Another international trip, another pizza failure

When you’re away from home traveling, you yearn for something familiar. Something you’ve known all your life. Something you know -- without a shadow a shadow of a doubt -- will be delicious. 
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For my lovely wife Abby, that “something” is pizza. Pizza is a safe bet. How can you mess up pizza? Luckily for myself and not so luckily for Abby, we’ve found out how horribly wrong ordering pizza in a non-pizza country can go.

And so a tradition begins...
Our first big trip together was Iceland in 2016. We had been exploring the Golden Circle all day when we happened upon a restaurant in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Thought everywhere in Iceland feels like the middle of nowhere.

We pulled in our rental car so tired. We’d been up for 36 hours without sleep. Now, at the tail end of our day, we were relieved to find a restaurant.

We walked in and were greeted by a waitress, who led us to a table. The restaurant was empty. It seems they had a wild game buffet that had just ended. That broke my heart. I wanted to eat something local, but settled into the fact that it wasn’t happening that night.

Abby happily ordered a four-cheese pizza. Puzzled, I said “Why would you order a pizza in Iceland? It’s not like Iceland is known for its pizza.” She explained that it was the only thing on the menu that she wanted. I ordered some meat-covered pizza.

What I received was completely passable as a meat lovers pizza. Not great. But passable. What my poor wife received was an absolute abomination.

The four cheeses on her pizza were pepper jack, cheddar, mozzarella and something else we couldn't identify. It was awful. So awful in fact, that she choked down a piece then ordered $20 soup, which she ended up loving.

Ever the Ohioan, she still took the remaining pizza back to our AirBnb.

The tradition continues…
Fast forward to 2017. We’re in Old Havana seated outside Cafe Paris --  a tourist restaurant along the Obispo. Abby -- not learning from her lesson in Iceland -- ordered a margarita pizza. 

I looked over at her like “We’re not in a pizza country.” And she looked back at me with a “It’ll be fine glance.”

What came out was a not a pizza any American could identify. It was some soggy dough, covered in catsup with some cheese on top. Oh wait, there’s more. The “cooks” added ¼ slices of tomatoes to each quarter of the pizza. 
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The taste, as you might expect, was dreadful. I found it VERY funny, my wife did not.

On and on it goes…
Our tradition took a slight deviation on our 2018 trip to Bermuda. 

We ordered a couple pizzas from a place near our AirBnB. Like everything in Bermuda, the pizzas were unGodly expensive -- $50 for 2 mediums. Ouch. 

But the pizzas were delicious. Did we break our pizza curse? Nope. I later found out that I used up $50 worth of minutes on my travel phone while on hold for the pizza place.

A total cost of $100 to order two medium pizzas. The curse continues. 

Do you have any travel problems that you ALWAYS seem to run into? Comment below and let me know!

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