The People of Our Travels – Restaurants

When we travel we do our best to try local food if possible away from the tourist areas so we can get a taste of local life in a country or city we are visiting. If we get a friendly waiter or waitress that is willing to talk we always engage them about their region and about their lives in general. While this doesn’t happen all the time, sometimes it might be too busy to have a conversation, we do have frequent nice conversations. It really helps us learn more and I have to hope it might brighten the servers day a little bit being able to have a conversation with someone outside of “What would you like today?”. Here are some of the more memorable dines we have had around the world from a people perspective.

An Inspiring Server in the Turks and Caicos

We were in our second day in the stunning nation of the Turks and Caicos Islands and having already tried local food we decided to go to a local Mexican food restaurant near our hotel. It wasn’t overly busy and we had a very friendly gentleman as a waiter. He actually started our talk like many start asking where we are from and what all have we done on the island. We had just gotten done with a full island tour or the Island of Providenciales. He asked what we did for our profession and we mentioned Software Engineer and teacher. He then talked about how much he respects teachers and how he teaches his children to be very respectful and especially to their teachers. He talked about how important in our world it is for everyone to be respectful of other and learn about one another. He talked about how he has high hopes that his children will do well and have some great opportunities. He works hard on his small island and wants his children to learn and see more of the world beyond their small island. We was full of optimism and loved our dedication to learning about and exploring the world.

While not a part of the story of people, we did see a first in our travels in the Turks and Caicos. While waiting for our flight the one runway airport had a private jet brake its landing gear on landing. That completely closed the runway and the airport. We anxiously watched as they struggled to figure out what to do. Flights were being diverted to other countries or being canceled. Right about the time our place was supposed to land before we boarded they finally drug the plane off the runway leaving tire marks and parts along the way. Our plane was able to land and we headed out to Fort Lauderdale with a decent delay.

Language Lesson in Helsinki

In Helsinki we found out the hard way that unlike in the US where walk ins at casual dinning restaurants is common and reservations are rarely made unless its a large group or a very fancy restaurant, that pretty much everywhere required reservations. The people in Finland are friendly but somewhat stoic and keep to themselves. They generally value silence compared to some of the more gregarious cultures in the world. We walked into several casual restaurants and were quietly asked if we had a reservation. When we said no we were turned away. We ended up at a local sports bar and were once again asked if we had a reservation and this time we were not turned away and they happened to have one spot for two available. The people of Finland are very orderly so it was something for us to learn about their culture. We got seated and our waiter seemed like he would have fit into a heavy metal band (Heavy Metal is a very popular music genre in Finland, and even has a large section in the National Museum). He ended up being a jokester. In Finland food is jaw droppingly expensive even at a sports bar so we looked to get a simple burger. The name of the burger was a very long what I thought was a Finnish word that I had no hope in saying. Our waiter came back to our table (he knew perfect English as most people do in Europe) and I respectfully pointed to the burger we wanted to order. He looked at me in a somewhat serious look and said which one is that try to say it to me. I kind of looked at him oddly and tried to say the long complicated word. He laughed a bit and then pronounced the word perfectly with a lot of rolling ‘Rs’ and said that is how its said and don’t worry its a Swedish Word so its a crap language anyway. He was joking about me needing to say it and just wanted a laugh seeing if I could say something in the complicated Scandinavian languages. Our waiter gave us a small lesson on the languages and how Finland is not a true Scandinavian Nation and their language is very different from Swedish and closer to Estonian. We enjoyed the lesson and some of the other great information our waiter gave.

Travel Talk in Aruba

While in Aruba we stayed at the Hilton Hotel and Resort and got breakfast at the hotel. While we were finishing up our meal the manager came over to chat with us. He was a very friendly man and we started talking to him about Aruba. He told us about how much the island has grown and gave us advice about the island and its low crime. He told us he lost his wife a few years back and he used to walk with her on the beach but told us to be weary walking along it at night as its very dark and you never know what could happen. We spent time talking about different places he had visited and his experiences as well as ours. Being a country within the Dutch Kingdom he could visit Europe easily but had not visited it much yet. We talked about the love of travel and seeing different places. He did have the chance to travel with his wife before she passed. It was really a joy spending a little time speaking with him during a lull in people coming in for breakfast and helped make our breakfast more enjoyable. We got some valuable information about the country and some friendly discussion. He was there on our last day but things were much busier so we didn’t get to talk but I did walk over to shake his hand and say goodbye.

