Dinner and Politics

For dinner I made a point of finding a place where I could get pasta with pesto which is a Ligurian specialty. As expected it was good. The foccacia bread that I ate in Liguria was also spectacular. It was interesting to discover that food which is labeled as “Italian Food” in the U.S. is not universal in Italy and a lot of the foods can only be found locally. Whenever possible I made an attempt to eat the regional specialties and I was rarely disappointed.

I was invited by an American couple to eat with them since I was alone. They were probably ten years older than me, but had been doing a similar trip through Europe. The guy had done a European tour previously and was revisiting many places. He remarked that places like Prague and Cinque Terre had changed a lot since the 90s. They had some great stories about doing hut trips in Austria. I always love talking to other travelers and getting ideas about places to visit. Somehow the conversation changed to politics and another American sitting nearby began chiming in. This type of anti-Bush conversation came up a lot during my trip and although I generally agree with what people have to say on this topic, I hate it when this happens. Here we are traveling far from home having amazing experiences and people want to let everyone know that they disagree with American foreign policy. Frankly, I really don't care what the people I meet on my trip think about politics, even if I share similar thoughts. If I am only going to talk to someone for an hour or two, I would much rather hear about where a person has been on their trip and where they are going. Tonight once politics came up, the rest of the night was a wash. Overall it was a good day though.