When living abroad, a little taste of American familiarity can be found under the golden arches of McDonald's. After a "night on the town" in Playa de las Canteras (pictured below) my husband and I were craving a sweet flavor from home. We had been living on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria while my husband was playing professional volleyball for a club team in Las Palmas. Scroll down for the journal entry of our adventure to find a McDonald's.
14 November 1993: Domingo
...after dinner we got this crazy idea to go to the new McDonald's that just opened by Canteras beach to get milkshakes. Figuring it was somewhere on the "upper" end, the basic "hub" of Canteras, we drove there and began walking along the board-walk. We didn't see a McDonald's anywhere, so we asked a security guard if he knew (supposedly, it had only been open for one week). Nope, no clue. He told us to ask the girl at the Hotel across the way. Nope, she too had no clue (don't these Spaniards keep up with the latest American food news!?). So, as we walked away from the hotel, I saw a bunch of kids and thought, "kids! They have to know where McDonald's is!" We approached a little boy on a bike and asked "where is McDonald's?" (¿donde estas McDonald's?). He said, "¿McDonald's? Ah! Right down there!" (in Spanish, of course) pointing down the board-walk. It was kinda far, but we thought "what the heck!? We'll walk." We were just happy the kid knew where it was! After walking, and walking, and walking...no McDonald's. We believed it would pop up, those golden arches any second, so we kept walking. Finally, we came up to the area the kid described and...there it was! "Max Daniel's!" He sent us to the WRONG place! An imposter!!! However, we continued to walk. (Canteras is a long beach, trust me!). I was getting a little tired and my feet were achy (because I had my fancy boots on)...but we were determined! Well, we saw in the far off distance, a bunch of cars driving by what looked like a "mall" structure. We thought, "that had to be it!" although, much further away! We continued to walk until we couldn't go any further. The boardwalk dead-ended! We were so close, yet so far away (I think). So, we about-faced and headed back the way we came.
About 1/3 the way, I had to stop! My feet were killing me! I could feel blisters coming on my toes! So, we sat for a short descanso (break). Then, up and back we went! Right by our car, we popped into a little cafe and bought two 60 peseta "Kalise" popsicles to quench our hot and dry mouths! They were my favorites! (I illustrated one of them in my journal entry, shown below!).
Anyway, still being determined to find this new McDonald's, we set off by car. Guess what! After walking 2 miles up and back down the boardwalk (I'm guessing the distance), we discovered it wasn't even on the boardwalk! It was close to the Chinese restaurant we had just eaten at earlier!!! We could have walked from the restaurant a couple of blocks to the new McDonald's! Ah! But, we did find it. It was packed, of course, even though it was now midnight and hot inside - filled with Spaniards yearning for Big Macs and Jurassic Park meal deals for 700 pesetas!!! We waited patiently, ordered our chocolate and vanilla shakes, paid 500 pesetas and left to go back to our car.
Our quest was over...we were drinking our McDonald's shakes.
When we finally got home, I had two big blood blisters on both my "lazy man" toes from walking so far in my pointy-toed boots. Was it worth the pain and 500 pesetas? YES, dammit! (smiley face) It was a beautiful night.
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