International Breakfast Hotels Abroad

Try sorrel if you visiting Barbados or Trinidad.

Real OJ should be eaten with a spoon. 

It's ironic how we love travelling but do not want to taste local food, served in hotels. It is part of the adventure therefore, we must drink something that looks like orange juice because it will be orange juice. Some waiters will pour you a little bit to taste, the same way you taste wine you aren’t familiar with. Sometimes, we make judgments based on our country’s lifestyles. Eat fish for breakfast, if it looks like fish. Don’t declare war.

“Fish for breakfast? I don’t think so. Do you have bacon and eggs?”

I have just insulted the people of the country we are visiting and their food. The waiter mutters “Americano” in the local language, and does not bother explaining that it is fresh fish, caught that morning because the hotel is in a coastal town. They have fish three times a day, not counting fish snacks. It’s unfair to Americans but seasoned tourists should be used to it by now. In some countries, tourists that misbehave are labeled, Americans.

But don’t worry about bacon and eggs because big hotels in major cities have two buffet sections: international and local breakfast. The first one will have bacon and eggs complete with hash browns. They’ll be toast, bagels and pancakes. They will have croissants if it’s a country that was colonized by France. The local breakfast will have rice porridge, rice juice and other breakfast rice dishes. This is what we found in Thailand. I’m ashamed to admit I went for the international breakfast. I was not the kind of person I am today.

We are so stuck in our ways - which we think is the ideal - that we have a steel door in our mind. We are just here for the sun, the blue ocean and carnival. There’s nothing I can learn from these people, and their deplorable living conditions. Try sorrel and zobo for breakfast.

Nonqaba waka Msimang

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