Yesterday I signed on the dotted line for the flat I’ll be staying in from January until the end of April. I’m subrenting it from a retired Uraguayan painter who’s spending the winter with her relatives back home. Because she was having a hard time finding someone to fit this precise four-month window, which through sheer good luck happens to be my four-month window as well, I’ve got a pretty good deal.
It’s in an neighbourhood I’ve never been to before, but it looks interesting. There are students everywhere, a couple of small bookshops, a chocolate shop which sells confectionary of such extravagance that the first time I walked past the window I thought it was a jewellers, and some traditional-looking cafés and restaurants alongside the compulsary kebab shops and trendy bars.
Best of all, there’s a British/Irish pub with quiz nights on Tuesday and across the street an English supermarket. Well, it’s not really a supermarket, it’s just two rooms, but it sells all manner of English culinary specialities. Not just your Marmite and your Worcestershire Sauce, either. These people have gone the whole way. Tyrrell’s crisps, Lyon’s golden syrup, custard powder, an impressive variety of teas and real ales.
The main ingredient of Worcestershire Sauce: Englishness
It’s pricey though. A box of Yorkshire Tea, RRP £2.99, will set you back €5.70. A £1.29 bottle of Worcestershire Sauce costs €2.40. That’s a 100% markup. The question is, how much will I be willing to pay for a taste of home? In other words: just how much do I love my country?
U R A Gayian = MEGALOLZ
ReplyDeleteWhen Alex was in Iceland he demanded that everyone he knew send him a box of Yorkshire tea. Apparently some people actually fell for this, but typically he failed to capitalise on it...however you are in the perfect position to do just that, by undercutting the shop and selling stuff for only a 50% markup! Bam!
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