Well the thing I most commonly do when I'm here on my own is eat random cuisines that I don't get the chance to at home.
When I say random, I mean a cuisine that can transport me back to somewhere I've been before in a semi-nostalgic fashion.
And I do this when I'm alone, because it's really comforting. It also provides a great escape from English, particularly when one is concentrating really really hard on the language and how best to impart it to others in the most meaningful way possible all day long. Sometimes the only way to stop this brain -jam is to go into an environment where English is not the native language and you'll most probably find people speaking something else, be it the language of the food's home country or the language of the table-staff (very seldom English*).
Generally speaking, the cuisine of choice for this culinary trip down memory lane/escapesville is Vietnamese. I can't eat Vietnamese food at home, I love Vietnamese food and I love it in London because I'll almost certainly be able to get a veggie-version.
If the chef is Vietnamese and the venerable old chap who brings bowls of stuff up to the open kitchen is Vietnamese then that's enough for me. If the people who sit at the next table are also Vietnamese so I can sit and listen to their mild soft-squawks (that is what the language sounds like, I'm sorry...) and remember being surrounded by this on busy roads while I burrow into my Bún, then I'm so very happy.
Even the addition of the waiting staff all being Spanish and, as such, communicating in that language gave an extra level of relaxation to the whole experience. I asked for the bill in Spanish as I had nobody to ask for it from in Tieng Viet (I was still quite chuffed with myself for being able to remember).
Basically I got to switch off, eat great food and do nothing ELT related for 40 minutes. Brilliant.
*this is commentary, not judgement; for all you reactionists.
When I say random, I mean a cuisine that can transport me back to somewhere I've been before in a semi-nostalgic fashion.
And I do this when I'm alone, because it's really comforting. It also provides a great escape from English, particularly when one is concentrating really really hard on the language and how best to impart it to others in the most meaningful way possible all day long. Sometimes the only way to stop this brain -jam is to go into an environment where English is not the native language and you'll most probably find people speaking something else, be it the language of the food's home country or the language of the table-staff (very seldom English*).
Generally speaking, the cuisine of choice for this culinary trip down memory lane/escapesville is Vietnamese. I can't eat Vietnamese food at home, I love Vietnamese food and I love it in London because I'll almost certainly be able to get a veggie-version.
If the chef is Vietnamese and the venerable old chap who brings bowls of stuff up to the open kitchen is Vietnamese then that's enough for me. If the people who sit at the next table are also Vietnamese so I can sit and listen to their mild soft-squawks (that is what the language sounds like, I'm sorry...) and remember being surrounded by this on busy roads while I burrow into my Bún, then I'm so very happy.
Even the addition of the waiting staff all being Spanish and, as such, communicating in that language gave an extra level of relaxation to the whole experience. I asked for the bill in Spanish as I had nobody to ask for it from in Tieng Viet (I was still quite chuffed with myself for being able to remember).
Basically I got to switch off, eat great food and do nothing ELT related for 40 minutes. Brilliant.
*this is commentary, not judgement; for all you reactionists.
