Moscow, Russia
So lunch at the Moscow office is…interesting. A little after 1:00pm it’s announced that it’s time to go to lunch. Then my group (all 4 of us) goes down to the cafeteria to eat together. The choices are plentiful. You can choose to have or not to have the soup. You can then choose to have or not to have the main course (for example a piece of meat, potatoes, and vegetables). Then you get to choose whether or not to have dessert (fruit).
I’ve never seen people eat so fast. Lunch only takes about 15 minutes. Kind of like speed dating, you have 5 minutes with Course #1, quickly move onto course #2, etc. I can’t keep up! I’ve never been a fast eater. Ask my mom. I was always the last one at the dinner table. In order to be able to finish at remotely the same time as them, I skip the soup and take ‘dessert’ to my desk. It seems to work.
I also feel a lot of pressure to eat everything on my plate. Every last bite. Again, not one of my strengths. When I don’t finish everything, they look at me and wait. It’s really hard when they give you a pound of cauliflower or grisly pieces of meat with a greenish tint (Wednesday’s delicacy). I tried so hard to eat it all, but I just can’t. I’ve started using childhood tricks like covering them up with my napkin. I have not (yet) resorted to secretly piling them on to someone else’s plate.
There are no restaurants close by and no refrigerators to bring your own lunch. There is no escaping the lunchroom.
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