Mmm, meal allowances... yeah, I got permission to spend my meal allowances on food and shipping once when I was down south for a training - rich area, meal allowances with, "Schmooze factor," Of $115 a day.
I drank coffee. With lots of cream for calories. In the most expensive restaurants I'd ever tried. People gave me samples so I could see what I was missing. When they finished their food and their second course arrived - and they were stuffed - people I didn't know would try to feed me. I said OK, of course - and bought them $20 in desserts, making my day cost about $30.
The remainder got spent on things like pelmeni from the Russian quarter, lentils, and grains I couldn't get in Maine. Shipped. In two weeks, I sent enough good staple food-stuffs home to last six months.
Mmm, finest-kind finest-grind flour.
And lentils.
I... love lentils.
Food allowances are dangerous beyond words, especially in the South where people, even if you say, "No, seriously, spend your money on yourself - I'm actually just having coffee on purpose so I can spend the food money on different food here," Feed you within an inch of your life.
It was a very weird experience, and one I'd not care to repeat, since it would be entirely too easy to accidentally lead that culture into feeding one all the time - but it was good fun for the two week stint, and people seemed to think I was being nice by buying high end desserts for the table when everyone was thinking of home and hotel and whatnot.
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phoenix
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Date: 2010-07-18 11:52 pm (UTC)I drank coffee. With lots of cream for calories. In the most expensive restaurants I'd ever tried. People gave me samples so I could see what I was missing. When they finished their food and their second course arrived - and they were stuffed - people I didn't know would try to feed me. I said OK, of course - and bought them $20 in desserts, making my day cost about $30.
The remainder got spent on things like pelmeni from the Russian quarter, lentils, and grains I couldn't get in Maine. Shipped. In two weeks, I sent enough good staple food-stuffs home to last six months.
Mmm, finest-kind finest-grind flour.
And lentils.
I... love lentils.
Food allowances are dangerous beyond words, especially in the South where people, even if you say, "No, seriously, spend your money on yourself - I'm actually just having coffee on purpose so I can spend the food money on different food here," Feed you within an inch of your life.
It was a very weird experience, and one I'd not care to repeat, since it would be entirely too easy to accidentally lead that culture into feeding one all the time - but it was good fun for the two week stint, and people seemed to think I was being nice by buying high end desserts for the table when everyone was thinking of home and hotel and whatnot.