The olden days

My BBFBDGF's (Best Beloved First Born Daughter's Good Friend) S Is over for a sleepover tonight. MBH was doing her stuff so I took the kids out for dinner. All 4 of them. We went to our local Japanese restaurant. The little ones wanted Sushi, Prawn Tempura and some Udon noodles. All 4 of them. Even MLO (My Little One) who is not yet 2 years old. How comfortable they all feel with food originating from an island 10,000km away that isolated itself from the rest of the world for much of human history.

Got me thinking about how different my life was growing up in a small, isolated, country on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Only 2,500km away lies the big boot of Italy. And still, I first tasted mozzarella when I was 20. My sophisticated palette couldn't tell it apart from polystyrene.

Not sure how I feel about it. Ambivalent I guess. It was great for me, but would I wish it for my kids [under the hypothetical and false assumption that the way I grew up is still out there]? On the one hand, in many respects things were simpler back then. Isolation breeds simplicity. On the other, isolation also brings misguided certainties and, with them, future disillusionment.

It is clearly a sign of my old age that I am often thinking about the olden days [for my kids that is anything last century, and just to remind us all, by that I am not referring to the 19th century]. I feel like I am going to come back to them olden days in future posts. Hopefully with something more substantial to say.

PS 735km down. 165km to go.