This morning I couldn’t sleep past 7am. I tried, but soon I joined Eva, who got up even earlier, for a literary morning. Around 9 Charlie and Dee got up, abandoned their ambitious plan to go running, and we went off to breakfast. They got super excited about some pancake breakfast bar the night before, so we went there.
I’ll never understand why anyone would think that going out for breakfast is a good idea. But I think that today I worked out why extensive eating out irks me so much. It’s about choice, or lack thereof.
For me, today’s breakfast was a case of having to wait until everyone gets up, to then go half way across town, to then sit somewhere that has a menu way too complicated to understand before breakfast, to then wait another half an hour for an expensive plate of glorified stomach filler, just to then feel ill because by the time I finally got the food I was so hungry that I ended up overeating.
Frankly, I would have very much preferred to go down to a corner store before 9am, pick up a roll and some cheese, and have it back at home with tea. It’s not that I don’t appreciate quality food – I just don’t care about it that much, and spending significantly more time and money on a very minor improvement in life quality seems pointless. I also don’t judge people who like this – if you get a lot of enjoyment out of something, it makes sense to pay for it.
But that’s just a personal rant, now to today’s realisation. Everyone has their likes, dislikes and don’t cares. But with food it’s socially different. If you’re not particularly into saunas or you don’t see a point in going to a gig, and your friends really want to go to a sauna or gig, you just sit this one out and meet them after. No big deal. But if you don’t care much for fancy food and everyone is going for a meal, what are you going to say? Enjoy your meal, I’ll just grab a roll from the corner store and wait for you outside? I mean, you have to eat something, why wouldn’t you want to eat with them? Don’t you like them?
So you don’t have a choice. Add to this the fact that eating out is often involved in celebrating pretty much anything, and if you’re me, you end up feeling pressured to spend a fair bit of your time and money on things you really don’t care about. I think it’s the lack of freedom to choose that irks me so much. Perhaps in the future I’ll just not give a fuck and eat my cheap nutritious food when I want, and then go with people to restaurants just to hang out and drink tap water.
* * *
Anyway, rant over. After breakfast we drove off towards Nyah West. The road is about 4.5 hours long, a short drive by Australian standards, and Charlie’s parents were super kind to give us a lift. We chatted a fair bit about distances, suburban sprawl, and the need to drive everywhere. And Australians don’t have petrol that’s as cheap as in the US.
We stopped a few times on the way, once for sausage sizzlers (I was way too full from the late breakfast at this point to even think about eating…), then to go to the observation tower in Bendigo. Was my idea, but turned out bad, as it started raining just a we were climbing up, and stopped as soon as we got back down.
In the meantime I realised it’s my birthday today. Yay! Already had two parties, so not particularly fussed about it. But cool, I never had birthday in the winter before!
After Bendigo we entered the flatland. This time it was very different from when I was here in February – positively lush with all shades of green. Even the see-through filigree trees seem to have some more substance.
We got to Nyah West in the evening, through rain and darkness. Markedly un-Australian. Once home, Charlie and Dee started to make a birthday cake for me! Yay! It was delicious!
We spent the rest of the evening chatting with Charlie’s parents and looking through awkward childhood photos, including some really cute ones that I want copies of. Now it’s time for an early night and lots of sleep.
No Comments Yet