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By anthonyscheergwu

Everyone has different reasons for traveling, for me, I usually travel for food. This is why I'm going to dedicate this post to American cuisine.

But before I would like to talk about this little promise I made to myself when I was about 10. Myanmar at that time had no internationally recognized fast food chains in the country and therefore, to eat McDonald's I would have to leave the country; and as a 10 year old, persuading your parents to leave the country for a burger usually had the same outcome as talking to a wall. Therefore at that age I promised myself that the minute I arrive in the US I would try as many American fast food chains as possible.

And so here it is my critic of the great American cuisine.

McDonalds:

Rating: 2.5/5

In France Mcdonald is simply delicious. You can see families going there to enjoy the good food and atmosphere. In America, Mcdonalds is not the same. It's super cheap compared to France but I realized why. The beef patties area super flat and dry, the bread seems stale and overall, even though America is the birthplace of the Big Mac, it’s probably the country that makes the worst one. I wouldn’t recommend Mcdonald's here unless it's 3 in the morning and you want to eat a 1 dollar McChicken which actually isn't so bad.

Chik-Fil-A:

Rating: 4.5/5

For years now, I’ve seen post about the chik-fil-a signature burger with just bread, pickles, chicken and sauce, and for years I kept thinking that a burger that simple can’t be that good. And well, I was right. Their signature burger is not special it has no remarkable flavor and I was disappointed and ready to give this chain a bad rating. But I give it another chance and ordered some different types of burgers and I must say those are delicious (royal spicy sandwich). Also, the fries dipped in the chik-fil-a sauce is probably the flavor I will miss the most when I leave the US, so yeah go to chik-fil-a, get fries and anything but their signature burger, and you won’t regret it.

Shake Shack

Rating: 4.5/5

Shake Shack has the best burger in terms of taste. The burger is a great mix of juicy and crispy, the cheese is completely melted and it just makes a super savory burger. The first couple of bites are delicious, but the burger is so packed and oily that by the end it’s too much and I never enjoy the last bites. All in all, it is definitely the best beef burger you can find compared to all the other fast food chains I’ve tasted.

Burger King:

Rating: 3.5/5

Good burger and fries, but nothing exceptionally different. Worth noting that you can get 10 chicken nuggets for 1 dollar.

Five Guys:

Rating: 4/5

Go-to fast food chain when I’m super hungry. The food is great and doesn’t feel too oily. I love that they let you personalize the burger to your liking with the extensive choice of toppings they offer.

In-n-out

Rating: 4/5

In-n-out just felt like a better and more old school version of McDonald's. I was expecting so much from this chain, and flew to the West coast to try it, but I was relatively disappointed. The whole meal was very basic, and because I was expecting something exceptional I was disappointed by my over-expectations. However I liked the short menu (it felt like the old school American experience) and taking prices into account, In-n-out definitely has the best price to quality ratio.

Dominos

Rating: 3/5

The type of pizza you eat with ketchup.

Other worthy mentions:

KFC: 3/5

Arby’s: 3.5/5

Jack in the box: 3.5/5

Taco Bell: 2/5

I wanted to keep going and trying more of these chains, but I’m officially not a fan of fast food anymore. I find myself craving food from Roti more than any of the chains mention above nowadays, so I’m happy that I did this experiment because I am now sick of fast food.

*I know there is more to American food than Fast Food, but for this post I wanted to focus on these chains because America is where they were all created.

By baharmahzari

After my quite serious and long blog entry last week, this week will be much lighter – I promise. In fact, this will probably be the first time, where I report from my time in DC and at GW from as a proper tourist. The reason? It is simple, I am actually spending all my time with two tourists right now – my friends from Germany. The day of the 25th anniversary of German reunification (10/03/2015) was chosen to have very own little reunion. Well, okay, them being here on such a symbolic day is only a coincidence, but still a very ironic one. Their timing was great or maybe not so much considering that they are here during my Midterm week. We will see how that plays out.

Since they will only stay in DC for a couple of days before we take off to the Big Apple aka New York City, I felt huge pressure on me to show them everything. Initially my goal was to be the best tour guide they ever had. However, my wish was crushed after I noticed that myself is still a bit of a tourist in this city after we jumped into the Red Line going into the opposite direction of our destination twice. I also forgot the way to Shake Shack so that we ended up walking the biggest detour ever shake shack
I like to be positive though, so to look for the silver lining at least they saw much of DC that way. Plus, we had a lot of time to talk.

It is a strange feeling; I’m not going to lie, to walk around with friends from my hometown back in Germany in DC. Walking around with people from Maastricht is different. I just share a different connection to them. My friends from Cologne are people I grew up with. They have witnessed all my good and bad days, have gone through crazy times with me and seen me change and grow. People from Maastricht only know the Bahar of the last two years. They do not know all of me. So having my friends from Cologne here is a strange feeling, because it creates an even stronger bond between us. Now they witness me being here. They can experience some of the things I encounter during my time in DC themselves now. It is not only me telling them about all my experiences as it was the case after my exchange year 6 years ago. They understand me better now and it makes us feel even closer to each other.

Hurricane Joaquin or lets rather say what one could feel from Hurricane Joaquin in DC was not the best sightseeing weather. We still did not let go of the chance to walk passed Obama’s little cabin and take a typical tourist selfie in front of it white house touris.

If shopping counts as some form of sightseeing, too, then we also did a lot of that in Georgetown– according to my friends even too much since they might be broke by now. The bucket list for places my friends have to see has still some important things on it:

 

The National Mall.

Eastern Market and H Street.

U Street with dinner at Ben’s Chili Bowl.

The Pentagon.

Georgetown Cupcakes & the Waterfront.

El Chuco.

 

We also walked around the GW campus, which apparently has inspired my friends a lot. They really want to buy a GW sweater now. They are showing full on college spirit.

It is great to have them here. Now I can share my enthusiasm about DC and GW with them directly instead of only awkwardly talking to them via Skype, which 90% of the time consists only of me asking: “Do you guys hear me?”

Being here they hear me clearly and they can see and experience for themselves. They like DC and are very happy. We all are. The major reason is probably that we are together with DC being the icing on the cake.