Of course, by Fuzzy Little Foreigner, I am referring to me and the fact that I went on a 10 day trip in Germany.  I went on strike and didn’t shave my legs (I know TMI) until the night before I came home.  Can you say Woooolie-Boooooger?

I never realized eating in a forgein country would be so damn difficult.

First, I am the second pickiest eater you will ever meet in your life, behind my step-son… he’d have starved to death.

Ok, being the typical American tourist type, not to mention a closed minded, livin in the box kinda girl, I never realized that Chinese people that run a chinese restaurant in Germany wouldn’t speak English.  It was odd to me that they spoke Chinese and German. But, the place was across the street from our hotel, and smelled really, really good.

Won-Ton Soup: #3 on the menu.
Mini-Spring Roll:  #2 on the menu.
Cashew Chicken:  #42 on the menu.

Best Won-Ton Soup I ever have consumed… EVER.

Since I am afraid of anything ending in -wurst or-snitzel, I steered clear of tradtional German food.  God forbid I pork-peniswurst or something like that.  It’s not like I can translate German to English very well.

We were in Pforzheim the first several days, so, we ate Chinese food at the same place on Sunday and Monday nights.

The Tuesday night, we switched off for some Itatlian. The spinich manacotti was yum and the wine was a-flowin.

The Wednesday night, we were gonna give the Brazilian place a crack, but I wussed out, paid for my beer and ran away.  The couldn’t speak English and I couldn’t figure out anything but shrimp from the Brazilian/German menu and I don’t do shrimp.  So, we ended up back at the Chinese place again, where we were greeted with..”Hello. You wanta Coka Light and Hotta Tea, yes?”

With a sweet smile I tell her, “Of course and can we have the same table by the window?”

I know she had to be thinking… Crazy American bitch won’t eat anything.

Then we went to Hannover…

Thursday night we ate food from the hotel bar, which is always tasty with beer.

Friday night, we had another awesome Italian dinner with the owner of my company.

Then to Munich…

Saturday night, I finally broke down.  Mom took me to a Beer Garten (pub) in Munich.  Oktoberfest was over, but you couldn’t tell it by the guy on the table who had a bucket on his head and was leading the whole place in a sing-along.
After several pints of some delicious brew, I was starting to pack a nice buzz.
So, I broke down and ate stewed steak smothered in roasted onions (DAYUM!!) and potatoes. 

The beer was the best ever though. It didn’t have that watery as piss taste to it.

Sunday night, we found us another Chinese place. It was pretty tasty too.

So, I guess I totally blew the opportunity to expand my culinary palate… NOT!

I do know one thing for shizzly: Germany  has the corner on the ice cream market.  It was grub, and I had my fair share.

As if hunting for a smoking area wasn’t fun enough to occupy our 4-hour layover at O’Hare International Airport, mom decided that she needed airport food. Now, it wasn’t that she was hungry. No, this wasn’t the case.

“It’s almost like tradition,” she says beaming that smile of hers.

“Yogurt is somehow a tradition? Do tell,” I ask.

“Not really yogurt, but eating in the airport,” she quips back.

“Oh hell, now I’ve heard it all. That’s like me running right to Manchu Wok for Lo-mein everytime I hit the ground. It ain’t tradition, Mama. It’s a matter of eating from being bored. Pure and simple,” I lecture.

“Well, whatever you want to call it, Missy. I want a frozen yogurt and we’re gonna walk until we find one,” she commands. “Did you see anyplace to get one?”

“I saw a fat guy up by the security check thing, but I think it was ice cream, not yogurt,” I tell her.

“I want fat-free-frozen vanilla yogurt…” she says dreamily thinking about diggin’ in.

Not ice cream. Not chocolate. Not full of fat…. No.

With that I pick up my 50 pound carry-on bag at Gate K-5 and we start walking. We see a sign for frozen yogurt and head that way.

I have to say this should have been an extremely simple and painless task as right there in the “K” terminal are TWO, not just one, but TWO TCBY’s!!! Easy right?

Well, not so much. Off we go…

The lil dude at the first TCBY didn’t have any vanilla, SO, he pointed us to the other food court way the hell down the way at gate K-15.

We get there, and sure enough, TCBY. We walk up smiling, only to see that the lady has the frozen yogurt machine torn down for cleaning. The sparkle immediately left my eyes.

So, we decided to take another walk and ended up in the “L” terminal. Only one TCBY and no vanilla. So we follow back out of “L” and wander over to “G”, only to find out after walking 2.5 miles to get there, that it’s a commuter terminal and they have no TCBY at all. Figures.

Defeated and depressed, we turn around with our heads hung low. The pep in our step was lost long ago as we shuffled along. All of a sudden, my mom happened to see a hidden food court area that we had somehow walked right past at least 3 times.

And in the very bad end of that little hidden jewel sat a TCBY. We walk up, skeptical that anything will come of the visit.

“Vanilla?” Mom asks the girl with that desperate tone in her voice.

“Sure. What size?” The girl says with an angelic smile on her face.

“Large!” Mom says completely satisfied.

It was as if the clouds parted, the heaven’s opened and a choir of angels started to sing Halleluja in unison.

“Want one?” Mom asked me.

“Nope. I wanna bagel.”

I am sad to say that my addiction to Chinese Food was abruptly halted as a result of the ongoing battle with the Fortune Cookie Nazi.  He won, I lost; no MSG, salt loaded, sugary goodness for Diva.  Dammit.

So, I come home from a business trip and OG tells me that while I was gone, she had went to said establishment to partake of take-out as her man had taken ill.

