So what's the mystery meat on my plate?

I love to travel, in large part because of the people I get to meet. Take for instance this experience I had last month in Greece. Now in many places in Europe, restaurants advertise by putting a podium with the menu out on the sidewalk. Then when someone stops to look at the menu, the host pops out and he or she tries to convince the person to eat at that establishment. This works really well in places where all of the restaurants and cafes have patio seating – you can see all of the happy people eating the wonderful food. Now some hosts are rather straightforward in their approach and tell you what the chef’s best dish is. Others get creative and chit chat, trying to figure out what you might like to eat. Anyway, each night when I’m in Europe, I love to play the ‘Pick a Restaurant’ game. Wander around, look at a lot of menus and talk to a lot of people before deciding where to eat. In Greece, this wasn’t the easiest thing to do because the Greek alphabet isn’t the same as ours and many of the hosts had a very limited grasp of the English language. It often was a guessing game as to what the menu items were and I was having a blast simply pointing to things and hoping for the best. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised one night when the host who approached me spoke amazing good English. As we spoke, he told me his family had moved to America. Okay, this I had heard over and over again. The 'No jobs, bad economy, hope things are better on the other side of the world' attitude was everywhere. However, it turns out he had traveled to America many times to visit his family – that was a new one. Yup, this was the restaurant for me on that evening. He showed me to a table with a great view of the Acropolis and introduced the waiter. As it was a very slow night with only two or three other tables being occupied, the host wandered over several times during the meal. As we chatted, he told me about his family, about his small village near Mt. Olympus where he grew up and his hopes for the future. I told him about myself. I know I shouldn’t have been, but I was shocked by how similar our backgrounds were. After all, this wasn’t the first time I’ve traveled somewhere and found someone who was raised in a similar way and finds the simple life comforting. Nope, I’ve found it in South America, in Europe, well, all over the world really. Let’s face it – people are people and we all can find common ground. The problem is we often don’t bother to look. So the next time you think you can’t be friends, or even casual acquaintances with someone, just because they seem too different from you – take a big step back. You might be amazed at what you might learn…