proper china mugs, even when we stayed in to have our coffee. We were not
sure if this was a reaction to clumsiness by patrons suffering from the ‘coffee
tremors’, or a desire by staff to speed the destruction of the Earth’s
environment. As it turned out it was for neither of these reasons. Instead it
was simple paranoia – we should have guessed. A member of staff in
Starbucks in Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida, told us that it was because
customers often stole the mugs as souvenirs.
Not that our own food presentation when we cooked in the van would
have won many awards. Some, but not many. As the holiday progressed our
manners regressed. We would usually sit on the bed in our pyjamas, sipping
shandy from a Denny's souvenir cup (plastic, not cardboard like a coffee shop
I could mention.... and have). In our other hand we would hold a pastry
wrapped 'hot pocket' on a kitchen roll 'plate'. Any sauce-y dishes would be
served in their cooking tray. We were so white trash. Belch!
At least home-cooking usually provided a cheaper, quieter, and more flexible
alternative to eating out. The hardest task was finding the supermarket. You
get used to the shop names that you know and frequent, for example Tesco
means food, as does Waitrose. Even in the UK it can be a little confusing in
some regions where local supermarkets still dominate. In the US we really
struggled at times to decide which shops to aim for, except in California where
Safeway exists. We did eventually learn what stores sold food, and more
importantly which sold nice food - some were a bit Kwiksave. When we
moved from region to region we also discovered that the dominant
supermarket chain changed as well. In California Safeway and Vons led the