As I wander through the streets of Nicosia, Cyprus, I am distracted not by beautiful mosques or historic Venetian city walls but by the fact that I am ridiculously hungry and nothing is open. The damp, dark, after rain soaked, dimly light streets are asleep, perhaps because the relentless rain, the worst winter on record in 25 years, has closed the shop doors until drier days.
Nicosia is divided by two countries and with a quick flash of my passport, I walk from Turkey/Cyprus over to Greece/Cyprus in search of food. The only thing open is McDonalds’ which I never eat. Out of a perceived dramatic death due to insatiable out of control starvation, I scarf down a cheeseburger and fries and walk back to my guest house in Turkey. I have successfully imported McDonalds from Greece to Turkey at 10pm on a Tuesday night. Yes, that’s right folks, I walked out of Turkey like a turkey to go to Greece to eat grease. No duty paid and no import/export fees were sought, not yet that is.
I was stopped from taking photos of the menu. Apparently the recipe of that Greek Mac is now top secret! I wonder why?
About 5 minutes later, I am writing and drinking a glass of local red wine. Somewhere between a mediocre metaphor and a powerful punctuation mark, I am vaulted by a nauseating alarm. I leap up and run for the toilet to barf. Like superman on a mission to save the world from bad food, my cloak of humbled hunger gets tangled. I trip over a table, break my boob, bruise my knee and my injured toe nail falls off. Curses of bite me Ronald echo throughout the building as the Cyprus sewer system is up by one McDonald’s meal and a solo female cyclist is reminded that McDonalds is a poor choice of food even in cases of perceived dramatic death due to out of control insatiable hunger. What to eat on a bicycle tour? I am not sure I know right now, however …..two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun… certainly comes to mind!
Um, North American fast food chains I do avoid unless I have no choice both overseas and in North America. Such as being out in the middle of nowhere.
In Copenhagen, we were very disappointed to not try real Danish food vs. Italian, German food which was admittedly cheaper.
Shoulda had the Greek Mac. Not a fan either but that looks mighty good. Feta makes everything better.