Twilight Zone.....

Since we're completely out of food in the flat and the grocery store randomly closed at 4:20 yesterday as we were walking up, Bobby and I decided to go out for some Italian last night at a restaurant down the street.  As we were sitting there trying not to gawk at the brits around us loudly popping Christmas Crackers and wearing the silly little crowns that come out of them, we noticed something heretofore unseen by us, everyone working in the restaurant was actually Italian.  The host was italian, all of the waiters were italian, the cooks were italian, the sparkling water I ordered was italian, everything.   We joked that in the states the best you would get was an owner with a vaguely Italian last name (as my italian professor used to say, just add a vowel to the end of your name and you're italian!) but all of the cooks would probably speak spanish.  

This was made more funny by the fact that a few friends of ours here recently informed us that there's a UK version of Chipotle.  For those of you (mom) who don't know what Chipotle is, its basically a kind of mexican Subway-like restaurant that makes burritos instead of sandwiches.  It's known for its 5,000 calorie meals and the fact that you can't move for days after eating one.  And, for those of you who really know Bobby, you know that if he had to choose between me and Chipotle, it would probably be a pretty hard decision for him.  He loves it.  So, needless to say, we were excited when we learned of a Chipotle-like restaurant in London.  When we asked our friends if it was the same as in the states they replied "Yeah, except that there are no Mexicans working there."

Whenever i'm living in a foreign country, I always get little bursts of clarity where it's like I suddenly realize that i'm not in America.  You don't walk around all the time thinking "i'm in a foreign place, i'm in a foreign place," most of the time you just don't really think about it until you see something that's so different that it reminds you of this fact.  I guess the lack of Mexicans in restaurants is a weird thing to jolt me into actually realizing that we're living in London, but thats what did it for me yesterday.  So, for the next 18 months (atleast), we'll be enjoying incredibly authentic and delicious Italian, Indian, Thai, French (the list is never ending) food, but I think we'll get a little sad and homesick when we're craving Mexican food and realize that there are only 2 Mexican restaurants in this city, and neither of them are authentic.