This is the start of Week 3 in Hamburg and I just wanted to talk about food and beverage from my American perspective. I'm going to try my best to take more pictures of my food the last two weeks!
I have come to realize that I eat way too much fried/fast food back home in the U.S. and I shall be putting a stop to that... right after I have one last Chick-Fil-A sandwich and some waffle fries.- The only fast food restaurants I've recognized here are McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, and Subway. I had McDonald's once even though I don't like it back in the U.S (just the familiarity was comforting).
- I'm 50/50 for cheeseburgers in Hamburg; one was okay, but the other was absolutely delicious!
- My host mother is Turkish and owns 2 Turkish restaurants... so needless to say I have had to eat/try a lot of Turkish food.
- One of the best meals I've had in Germany so far came from the International School of Hamburg's cafeteria; no lie! All the food was homemade and delicious! (I cleared by entire plate by the time I realized I didn't take a picture, whoops!)
- If you go to a restaurant here, the water is NOT free, and the server will ask if you want it with gas or without; FYI, 'gas' means 'sparkling' and it's not good.
- Restaurants use very little ice or none whatsoever in beverages. I am dying for some ice cold water.
- They drink a lot of hot tea and I feel like I'm being rude if I say, "no, thank you" so someone pass me the honey.
- Surprisingly, one would think I was in Italy by how much pasta I've eaten in the past 2 weeks.
- The legal drinking age for beer or wine is 16, and the legal drinking age for all other liquor beverages is 18.
- There are so many stores that sell fresh bread and pastries, even at train stations.
- My host mother asked if I could cook some traditional Native American food. I started telling her some of the traditional things that we cook/eat and she looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. She has never heard of corn meal, mustard greens, or fat back.
- I tried asparagus for the first time and now I can honestly say I don't like it and actually mean it. My host mother still tries to make me eat it when she cooks it because asparagus is a big deal in Germany, especially this time of year.
- Traditional German food is really good and I'm glad I'm getting to try it, but I'll leave the fish for everyone else.
- Soda tastes better here because they use real sugar to sweeten them.