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Wednesday 11 June 2014

A Few Beers

Every time we travel, Rick and I have a tradition when we visit a country; we always try the beer. This wouldn't be unusual except that we have never been beer drinkers, not even when we were in university. Beer is unusual for us. When we do imbibe, it is usually a glass of wine, red for Rick, white for me. 

We tried a variety of beer on this trip and they all got our seal of approval. Then again, we don't have very refined palates for beer. We read some negative reviews of some of the beer we tried but we liked them. We've discovered something that many people have known forever; there is nothing better than a cold beer on a hot day.

Then there's Morocco. As a Muslim country, alcohol consumption is forbidden among the people. However, unlike some Muslim countries, they do serve beer to visitors in their hotels. This started me thinking.

What is it like for the staff to serve alcohol when they don't drink it? Do they wonder what it's like? Have they tried it? Do they feel public/family pressure not to drink if they have tried it? Do they think that it's a waste of money? What do they think when they see some of us get drunk or tipsy? 

In the western world, we often have issues with our teenagers and alcohol. Getting your teenager through adolescence and young adulthood can be difficult. A lot depends on the young person and the friends s/he chooses. Parents approach the issue in different ways. We gave our daughter a way out of situations when she was young by using us as an excuse as to why she couldn't do things others might have been doing. Then as she got older we taught responsible behavior with respect to drinking. When she went off to university, we hoped we had done our job well enough.

What do Moroccan parents do? Do they only teach abstinence from alcohol? Is alcohol available to Moroccans at all? If not, as the Moroccans say, "No problem."

                           Relaxing in Seville

Meanwhile, we're headed to Portugal with more beer to try. Saude!

PostScript:  The beer, Superbock, in Lisbon is really good too.


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