Wednesday Lunch at McDonald's

NOTE: FOUR PICTURES THAT WERE TO ACCOMPNAY THIS POSTING ARE NOT ATTACHING FOR SOME REASON.

(UPDATE 3:00am Thursday (7:00 Mpls. time Wed.)

IT SEEMS TO BE FIXED FOR NOW, BUT I AM NOT STAYING UP TO WRITE. I THINK YOU UNDERSTAND. NOTE THAT MY BODY IS STILL HAVING A HARD TIME ADAPTING TO THE TIME CHANGE. LOVELY.

I justify the following as international research on my journey. The McDonald’s Comparison Review.

I wandered outside the walls of the Old City today. You have to remember that Jerusalem is much much bigger than just the enclosed, ancient, bazaar-lined, cobblestone, archway-covered streets in the walled part of town. The entire town spreads for a number of miles North, West, and South of the ancient capital. From what minor exploring I’ve done, you go in these other areas and if it weren’t for the omnipresent Hebrew language on the signs, you’d think you were in Boston or New York. The neighborhoods only date back a century or so, and have commercial storefronts like any east-coast U.S. city.

As long as I was out, I figured I’d be very non-exotic and check out a Middle Eastern McDonald’s. There are signs for the Golden Arches, and the stores are just as modern and colorful as any American place. Of course, the menu signs take a little getting used to since they are only in Hebrew (I had a great picture of this too). It’s pretty much picture-identification.

In review, I can tell you that the Quarter Pounder tasted much more like Burger King's "Whopper". The meat tasted fine, but not like the McDonald’s at home. (Actually, a little better, if truth be told. Drier, leaner.) And they put on lettuce and tomato, and a kind of thousand-island-ish dressing. Not the same recipe with which some of us might be familiar.

Other than those differences, the biggest one I noted was the security guard at the front glass-door who stopped me as I went in, eye-balled my backpack, and asked me, “Any bombs or guns in your bag, sir?”

Don’t you just hate that when they always bug you about that at fast-food places? It gets so old when you just want to walk in and grab a burger. He then proceeded to go through my backpack carefully before I could head toward the counter.

Can you imagine bringing a bomb into a fast-food place? Wow. Yes, maybe here, in the Middle East with the political dynamics and all, I guess. Or at ANY Taco Bell, I could understand…………