Stone-fried hospitality
When I first decided to go to Peru within a week of returning from Italy, I thought it would be a good idea to spend the week in between back in the states. It seemed the culture shock of first-world Italy might be a little much next to the unfamiliarity of third-world Peru. But Portland, my home base, is on the other side of the country from my entry point on the East Coast, and I’d be traveling with a friend from Atlanta, so I thought I’d spend some time there. In the South.
Now, I know that some of you are saying, “Atlanta’s not the South!â€Â Well, it is. For someone from Portland, it’s the South. I like Atlanta, but it might have been less of a shock to head directly to Peru, where the language difference would have alerted my brain that I was, indeed, in a different country/culture. Spending a week in a place that looked and sounded somewhat familiar was just enough to make me feel like I was losing my mind. I spent time searching for the gayness that I’d missed so desperately over the last month, and finding fried food
Stone Mountain
and slow-talking hospitality.
Total strangers put me up in their beautiful guest-house. Amazing.
I even found some of the gayness, too.
But that just contributed to the feeling of being constantly off-balance. I could read the menus, but couldn’t anticipate the constantly fried preparations. I could navigate the nature hikes, but couldn’t absorb the confederate flags along the trail. I still don’t know if it’s good or bad etiquette to take pictures of confederate monuments, or if there’s a reason to put fois gras in a milkshake. Anyone? Anyone?
4 comments
Fois gras in a milkshake…….Good grief…….
That is a struggle. We went to Florida…we felt like we stuck out like a sore thumb with my butchness and Kim’s vegetarianism. Everything was fried and for the most part, pretty gross. And everything came with meat in it. I think Kim ate french fries for the first 4 days. It was just bizarre, quite frankly. Glad to hear you found the gayness…that was the other part we missed too…except for the fabulous gay boys at St. Pete’s Beach. Sigh…nothing beats the great Northwest…
Fortunately, Atlanta has some awesome gayness. It also has a lot of house-made veggie burgers. That’s a major bonus.
did you go to the stone mountian laser show? that was one of the biggest culture shocks of my life for sure! enjoy peru 😉