Wispa vs. Hershey's

Evening, gentle readers. No travels today, I'm afraid, just a little rambling about food. Before that, though, let me advertise this.

Besides the thesis films, I've been getting some agonizing emails from the Film department about the amazing speakers and events happening this semester. Clearly, the excitement is scheduled my term abroad in order to punish me for something terrible I've done, like enjoying Glee. As the calendar steadily marches towards May, Wes and the States are more and more in my mind, and sometimes not in a good way. Writing this sentence, I hear, I swear, a cow mooing from out my window mixed with the rhythmic echo of surf breaking on the sand. Albany is vastly superior to the Nics. But, then again, just last night and suddenly, a slow-kindled patriotism within me awoke - to defend our American chocolate.

Vending machines are kind of problematic in Scotland. You don't know any of the brands, and you can only sometimes and only vaguely surmise from the wrapper what kind of sweet it is. And so, if you're cheap like me, you certainly don't want to sink 60p into some unknown confection called Bubbles. Inevitably you end up with Twix or Starbursts or some other Atlantic crossover. I've learned to trust anything put out by McVitie's, and I fully intend on smuggling at least 10 rolls of Digestives through customs. McCoy's are the best of the chrisps (chips) I've sampled, but I haven't really been adventurous in terms of my chocolate, except for that one time I tried the really nice Lindt bar with chili filling of Rebecca's. So last night at the Union, admittedly beginning to feel about seven quid's worth of beverages, when I was told that "Americans don't know how to make chocolate," I responded - not belligerently, or anything - and I held a surprising amount of ground for a soul that quails at confrontation and usually equivocates in the face of it, to the point where Stuart actually bought me a Wispa bar so that I might acknowledge that eating a Kiss is really like chewing Shame and swallowing the Tears of Pennsylvania orphans.

For the record, the Wispa was good. It had a nice texture, a nice, smooth milk chocolate, but it didn't distinguish itself profoundly from the competition in my mind. St. Andrews is a demonstratively better place than Middletown because it has a castle, and a beach, and more than two bars. But Wispa is about on par with Hershey's, so when you go to the UK, internet, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. That said, the food in the UK is abused abominably, and it's not at all bad. In fact, I think I've eaten better here and for less than at Wes, although being self-catered and splitting meals with decent and even quite good cooks (I definitely fall on the decent end of the spectrum) probably has something to do with it.

In other news, I've been finishing the reading I started over spring break (another thing delaying my backlog of travel reports) and I'm almost sad to put down Ben Franklin's autobiography, although I'm well rid of Mansfield Park. I definitely need to pick up more Solzhenitsyn after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which was draining but one of the best things I've read in a while. Certainly one of the best things I've read recently that was written after 1920.

In terms of Television, I thought that LOST last week was middling, The Office more on its game (I'm glad we've all decided to acknowledge that Erin's weird, but I hope we're approaching the limits of it), 30 Rock as sharp as ever - I need to memorize Liz's dodge ball speech in case I'm ever asked what I want - and Treme an exhausting keeper. It makes me wonder after David Simon's health if this outing is lighter than the Wire. Besides an hilarious unfortunate incident involving Darren's mattress, which I cannot comment too fully on because he hasn't discovered it yet, not much else to write home about. I've got two wispa bars, a bag of M&Ms, and 80 pages of Ibn Jubayr to get through tonight. Wish me luck.