Differing ways of living in the world

The good thing about traveling abroad is the difference in food and drinks that can be experienced.  I was excited to try some new foods, and drinks, but by the end of the trip I was ready for a homemade meal and some soda on ice.  Eating out at a pub was a fun experience, but it gets old if you have to do it every day for two weeks.  Of course you didn’t have to eat at a pub every day, but it was so hard to try and find something to eat besides a pub.  Pubs are on every corner, another place to eat was hard to find, unless you were traveled with Dr. Nobiling and we learned that very quickly!  Unless we had the luxury of dinning with Dr. Nobiling, we spent most of our time looking for a place to eat.  We found some good places, and we also found some not so good places.  Our guide Maria told us that they do not eat the traditional food every day or they would all be very heavy.  I think that it is hard to eat out for two weeks straight and not go crazy, but I have noticed that a lot of the pubs have gone to a standard menu and it doesn’t even seem like it’s homemade.  I had come to enjoy the Aspal Cider with a shot of black current in it.  It was my favorite drink while I was there, and the Yorkshire pudding was good also.  I was happy to come home to a home cooked meal.

I found it very interesting that a pub would serve drinks all day, but wouldn't serve food until noon or 1pm.  I don't know how many times we walked in wanting lunch and they weren't serving food until noon, but we could drink!  The people that we would see on their lunch break having a pint was not normal to us.  Here in America it is frowned upon to have a beer on your lunch break, and over there they encourage it.  These are little differences that I had noticed.