She went to the self serve bar, I remember so well.  She filled her to-go boxes with treats of all kinds…

She went to the front to pay our friend the Fortune Cookie Nazi…

“You need-a any sauces today?”  He asked.

“No.  I don’t think so,”  she politely replied.

“Well, you must-a take the fortune cookie,” he tells her.

A light bulb went off over her head.  She knows first hand that I’m not kidding when I say he just won’t give me a fortune cookie.  That he has an inner drive within his deep dark soul, which keeps him from simply dipping in and giving me my friggin’ cookie. 

What’s wrong with a brother when he won’t even share a 5 cent cookie?  He would give me a truck load of sauces, chop stix, but no damn cookie.   All I want is my cookie!!  Why can’t you just give me my cookie!!!

I’m going to go rock back and forth in the corner now.

I just hate craving that damned chinese food from that damned yummy place over here by the office. 

I mean, I get a craving for it and I decided that, despite the fact I know that evil ass munch won’t give me the fortune cookie without a square off in the middle of the parking lot, I was going to go have me some tastey morsels of saucy goodness.

So, as usual, I go in, get my little styrofoam container, proceed to the buffet of happiness, load up my choices and go to the register to pay.  I set my container on the scale, as they charge for buffet to go by the pound.  This is where it the ugly gets on.

So, everything seems to be going smooth.  I’m mentally preparing for the fight for the fortune cookie.  I intend to win this time. 

“You need sauce or fork?” he asks me all smug like.

“Nope. But I want a Diet Pepsi,”  I tell him.

“Diet Pesi!” he calls out to the chick at the waitress station.

She totes it over and sets it on the counter as he rings me up. 

“That be $4.62,” he tells me.

UH OH!  Houston we have a problem.  Diva don’t carry cash.  Just something I don’t do.  It’s way too easy to use my debit card to have to fool around with dollars.

This ass munch “only takey the credit cawd fo ova fi dolla.”  Hasn’t he seen that VISA commercial that shows the world is officially going plastic???

Still yet, I try to slip it by him.  I pull out my debit card with VISA logo and push it toward him.

“We only take cawd fo purchase ova fi dolla,” he reminds me.

“Look guy, I don’t have any cash.  Well I have a handful of change in the bottom of my purse, but not enough,” I tell him as show him my empty wallet.

“You always can get another drink take wif you,” he tells me.

“Uh, no. You can run my card or I’ll have to leave it,” I tell him, now pissed.

“Well, I not running cawd.  You get cash, come back,” he tells me.

“OK, fine!”  So, I walk out the door.  No lunch, no friggin fortune cookie, and definitely no balls to tell him what he could do with his no useless carton of to-go.

God Bless Taco Bell.  They’ll takey my debit card for an eighty-nine cent bean burrito.

There is a tasty little Chinese Food place here in Oak Ridge that does take out from the buffet.  It’s very good; it’s always fresh, and super-dooper tasty! (Not to mention they always score well when the pesky healthy inspector happens to drop in unannounced).

Now our office has been in Oak Ridge for a many moons and my boss and I have traveled many miles, many times to partake of this sweet and sour plethora of tastiness.

They have garlic beef w/broccoli, sweet n sour chicken, general tsao chicken, and my personal favorite – mixed spicy vegetable. 

I go so often that when I walk in the door, the little dude says, “Ahh.  To go, right?”, and hands me my little environment-killing-Styrofoam container with which I am set free into the pasture of goodness.

I’ll graze for a few minutes, making my choices wisely.  I wander over to the sauces and get a nice ladle full of that hot-ass mustard (yah, that stuff that when you get it in your mouth it makes your eyes water and your nose run… that stuff that makes you beg Jesus for forgiveness for eating something so friggin hot).

All sounds like a beautiful lunchtime excursion in the making, yah?  Well, no.  I love the food at this place.  It’s marvy, but the folks that run the place and work there make me more nervous than a cat in a room full of rockin chairs…

So, my selections are made, my mouth starting to water. I close up my little lunch box that still has steam pouring out the sides.  I carry it to the front, so as to pay for it.   Let the uncomfortable state of affairs begin. 

FLASHBACK…

Now I don’t know if I’m just traumatized from being married to a man who’s mother and all of her friends are Korean and you know they talk about you in their language while you’re standing there… All the while they are looking at you, nodding their heads, laughing and smiling as the chatter on…   Bring on the cold sweat… I know those bitches were talking smack and plotting my untimely demise by way of extra spicy food.

Anyway… I am going towards the front to obtain my chopsticks, Diet Pepsi to go and to pay.  When I notice the gaggle of them standing there… looking my way…. giggling like school girls…    The skank at the cash register keeps covering her mouth and saying “sorry, sorry.”

Now the next phase of pissing me off at the tastiest place in Oak Ridge is as follows:

Don’t you expect to get a friggin fortune cookie when you have Chinese food?  I mean, you eat in, they bring you the bill with a fortune cookie.  You call for take-out, you go pick up and pay, in the bag you get your fortune cookie.

Well, not here. I think it’s just this guy’s way to annoy me.  A kind of battle of the wits.  He ain’t giving me no fortune cookie unless I ask for the fortune cookie.  And even then, it’s iffy if the fucker puts it in the bag. 

I’d start screaming to give me my fortune cookie or I’m going across the street to Wok ‘n’ Roll.  But those guys suck big balls and I hate their food, generally greasy as hell and cold…. but they give Diva her fortune cookie without her having to beg.