not in Kansas anymore....

Occasionally something happens that makes me realise just how much I'm not in Europe anymore. Now, its not that I've spent a HUGE amount of time living there (two years in total, a year at a time about 5 years apart) or that I feel on a day-to-day basis like I am in Europe, but every so often it really hits me. (Like when people don't like Robbie Williams - he's much more popular in Europe but here in Australia he's seen by a lot of people to be too mainstream to be cool - or something???).

I had one of these moments on Wednesday.
As I've said before, I love Wednesday, and I do like to make an occasion of my night of TV viewing including a glass or two of wine. This week I decided I would like to have a 'spritzer' (white wine with sparkling mineral water) rather than straight wine (NCIS can get a bit complicated towards the end of an episode, and if you've had a couple of glasses of wine you could easily be left wondering what just happened hehe).
I was going to a conference seminar in the afternoon, so I just wanted a small bottle of mineral water that I could fit in my handbag. I was shocked to discover that I could not find a bottle of sparkling natural mineral water smaller that 1.25L ANYWHERE! Now, many places in Europe you have to specify that you want water 'without gas' so I was left wondering whether I had just never noticed that we don't drink it here? Could I, in such a short time living there, have taken sparkling mineral water so for granted that I began to assume it was also the norm in my own homeland?

I ended up having to buy the 1.25L bottle. And I couldn't resist asking the 'checkout chap' "Does no-one drink sparkling natural mineral water anymore." "Um, maybe its got to something to do" he said, pausing to look at me, "with the fact that, well, it's just not very cool."
Oooh. =S

So now I know. Thank goodness for 16 year-old checkout chaps.
(Although, I have to say, I'm not really sure how sparkling natural mineral water could be 'uncool'. I mean, I would think that if any kind of water had a little vogue to it then it would have to be sparkling natural mineral water. It always struck me as quite mysterious and glamorous and, well I guess just more European!?)

besos!

ooh, leaving you with this week's tribute to Iron Chef - beef laksa!