We also went to a local restaurant called “The Old Cunucu House” to get some local food in Aruba. It was in a neighborhood a short walk from the tourist area. Our waiter could speak English but you could tell the local Papiamento was his main language. We got to talking to him about travel and our trip to Aruba that he was shocked was only a weekend as most people travel for longer. We talked about my desire to go to their neighbor Curaçao due to the book “The Cay” I read as a child that took place on the Island. He talked to us about how he’s only really been to Curaçao when changing planes but took a quick stop out into the country to see the capital. He really suggested we come visit all the Dutch Caribbean with Curaçao being the busiest Island and Bonaire being a much quieter island. He talked about Sint Martin as being another great place to visit along with lesser known Sint Eustatius and Saba. He suggested taking a week or so and starting in Aruba and then flying to Curaçao, Sint Eustatius and Sint Martin to see all the differences in the Dutch Caribbean Islands. It was another great talk about travel and learning about Aruba and other islands we had never been to.

Reggae and Great Food in Jamaica

In Jamaica we took a long tour to the interior of the country to see Bob Marley’s childhood home at Nine Mile and to see Dunn River’s fall. Our driver on the way back to our hotel decided to stop at a local restaurant to get some food before we headed back to the hotel. It was a small two story building and they had some massive speakers attached to a party bus right outside. The typical Reggae that I enjoy myself (I enjoy many different types of international music I have heard across the world) was playing louder than I have ever heard at a restaurant. It was a very small bar like place with a few guys drinking a few drinking a nodding to the music. It was far too loud to speak. I went to order some of the wonderful Jerk Chicken they have in the Caribbean nations but even with yelling the server could not hear what I was saying. She came up close to us so I could yell the order. Being a small restaurant we ended up needing to order outside in the parking lot where they had a small grill cooking. In the Caribbean the people are very lively and it almost has a party like atmosphere much of the time. The people are friendly and love listening to music. Its a stark difference in culture and personality from countries like Finland where its more stoic and quiet. We got our food and heads out with a bit of ear ringing as we could hear the music still as we drove off.

Great Service and Food in Wheatland, Wyoming

To finish up stories from restaurants in our travel we head back to the US to a very small town in Wyoming. We were on one of our traditional weekend trips and this time we flew into Denver and drove all the way up to Rapid City, South Dakota to see many great places like Mount Rushmore, Crazy horse and many historic Forts and Battlefields. The drive from Northern Wyoming to Cheyanne near the Colorado Border is a beautiful one but one with few cities and fewer people on the road. As we drove we started seeing weather warnings on traffic signs saying there was severe weather with 60+ MPH winds and very large hail falling over the freeway. We got close to the small town of Wheatland, Wyoming and checked the radar and saw pink and purple colored radar images of the storm over the freeway a few miles ahead indicating really nasty and dangerous storms. I did not want to chance it and we decided to stop at a Western Chain restaurant called Taco John’s. We had never visited one so we wanted to try it out. We were all alone there with the staff I think due to the bad weather and it being a Sunday in a small town. The staff there started to talk to us and see where we were from and what we were doing there. They were very friendly. I asked them if they knew anything about the weather and they suggested waiting it out here as it can get very bad in Wyoming. They found out we had never been to a Taco John’s and the staff decided to be very nice to us and they actually started purchasing us some of the food (it was on their own tab, not the restaurant). We tried their great Potato Ole’s (Mexican Seasoned tater tots) and their Cinnamon Roll like Doughnut Bites. We had conversations about Taco John’s in general, life in rural Wyoming all while we waited out the weather. We had been anxious with the severe weather coming in there but they made us forget about it. Once the weather passed by we headed out and said goodbye to the generous and friendly staff there. We then saw the aftermath of the severe weather on the road and we for sure made the right choice. There were cars and trucks pulled off the side of the road with smashed windshields due to hail. The hail had fallen so hard that the road and fields looked like it was a blanket of snow. There were ruts through the massive amount of hail on the freeway that looked like a tire track through heavy snow. It was a mess and we passed by snow plows coming to clear the hail. To this day anytime I see a Taco John’s I stop to grab some food and remember back to the kind and generous people at the Wheatland, Wyoming location.

In Conclusion

There are many other stories I have at restaurants world wide where we met great people and got to have conversations. We have even in some cases met fellow Houstonians thousands of miles away from home in places like Germany. So whenever you go somewhere and you feel like having a conversation try chatting with people at the restaurants if you can and you can have some great talks with people that will enhance the already great experiences you are having while traveling!