The nicest thing about being an American on travel is that you can find a McDonald's just about anywhere. In super-Sunni Riyadh, where non-Muslims are shunned, you can buy a Big Mac. In New Delhi, where the Hindus don't eat beef and the Muslims don't eat pork, you can eat Chicken McNuggets until you burst. In Berlin you can get a beer with your Quarter Pounder, and in Mexico City they give you packets of salsa for your fries.
The rest of the world hates this American export. At least, the snobbish, intellectual people of the world do. The rest of the rest of the world chows down on burgers and fries as much as we do. So for those outside America, I guess McDonald's is a blessing and a curse. For Americans, it's a gift from god.
See, when a person-any person, any nationality-travels to a foreign country, he has to speak another language, eat a different cuisine, drive a different way. Sometimes he has to dress a different way or walk or talk at a different speed. After a week or so of this adjustment, culture shock sets in. He longs for his own country. He wants to speak his own language, to watch his hometown sports team, to gossip about neighbors next door. And he especially wants to eat his national cuisine. Because eating in a foreign country means strange textures and unusual tastes. Sometimes it also means projectile vomiting and violent diarrhea. Hometown food is comfort food, especially when you have a live oyster squirming down your throat, or when you learn that your hard-boiled egg holds a half-formed fetus.
McDonald's has given Americans a great advantage in this area. I feel for the poor Japanese man who tries to find sushi in Morrocco. I pity the German who orders a plate of wurst in Taiwan. I feel sorry for the Mexican in Egypt who doesn't know the Arabic word for tortilla. And I laugh at them all as I bite in to a hot, fresh Quarter Pounder with Cheese, wherever I happen to be.
After 8 long days, hiking through ruins, studying mosaics, climbing mountains, sleeping in leaky tents next to pissed off goats, after beheading, butchering, and eating said goats, I have finally arrived in Aqabba, Jordan's port on the Red Sea. I would like to thank the McDonald's corporation for building one of their fine restaurants here. For if they hadn't, I might never have had a decent burger and fries. I might have reached my breaking point, and I might have run off into the desert and never been seen again. Totally John the Baptist style, living on locusts and wild honey.
Wow....what a testimony to the mighty Golden Arches! You should reprint this as a letter and send it to McD's. Do it. Now.
Posted by: Hashim | February 15, 2005 at 08:58 PM
Agree.
That actually surpassed the 1 Billion blah blah's we all love to read.
I don't even like Micky D's with the exception of the Fish burger and I'm sold.
Major shareholder?
Posted by: Rose | May 25, 2005 at 11:44 AM
hahaha fucking hilarious. no wonder its a gift from God for americans, you'd have no other way to eat yourselves to obesity. fucktard.
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