"Compare/Contrast," or "Why Ronald McDonald Hates Freedom"

Ok, there's a lot going on in this post, so you'll have to pay attention. I probably should have split the post.

First a couple pictures from Amsterdam, including a crappy night photo:




Now, I decided to take some shots looking out the front and the back of the apartment where I was staying. Here is the view out the front:


The following two pictures are the view out back. I direct the reader to this link to compare the view out back in Amsterdam and the one I had in Georgia. Interesting. This post is all about compare/contrast. It is our lesson for the day. Keep on reading.



And this is what I look like in Amsterdam (pretty much the same as how I look in America, no duplicity here (I can't say the same for Ronald McDonald)):


Before leaving Amsterdam, I decided to do a little comparison shopping, so I went to the McDonalds in the airport and ordered a "Big Tasty McMenu" which is basically a Big n' Tasty value meal made up of fries, a "Big n' Tasty" burger, and a soda. I recalled that in Tbilisi the McDonalds was actually much better than it is in the US, and I wanted to see if our friend Ronald McDonald really was a janus-faced traitor. He is. Again, I was impressed by the freshness and size of the sandwich. I could not even finish the meal. My only complaint was the chemically taste of the cheese on the sandwich and the mysterious mayonaise-based sauce. Here are some notable points of departure from the American counterpart:

1. Size (about as big around as a Whopper),
2. Meat was thicker,
3. Comes with bacon and 1-2-3 slices of cheese (no cheese OR bacon on the American version),
4. Made to order,
5. No pickles or ketchup, praise Prophet Smith,
6. Unlike in America, where the Quarter Pounder is the largest single-patty burger on the McDonalds menu, in Holland the Big n' Tasty is the largest single-patty burger,
7. The meal was 6.65 euro (about $9.87).

Just to make sure I was not romanticizing European McDonalds, I stopped at a McDonalds in Albany, IN on my way back from Celina to have an American Big n' Tasty meal. It was terrible. I've decided to include pictures to accompany this post, but I don't think the difference in size shows up well. You just have to take the fry container as your reference point.

Dutch Version:





American Version:


Grammar: "I'm Lovin' It!"



Let's get a closer look at that



Today I headed back from Celina, OH where I stayed last night after getting in to Columbus from Amsterdam. A real bed was nice. I had been up for 25 hours by the time I went to sleep. The flight back was uneventful. The woman sitting next to me for 8 hours and 45 minutes (Amsterdam to New Jersey) was a thirty-something school teacher named Marie N. She wore hip glasses, which she put on after removing her contacts, and tights. She uttered not a word the entire flight, choosing to focus on writing report cards. It was a boring flight; however, I did get to watch the movie "Elf," and episode of "House," and some terrible movie starring Catherine Zeta Jones in which she played the executive chef of a fine dining restaurant. I arrived in Newark, rushed through customs, and broke a sweat to find that my flight to Columbus was delayed 1 hour and 45 minutes, which left me with way too much free time (about 5 hours). I spent an hour walking around the food court deciding which slop-hole would win the die toss and get my patronage. The "Wok-n-Roll" won. I then went to the Mexican place to take the edge off with some Coronas. Little did I know they were nearly 6 bucks a piece. The flight to Columbus was equally uneventful.

A little update on the job market. UConn has made their calls for interviews and I am not on their list apparently (UConn never calls anymore).