What I'm eating

French food – The first day I was here was a national holiday in Venezuela (celebrating an important battle in Venezuelan independence) and my host loves to cook. This is partly due to the time he spent in cooking school in France when he was learning EUS. He invited me to his family’s home and we all cooked, and then ate for several hours. The menu included root vegetables with homemade béchamel sauce and gruyere cheese, vermicelli with homemade pasta sauce (tomatoes, bacon, fresh herbs, etc), a mushroom and beef stew, fresh salad, and grilled pears with homemade chocolate sauce.

Bottled water - even the locals don't drink the tap water.

Coffee - Yep, I'm actually drinking coffee. Venezuelan coffee is really good. I normally hate coffee, but the coffee here is pretty good, especially with a lot of milk and sugar.

Scotch – something else I also don’t like. Granted, I only had one scotch and water, but it was way better than the Dewar’s my grandmothers used to drink.

Arepas - cornmeal rolls that have cheese, meat, or other toppings. Very tasty and available everywhere. A staple.

Empanadas- like the ones in the US, but bigger and made with cornmeal

TGI Fridays – Not kidding. The menu is very similar to to the one at home (I think, as I don’t eat at Fridays but I do see the ads). American food is everywhere. McDonalds, Wendy’s, etc. Today I saw a billboard for a Wendy’s ‘Baconator’. Like the Terminator of all burgers, with bacon.