Most Important Meal Ch 3/pg 4

Before we go to sleep we lay awake for a short time talking about our impressions so far. Mom realizes that this is not is the Lithuania she feared she would find. So far so good, and we are still in awe of the lovely Air Lithuania flight especially after the atrocious meal on Northwestern. Really seem food driven.
Morning comes! Breakfast! We are famished! Dressed and down to the main restaurant we go. There we find the large dining room set up for a buffet and full of – eh gads – Germans! It is a whole big tour group of them, so big it might be two groups actually. Okay, we’re now Americans for all practical purposes. Just like any large assembly of people, we want to stay clear of them. For that matter all groups exaggerate the worst qualities of any nationality when they congregate in large numbers. It seems so very odd being here in Lithuania and hearing all this German spoken. Somehow a bit out-of-place. I am in a non-German country and only hear German spoken.
We’re hungry so go check over the buffet before getting in line. What a lovely assortment. Hope we’re not drooling in anticipation. We’re just as happy as can be, especially if this is a sign of how things will be here. You may travel for the sights, but the food can make or break the trip. We just never really developed American taste buds. Unlike my travels through America, I have never lacked for good food in Europe. Wait, there was that one trip to Czechoslovakia – made the mistake of eating a sausage from an outdoor vendor. It was truly inedible; one chew brought to mind visions of Upton Sinclair’s infamous book about the meat packing industry. I spit out the awful gristle and threw the rest in the garbage bin. But that was just shortly after the fall. Western style competition had yet to take hold.