Dear Reader,
One of the more striking experiences of Spain so far was something that I expected to be bland. I was in Barcelona waiting around for an activity to start, when some friends proposed food. Their idea was that we would go eat at Burger King.
Being a glutton for new things, I had daydreamed of some tiny, tastefully arranged cafe with a kindly old woman who made sandwiches and other assorted tasties. Cutting into that daydream was the American conception of Burger King. Piercing bright lines, cold AC, extremely dissatisfied employees, fries that seem impervious to aging, meat of unidentified and unrecognizable origins, reasonable prices – essentially the whole fast food shtick in a bundle - nothing new.
I like to consider myself reasonable though, so I went along with the plan.
The interior was a surprise. Some things were normal, it had the same glaring lights and tiled ceiling that can be expected of your typical fast food joint. Everything else was more or less different. The interior decorating was polished dark wood. The building was multiple stories, with a balcony overlooking the main eating area. The menu had similar items, but at much, much higher prices. Some of the burgers were around nine Euros, and a meal for one could pretty easily run twelve to fifteen. (The exchange rate is around 1.35 dollars to the Euro right now.) Most differently, there were customers.
Now in a Seattle Burger King, you could reasonably expect to see clients. On a good day there might be fifteen or twenty. People come, get their food quickly, and then leave that forsaken place with due reverence to the delicious yet oh-so-bad-for-you pile of something digesting in their bellies. At the Burger king in Barcelona there were seventy or more people just hanging out. What?
I'll chalk it up to conversations being longer.
Signing out,
Tim
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