because we did, but still, it’s not like you can just jump continents and expect the same level of comfort from your bestest juniors. We like routines and familiarity even when we’re all up on that vacation business.
Above – Though Dominic may appear to be levitating, as if on some sort of cola and burger induced euphoria, he’s actually just sitting on the lip of the slide. Still, pretty awesome any which ways you may bother to slice it.
Above – It took us literally days to figure out that “Desayuno” means breakfast, but now that we’ve got it figgered out, our lives are sure to improve by McMiles a McPlenty, for McSure… oh and McDonalds was to Mcbusy to write back to us with press info, so they didn’t participate in these articles beyond permitting us by default to pay them to give us lukewarm food with suspiciously plasticine cheese… but whatever.
Trying to think–how might Shakespeare take a different tack on this topic in a sonnet–oh, say, like #116?
Let me not to the intake of charred flesh
Reject permutations. Meat is still meat
which sizzles when it sears in Tennessee
Or broils or is flamed in Anguilla.
O yes! It is that burnt and singéd air
Whose aura tempts us–does not matter where.
Enough. I have my wits attained
And will in future be restrained.
I know from living in Brazil for a couple years that I really missed an American hamburger and found myself on more than one occasion frequenting the nearest McD’s for a very expensive taste of home. The Big Mac is so expensive in Brazil that it actually costs a regular salaried Brazilian about 1/3 of their daily pay to purchase a Big Mac only, forget the fries and drink. Needless to say, there was never a waiting line at the counter or at the drive-thru.