It had been a while since Ben and I last visited the States. Little did I realize that the flight over was preparing us to eat in American restaurants. Of course you only get that kind of preparation when you fly cattle class, I mean economy class.
After we found our seats, we squeezed in and settled down for the long flight. We did the best we could to get comfortable arranging pillows, blankets and magazines. When the food arrived we stuffed our pillows away wherever we could. We pulled down the tray and hoped that the people in front of us would put their seats back up. Every millimeter counts. Eating consisted of both elbows glued to your side and head tucked down towards your meal as far as possible. I cut whatever it was they served me and hoped that it would all reach my mouth. Tomato sauce always has a knack of landing or splatting on my clothes. Ah, how silly of me. Of course it wouldn’t land on my clothes, I had a pillow on my lap.
But there is a reason for everything; we were in training.
Table manners
Some table manners are different in America than in Europe. Of course rudimentary things like burping, slurping and elbows on the table are frowned upon in both places. One bit of American etiquette I learned as a child was while eating to put the hand you are not using in your lap.
In Europe you don’t do that. There you eat with a fork in one hand and a knife in the other, which automatically makes you eat faster. But I’ve spoken about that before . The bright side of putting both arms on the table is you can guard your plate from thieves. It also defines your space. How much room one needs to eat comfortably.
Restaurants in the States
Every restaurant we went to was packed full. This one was no exception. Our table was on the far side of the room, in a corner. While we shimmied our way to our table we took care not to knock anyone’s meal to the floor along the way. Our party of 5 was seated at a table that would have comfortably sat 4. Three of us scooted onto the bank, I was the first and I was jammed up against the wall. Ben was seated in the middle next to me, which couldn’t possibly have been more comfortable.
During the meal it occurred to me how absolutely economical using only one hand to eat was. Everyone can sit a lot closer, unless you have a lefty and a righty sitting next to each other. But the lefties are aware of the problem and usually situate themselves so it always works out. The meal was great, the company was brilliant. Our training in the cattle class was paying off big time. Everything went well. The exception was me knocking Ben’s fork out of his hand when I was cutting some meat. Where’s the finger food when you need it? Luckily he caught it before it fell to the floor. There would have been no way he could have picked it up.
We paid for the meal and were pleasantly surprised at the low price. Even with the tip, the price for a meal for 5 people was about what we would pay for 2 in Switzerland.
Back to Switzerland
Somehow eating the meals on the flight back wasn’t difficult at all. It felt like there was more room than ever.
After we arrived back in Switzerland we missed our train by a couple of minutes. We decided to enjoy some delicious Swiss croissants with a cup of tea and coffee while waiting. We sat at an empty table with the best view and enjoyed our “space”. The croissants were flaky and the tea piping hot. After two weeks drinking American coffee Ben enjoyed what he calls “real” coffee. Ah, perfect.
Then the bill came. Another huge difference to America. The price was extremely high, well, no, actually it was just the normal Swiss price. Gulp. Welcome back to Switzerland!
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