Lilac Colored Glasses

Gent is not the place to go if you’re looking for fast food. Or chain restaurants in general. In the entire city they have one McDonalds and one Pizza Hut. They don’t even have a Quick, which most Belgian cities have in abundance.
And this doesn’t bother me at all. In the U.S. I ate way too much fast food, but that was for conveniance, not because I really enjoyed most of it (except Arbys…mmmmm…Arbys). So now, if I’m in need of something fast, it’s just as easy to go to a Panos (the only mega-chain foodwise in Gent) and get a reasonably priced, reasonably healthy, mediocre sandwich. I mean, Panos is okay, but the only choice you get is white or brown bread. Half of the time. The other half they’re out of brown bread, so tough shit. Cause the service is usually crap too.

CB has rarely eaten fast food in his life and actually tried Subway for the first time while we were in Cologne. He was a bit taken aback by the fact that he could basically pick whatever he wanted on whatever bread he wanted, toasted or not toatsed, etc. but otherwise he really enjoyed it. In fact, his exact words may’ve been close to:

“It’s a shame we don’t have Subway in Belgium, they’d kill Panos.”

And lo, last week in Brussels south Station, what did we see? A Subway!
And later in the week we spotted another one…in Gent center!!

So after some errands the other day, we hit up Subway for lunch. I ordered a large club, toasted and when it was time to choose veggies I asked for everything but onions and jalapeños. We ate our sub, it was lovely, and we were on our way when about halfway to the bus stop CB said, “I see what you did with the vegetables there.”

And I, confused, said, “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well it’s just so American. No European, when asked ‘what vegetables do you want’ would reverse the answer and say ‘everything but these two things.’ They would pick 2 or possibly 3 vegetables, if the server wasn’t getting annoyed by then, that went well with the sandwich.”

“But I got a club! All veggies go well with a club! I mean, if I’d gotten steak and cheese, I’d only want lettuce and tomato…”

“But that’s not the point. It was just funny the way you asked for ‘everything but.’ It’s so American. But it was good! I liked having all the vegetables, it just never would have occurred to me to ask for it like that.”

So hey, at least some of my American philosophies are good for something, right?