Hello fellow lions! Welcome back to my blog! I hope everyone had a wonderful spring break!
This spring break I had the amazing opportunity to go to Greece! This was due to me being in an embedded course (CAMS 25U), which unfortunately will not be offered next spring semester due to the Munns retiring. However, Penn State offers a ton of different embedded courses that go to places all over the world and I wholeheartedly recommend enrolling in one. Here is the link to the Penn State study abroad application website, which you should all check out! http://gpglobalea.gp.psu.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.SimpleSearch
Now you’re probably wondering why I am even mentioning this since this is a food blog. Well I wanted to shake things up a bit this week. I am still going to be talking about food, but this time I am going to be talking about food in Greece!
Okay, not going to lie, this might just end up being a rant about how much better the food is over there. What can I say, the Europeans have us beat.
First, I want to stress how much cheaper the food is. Like a super fancy meal that could go for twenty to thirty dollars here would only be about six euros over there.
There was this one time that a couple of us went out to eat in a town called Nafplio and the prices were so low that we all thought we were ordering individual pizzas. (Spoiler alert: they were not individual pizzas) We were really shocked when we ended up with five pizzas. Thank God that the restaurant offered boxes, which is rare in Europe. Here is a video of us trying to eat all of this food (featuring the lovely Kayla with the background vocals)
Another thing I want to stress is just how good everything was. It was all just so fresh and seasoned and I cannot even express how amazing literally everything was. There was not a single meal were someone was dissatisfied with their food. (Unless there was a dietary need that was not met due to the language barrier, but that only really happened once) We all ended up sharing our individual entrees because we needed to experience the greatness of it all.
However, I want to remind everyone to be mindful of what they are putting in their bodies when they’re going abroad. Some foods from other places may contain things that are more acidic or rich than your body is used too. For example, DO NOT EAT DOLMATHAKIA!!! Every single person who ate that ended up getting extreme food poisoning. I may or may not have accidentally desecrated a national monument. I seriously do not recommend consuming this food. My one friend, who went to Greece a few years back, warned me about dolmathakia. I ended up completely forgetting, and totally regretted it later. Seriously, unless you are used to eating it, if someone offers you stuffed grape leaves with rice and herbs, turn them down right away. It may taste good, but you will regret it.
On that positive note, I want to end this by emphasizing that everyone should study abroad before they graduate. Even if it is just for a week like I did (though I fully plan on going back for a full semester) it really is an incredible experience that everyone should have at least once in their life. You meet so many wonderful and interesting people, and learn so many new things. I know I sound like a brochure right now, but going abroad is absolutely worth it.