milk in the bag

Listening to NPR the other day, they were talking about the 20th anniversary of the first opening of McDonalds in Moscow. People waited in line for an hour, and were taken aback by how friendly the staff was (they had been trained to smile nonstop - Soviets definitely not used to that). Many people said they didn't like the food; it wasn't Russian enough.

It reminded me of my own McDonald's memory. Many, in fact. I remember waiting in that long line, and seeing people in their Sunday best going out for a meal there after church. The people eating hamburgers layer by layer - the bun, the lettuce, the meat. They'd never had a hamburger before.

What I really remember, though, was going to the McDonald's factory on a fieldtrip and seeing the milk bagged. Seeing the milk put in bags.

In Russia, at this point, fresh milk wasn't something to be relied on. When Stockmann's, the Finnish grocery store, had it, we would buy several bottles and freeze all but one (as previously mentioned - obviously had a big impact on me and my memories). The other option, in the early post-Soviet years, was McDonald's milk. I don't remember where we bought it, but it was from a store, not from the restaurant. It would come in this white plastic bag with "McDonalds" written diagonally in a pale orange. At home, we would cut open a sliver in the top, and place the whole bag in a pitcher, to be put in the fridge.

Just thinking about that fridge brings so much to mind.

We had a tv on top of it. Sitting at the kitchen table watching the news when Princess Diana died.

Our cat Spike would lie on the ground in front of it because it gave off so much heat.

I thought "Fridgerator" was what it was called, and my American teacher thought that maybe I was British and this is what we called them.