Food

Today boys and girls, let's talk about food in New Zealand.

Or, more specifically, the food that I've been eating.

My primary source of sustenance over here is the food supplied by the dining hall. Maybe it's easiest to describe my feelings about the dining hall in prose form. . .

My watch says 5:00, and my stomach growls, 'tis time for dinner. I perk up, realizing that the hunger that's assaulted me throughout the day (for my assemblage of granola bars and Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches scarcely ever calm the savage beast within me) will finally have something with which to contest. My good mood continues throughout the seven minute walk down the stairs, across the campus to the dining hall. It continues, but a small, gnawing doubt grows within me. Won't it be the same as yesterday, some bland entrée with a healthy helping of chips? I never before thought that I could ever get tired of fries, but now I know better. "Maybe tonight there'll be a big, juicy steak waiting for me. Or perhaps some real pizza." Hope, alas, is fleeting. I stand in the line outside of the doors of the dining hall, I know I could go inside, wait in an equally long line for Chinese food. . . but, No. Today will be the day that there's some really good food waiting for me at the end of the line. Yet, I note with growing horror as I give my ID card to the orderly, it truly is the end of the line. My options glare at me from behind the glass as yet another orderly asks what I would like to eat; should I like the Shepherd's Pie? No, after the first 10 helpings of it, the taste effectively disappears. A hamburger? No, while they may have learned how to make a hamburger, they have yet to discover the secret of keeping one above room temperature. Vegetarian friatta? Oh, yeah, that's just what I want. Bah. Fine. Shepherd;s pie it is then. She glops a single scoop of the pie onto a plate, asks me if I would like chips or quartered potatoes, gives me chips, and unceremoniously hands me the plate. I find the table with my friends, set down my tray and go to fill up my water bottle (a water bottle because the thimbles that they give us to drink from hardly suffice). Should I go for the orange-mango vitawater, or the more conventional water-water? Trust me, the Orange-mango concoction, while the taste is not always disagreeable, nonetheless tastes little of orange and even less of mango. Meh, I fill up my water bottle with vitawater and return to the table only to remember that I forgot to grab a dessert. Over the weeks, I've discovered that there's approximately a 50% chance of grabbing "the right" dessert. As usual, I choose wrong, and end up with something the texture of cake, only without the flavor or moisture typical of the cake persuasion. After enjoying the company of my compatriots for a small sum of time, I get up, walk over to the area designated for dirty dishes, clean my dishes, place them in a stack of other dirty ones, and continue on with my day, none the richer for the experience.

Okay, so the dining hall food really isn't that bad. It just felt good to vent. Really though, while the food does, occasionally, have a good taste, there's always. . . something. . . lacking from the food. Not once have I returned from my daily meal feeling full and content. But, whatever, it's kept me alive thusfar, which, inductively, means that it will keep me alive for k+1 more days. (sorry everybody, math joke.) Otherwise, I subsist mainly off of noodles, granola bars, and PB&J sandwiches. Oh, and I would KILL for some decent mexican food. These people have real problems with spice, so when I get back into town literally anything that George throws at me is going to burn like hell.

I leave you with one of the funny signs that I've seen in this country. They have this delightful habit of doing things or writing things that when pronounced wrong become really, really funny. Just think about this one for a minute: