Friday, December 07, 2007

Travel - Northwest

I have been busy travelling recently. First I went to the NW corner of the country where all the fabulous scenery was hidden in the fog. It was dark and gloomy and rainy but brightened by numerous coffee shops on every other corner. I still kind of dread coffee shops, though. All the decisions. But at`least if you make your friends go first it gives you an extra minute or two to make up your mind. My cognitively challenged brother has developed a strategy to answer multiple choice questions – he always chooses the last choice. Hmm. Maybe I should try that at the next coffee shop.

It’s not just that you are confronted with 25 choices of basic coffee – most of which you have never heard of and have no idea what you might be getting in to. But you have to choose regular or decaf, or even a combo. Then it’s light, dark, or medium roast. (I wonder if anybody would like village char-roast??) Size is not something simple like small, medium, or large. In fact some workers are so snobbish that they pretend they don’t know the meanings of those words! If you’ve actually gotten that far, it is advisable to just grab your coffee and run. If you don’t, they will continue pestering you with questions: do you want milk? What kind and what flavor? Low fat? Do you want it heated? What about flavoring in the coffee? How many shots? Do you want to leave room for cream? Would you like something to go with your coffee?

Most churches in my home area have served coffee before or after the service for years. But in the NW they have latte bars in churches – and as a visitor I got a free latte!  I guess it’s caffeine buzz that keeps everybody in that city going during these gloomy months.

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