Travel thoughts

Travel has been one of my passions since getting my first passport at the age of 52. Since then I’ve had the good fortune to be able to visit 43 countries. Early on I started making photo albums of each trip. I’ve posted a bit about markets in Japan and Thailand. Looking through some of the albums this week I found eight that I had put together after a solo, six month, round the world trip nearly twenty years ago.

England was my first stop. I was introduced to pub food, steak and kidney pie and Ploughman’s lunches (crusty bread and butter, strong cheeses, pickled onions, and chutney) all accompanied by a “half” of bitter. Chips (french fries to us) and peas were served with most meals and coffee was served sitting down in a shop with a real china cup and saucer. A request for a coffee-to-go was met with puzzled looks.

Customs were different too. In a pub one ordered at the bar, payed and then food was brought to wherever one was sitting. In restaurants one just chose a table and sat, no waiting to be seated. The more upscale restaurants didn’t open until 7:00 or later and pubs stopped serving lunch at 2:30. I soon learned that if my full English breakfast wasn’t going to hold me until the pubs opened again at 5:30, I’d better be prepared to eat before 2:30.

Tipping was a matter of rounding up a few pence to the next pound. I learned to “mind the gap” when traveling on the London tube (subway), and look both ways multiple times before crossing the street, watching for cars driving on the left side of the street was disorienting.

The next stop was Brussels, my first visit to a non-English speaking country. There I discovered Belgian waffles sold from street-side kiosks, warm, crispy with a sugar coating, and eaten in the hand. The most striking thing about the food there was the way it was displayed in front of the restaurants. I had never seen anything like the street lined with restaurants, each with an elaborate array of foods artistically arranged in the windows or on carts in front of the building.