The fanciest McDonalds I know

Nyugati pályaudvar, July 22

The idea of there being McDonalds franchises overseas would seem at first glance to suggest the export of the same bland, homogenized, terribly unhealthy strip-mall eating culture that is making America so obese and bland. But there's a weird quirk that I don't think anyone foresaw: just about any McDonalds you go to abroad would be the best McDonalds in America. The restaurant will be clean, the staff will be cheerful, the french fries will be perfect. None of the usual nonsense of alienated labor and low standards you see in the U.S.: tables with used napkins on them, surly counter staff who want to make it clear that they despise you, and limp, cold fries that hit home the fact that this food-like item which is going to eventually kill you might as well make you miserable along the way. 

The one pictured above is at Nyugati railway station in Budapest on the Nagykörút. It was built inside what had been the station restaurant.

The wrong kind of exceptionalism

The idea of America's "exceptionalism" is a literal article of faith for one of the country's two major political enterprises. But it's not something I take on its face, because though we get a lot of big things right, we screw up a ton of details. For starters:

How long do we think we'll fool ourselves about the metric system? — Do people realize that only Burma, Liberia, and ourselves still refuse to use what is one of mankind's great intellectual achievements? This is stubbornness carried to absurdity. And the process of making the switch wouldn't even be that bad. After about a week, you forget how many groats make up a hogshead, or whatever other random grab bag of a system we waste too much of our memory trying to keep straight.

Your shower head doesn't have to be bolted to the wall — The fact that they are in almost every American shower must be some kind of dumb, vestigial Puritan thing, because there's really no sensible reason why we keep doing this. That space can be very practical for cleaning buckets, grills and things like that. And if by chance someone is so creeped out by a handheld spiggot of water for their ablutions, just put it in the holder and don't touch it!

Stop complaining about dollar coins — I think everywhere on earth people have abandoned greasy, crumbled-past-recognition banknotes for their most common lowest denomination. But Americans are passionate in their petty annoyances: they bitched about Anthony dollars, Sacagewea dollars, the presidents series. Because change is change and dollars and dollars. I've never heard an argument against switching to dollar coins that wasn't based on the routine "I don't want to change the thoughtless routine I've been following my whole life" act (see the first entry). Dollar coins are simple to use and would save us money because they don't have to be replaced all the time.

Public transportation isn't just for losers — From my window in Budapest I could see the Danube, and running along it was Ujpest Rakpart, an important north-south thoroughfare between the city center and the northern districts of Pest. It was pretty busy, but never terminally so —you could usually cross it on foot if you were careful. I am certain that the analogous street in any American city would spend half the day as a parking lot. There are many grievances one can have about Budapest's public transportation network, the BKV — its scowling conductors (the first time I had my transit ticket spot-checked on a tram I thought I was getting mugged), the peculiar odor on certain buses, the fact that it closes early, the political cronyism and fiscal mismanagement of its administration. But it is hard to deny that it goes wherever you need to go, for a hilariously small amount of money. 

For how many years? — The fact that we put up with multi-year, extortionate cellphone contracts proves we are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave: Here's how it works in Europe — first, you buy yourself a cellphone. However expensive or fancy is a matter of your personal budget or preference. You then head one of the service providers, sign some paperwork, get a SIM card, plug it into your new phone, and then you put money onto your account at any ATM machine. The magic of pay-as-you-go was particularly rich for a rather light user like I was. I put about $20 on my account in October, and didn't think about it again until spring. The American market is a hellhole of multi-year contracts, jaw-dropping rate structures, and bait-and-switch sale offers, all for the exact same service with the exact same phones. I am mystified that we put up with this. 

"Light" beer isn't really beer — Because seriously, what's the point? Have a club soda if calories are such a problem. And on the subject of American brewing in general, if a brewer must insist that you drink its product at a temperature so cold it numbs your mouth, that's because it's the only way to distinguish it from urine.

The name of the game is not "soccer," it is... eh, I'll quit while I'm ahead.

On and on

As I've gotten older I've decided to keeping living and reflecting separate. Lots of people can do both at the same time, but I don't know how well they do either, and it doesn't matter anyway because I'm not one of them. And I've always put writing in that second category, which I think explains quite a bit why there hasn't been a lot of new content around here.

For a good several months I've been busy, culture-shocked, and jet-lagged. Now, as fall settles in, I'm back home in Williamstown and things are just quiet and still enough that it's about time to write again. While on the run I piled up a good amount of words and paper about this and that, and it's time for some sortin'.

It might feel a bit like a grab-bag, but hasn't this whole thing felt that way?