McIndia in Italy

Ciao Bloggisti!

Everyone have a good weekend? Hope so. I just got back from a weekend in Liguria, a sort of cottage country for the Milanese. So with all the traffic, pit stops and toddler crises, it basically took us 5 hours to travel 200 km. But we did manage to relax a bit on the beach on Saturday and the kids had a great time. We even went to a local festival, a sagra, where they served inexpensive local food and a very cheesy band playing polka and the Village People. I’ll post more about that some other time.

To add to our culinary adventures, on our way back from Liguria we stopped for lunch at McDonald’s on the highway. It’s become a sort of family tradition. Even if I’ve lived here for over 10 years, I still need that dose of McDs once in a while. You can take a girl out of Scarborough….

Speaking of which, after we made the long, hot trek from the parking lot to the restaurant, I took a look inside and thought I was back home. The place was full of my people, i.e Indians, South Asians, etc. I have to admit I was taken aback. Despite the recent influx of immigrants to Italy, you still don’t see too many people of Indian origin around. So to find the McDonald’s full of them was odd, but in a good way. I guess they were a busload of tourists on a lunch break, sampling the local cuisine ; ) I took the opportunity to point out to my daughter the lovely salwar kameez and saris the women were wearing. She was thrilled to see all the colourful shawls and the people who looked more like Mommy.

So, to further Indian-Italian relations, I’d like to share this clip from comic Russell Peters (who happens to be Canadian). Slightly crude but all in good fun.

(Warning: nsfw)