By far my most favorite place in the whole wide world, is the deep Southern United States. ( right after Kolkata India that is). From those parenthesis, you should probably pick up on my sarcasm. Why the derision? One. The food is so decadently bad, yet in heaping portions so you actually 'feel' yourself get heavier meal by meal. Two. I cant relate to anyone at all. And Tres. Most times with the accents I really think they are playin, when in actuality, they dont play it at all.
Oh yes, and heres why. I arrived at my Hotel " How y'all doin?" God bless. Its starts right away. Um.. I cant help notice the obvious flaw in this throw away greeting: Not only is it fairly lazy in pronunciation, there is no 'all' here at all, its just me. Id actually prefer a New York style 'how's yous doin?". At least it correctly follows english plurality theory. Dont get me wrong, I do love listening to it though, and everyone is so nice and warm and welcoming and friendly. Its simple speak, and I cant help but feel like a Harvard scholar down here, I cant help it. I can't. Even though we all know Im not. Suddenly, just by geography, I feel like the most eloquent man in the land. Also, its a great accent when someone is telling a joke. Cuz, in that context, its like Im listening to Larry the Cable guy, get 'er done.
So its my last night in Shreveport Louisiana, or as Sid's dad calls it "Loheesh-she-awhna". Last time I was here, I went for the Gumbo, the crawfish, the Po boys, all the lovely famous local stuff, minus the Grits. (I still dont know what they are, Grits scare me) This time I was dying for some Mexican, and ended up going Mexican for my first 3 meals. One of the meals I was deeply dissappointed in though was the Olive Garden. Now I hadnt been in almost, I dont know, 5-6 years. But my memories of Olive Garden are good. Pretty good. Along with Taco Bell, it was actually a favorite during USA excursions. I dont know what has changed though in that time, maybe the restaurant, but most likely me, because I didnt rate it all this time. Is was poor. It use to have Cheerleader status. Now Im afraid I have to downgrade it to Band camp status. This really threw me. I guess this is what happens when you start frequenting Italy, and start realizing cookie cutter franchises will always end up diluting the quality of the product. Its like before I didnt really know any better, so I was perfectly content. Now, this time, I didn't even finish half the Capellini Pomodoro, but probably that had more to do with the portions which was enough to feed a filipino family.
Tomorrow morning, heading to NYC. Im getting tingles.
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