Snapshots of Starbucks

The muffins taste the same, the coffee tastes the same. A little piece of America, or London, depending on my mood. No purple sofas, but the chairs are so comfortable, the décor so tasteful with its as yet untarnished wood flooring, that I can let that go.

American kids take pictures of themselves and their frappuccinos, high-fiving each other, exclaiming loudly about how great it all is.

Good-looking guys who would not look out of place in DC have what I presume to be an intelligent conversation, just within my eyesight.

The barista thanks me for being a good customer when I don't express the depths of my disappointment at the lack of wifi. (It helps that I've been prewarned.)

My friend Kyle and his wife Amy come over and say hi. "I'll be spending some time here," he says, and I wonder if I'll be bumping into him a lot, if I will become friends with "regulars", if it might be time to bring out the "I <3 Democrat Boys" tshirt, just in case one of those regulars turns out to be a Josh Lyman far away from home.

The staff are polite, smiling, efficient. They greet each of us in three languages, including British English: I'm asked if I want my coffee "to take away". It's the little things.

At 9.25 they cheer together at a job well done, the first successful day over.

They kick us out, still polite, still smiling, at 9.30.

Quirky things about Belgium: Starbucks?!

Yes. It's really true. There's really going to be a Starbucks somewhere other than the airport (and I've long argued that while it's great to start a holiday with a celebratory blueberry muffin and tall latté, if you're at the airport, you're probably going somewhere that has plenty of Starbucks - ie, just about anywhere else in the world).

Okay, yes, there is also one in Antwerp, but that's also a long way to go for coffee.

The choice of venue baffles me somewhat, though - they're going for Gare Centrale, which in many ways is the worst of the main stations: its design is the nicest, but it feels dirty, frequently unsafe, and yes, it smells. The more recently renovated Gare du Midi might make more sense, particularly with the Eurostar terminal being there. (And the fact that I go through it more, and they would therefore make a lot more money.)

At the airport, the coffee and the muffins taste exactly as they do in the UK (not as they do in the US, where the muffins are different, but that's another story, and since I'm from the UK, that's fine with me), and the décor is reassuringly familiar too. The price is high, though, and the service slow - or maybe it just seems slow because I'm usually rushing to get the plane I'm late for. At peak hours, in Penn Station in New York someone comes to take your order while you're queuing, but I'm under no illusions about that happening in the Capital of Inefficiency.

I'm also unconvinced that Starbucks-style opening hours will be in operation: seven days a week, 6.30 am to 9 pm (for example) seems unlikely. It would be lovely to imagine that someone has realised that demand is actually likely to be higher at weekends, when most people are likely to have a lot of time to kill given that most middle-distance trains are hourly (yes - hourly), and that in those long stretches of time reading a paper in a comfortable chair rather than sitting on the cold, forbidden steps is likely to appeal. This logic, though, is profoundly unBelgian.

Here's the thing with Starbucks, too. I don't think I so much want one: I've lived here long enough now that the latte cravings have dulled substantially. It's not that I want their gourmet coffee (because, as Belgians will probably be quick to tell you, and as I used to claim myself, it's not really coffee anyway), it's the convenience of their ubiquity that I miss. I want to know that I will be passing one wherever I go, the whole no-time-for-breakfast-I'll-grab-coffee-on-the-way thing, obviating the need for my now dying thermos thingy that I religiously fill with home-made coffee every day (or long discussion in places like Exki where I try to explain I would like a lot of coffee, and a lot of warm milk, all together, but I will mix it myself). And that seems a way off yet.

But, lest you think I do not welcome this development, I do. I really do. If it were not 2 am I would, in fact, be dancing for joy.

You've got 90s Nostalgia and Dial-up Internet

Ah... You've got mail. I remember thinking last time I watched it about a hundred years ago that it was a film I really ought to have loved, but I didn't, not quite.

Well, I've got more emotional in my old age, and I welled up a couple of times, but again... unconvinced. I get that they fall in love online. After all, I was gutted when Mark from Columbus stopped messaging me back - I was developing a crush on him, his style of writing, the way he thought. And if you've been paying any attention at all, you will know that I profess to be in love with a man I have never met, although I know an awful lot about him through what I've seen and heard and read.

So it's not the falling in love part I object to. It's just the fact that (spoiler alert, by the way) one minute they're fighting and the next minute, ping, he's in love and taking her flowers. No explanation, really. I suppose in a book you could explain that better, the complexity of his thoughts. But unconvincing.

But anyway, it was fun to watch, mostly for the nostalgia. That internet dial up tone. The absence of Harry Potter books in the bookshops. And back then, no guilt, because I'd yet to place my first order with Amazon.

And, of course, New York. Places I tell myself I vaguely recognise, though on closer inspection it's just generic New York I recognise, but that's good enough for me. I love it there - but then you know that, too.

And Starbucks. When I watched this back in whenever it was I probably had never seen a Starbucks, let alone having a clue as to what it would become. (And how desperately I would one day come to miss it...) And I don't think I even fully understood whether they were emailing, instant messaging or what. In my defence, I never had AOL, so it was all a bit confusing: computers didn't talk outside of America back then.

I'll leave you with my favourite quotes, and recommend you watch it, if you too long for the happier, simpler era of the late 90s...

"I could never be with anyone who didn't take politics as seriously as I do." (and you were thinking there would be no mention of the West Wing!)

"People do really stupid things in foreign countries."

"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."

Things I miss, part 1: ready meals, carrot cake and Starbucks

So, I've been here nearly a year already, and there are certain things that inevitably make me think wistfully of home. ("Home" is fairly fluid concept for me, but that's another topic for another day... here I mean England!)

Things like standing in GB (sorry, Carrefour - old habits die hard!) longing for a ready-meal that isn't lasagne or moussaka or pizza with mushrooms on it. Oh for my Pimlico Sainsbury's, with rows and rows of every variation of Indian and Chinese dish at a bargain price. (If I'm going to spend 7 euros on a main course, it probably won't be on a ready meal in the Gare Centrale.)

For any entrepreneurs out there (or just Sainsbury's, if they want to start exporting), that is a definite gap in the market.

Also, while we're on the subject of Sainsbury's, their carrot cake. Any form of English kind of cake, really. I didn't even realise it was English. And yes, I know I could just make it, but if I'm the kind of person with the kind of lifestyle where I miss ready meals, do you think I'm likely to bake?

And, on the subject of cake... and therefore of coffee... (not so tenuous a link as you might imagine...)

Starbucks!!

I know, shame on me. And, to be fair, it's not really Starbucks I miss. If I could have absolute free choice, I would go for Costa. Better coffee, still the comfy chairs, and those white chocolate and raspberry muffins... And less of the American capitalism. Which I mind a lot less these days, and would mind still less if they wanted to invade us with a Starbucks of twelve. It's the ubiquitousness of Starbucks that I miss too. There's always one when you need one, particularly in London, when you are trying to boycott them.

I've found places with relatively comfy chairs (Haagen Dasz near the Grand Place for instance) but what I haven't found is anywhere that serves a decent latté, and/or a coffee that takes more than two sips to drink.

Today, I had two and a half hours to kill and an article on Cadbury (sniff) to write, and all I wanted was a Costa coffee latté.

Anyone know a n y w h e r e I can go with this kind of craving? Other than the airport, I mean, which I am seriously considering paying a visit to, just for a banana nut muffin and a tall latté...