Sustenance

As anyone who as ever started a new budget or decided to go on a diet can tell you, it takes some time for the new lifestyle to sink in.  In my efforts to drive down my cost of living, this was true for me on several levels.  First, generally speaking, when I arrive in a foreign land with an unfamiliar unit of currency, it usually takes me at least a week to know without calculation what's expensive and what's a bargain.  Fresh off the plane from Dubai, I walked into a restaurant around lunchtime, looked over the menu, and ordered some chicken fingers at a price of 300 rupees.  This was in the middle range of the prices on the menu so I trusted that it was not exorbitant.  In contrast, after a month in the country I now know well the value of my rupee and yesterday found a sandwich stand that sells gigantic veggie burgers for 30 rupees.   In addition to internalizing the value of my money, there is also the significant issue of impulse control that must be dealt with.  I am a man who likes a nice beer with his eggs in the morning.  I like a well appointed restaurant with a menu that excites the imagination.  I like to look over a wine list and find varietals with which I'm familiar.  This is the life to which I have grown accustomed and I find it oddly challenging to tell myself: "Stan, I'm sorry, that's just not your life anymore."

One month later, I find I'm getting better at this.  In the mornings I wander the streets, drawn pleasantly away from the tourist highways, alert for moment when the perfect bakery will present itself, one that will offer me a gigantic pastry, the like of which I've never seen, baked fresh, and served to me standing at the counter with a hot cup of tea for the price of 0.40 USD.  At lunchtime, I delight in wandering into roadside shacks in which not one word of English is spoken and arranging with minor difficulty for a few samosas or chapati at a price of less than 0.50 USD.  For dinner, if I'm particularly hungry that day, I make the walk down to my favorite Tibetan restaurant that serves Chicken Chili Momos for 1.25 USD and am served a heaping bowl of delicious, healthy, beautiful sustenance that leaves me wondering why again I thought I needed a nice rare rib-eye steak served with a Napa Cabernet.

Of course, I still love to have a drink in a bar with a friend and I find I value this simple, silly little affectation too much to let go of entirely.  A drink in an enviting atmosphere costs as much as a night's stay in my dusty hotel, but last night I bought two of them with no hesitation because I had the good fortune to share those drinks, and the time and conversation that was included in their price, with a rare and lovely person who I will likely never see again.  These moments are too dear to me to give up and although the voice of my newfound ascetic temperment might attempt to challenge the value of that exchange, I can't bring myself to count it as a fault.