thatgirlonstage:

alexwildwood:

thatgirlonstage:

thatgirlonstage:

All I really want right now is to be at a theatre in Europe instead of the US so I could buy one of those mini-ice creams at intermission

Update: it’s intermission and all I have is a cliff bar in my bag and I’m sad

European theatres have ice cream? That is The Best.

I should’ve said “England” because I don’t actually think this is true for all of Europe but whatever I was tired and on my period

And yes! They do! I will use this as an excuse to tell my story of cultural confusion

So, in England, in every theatre I’ve been to, they sell these little one-serve ice creams at intermission, usually vanilla, chocolate, sometimes one or two other flavor depending. They’ll have a little flat plastic spoon stuck on the underside of the lid so you can eat it. It’s a great way to get dessert in the theatre and of course they’re overpriced but hey I get ice cream in the middle of the show. And you don’t even need to go stand in line for them sometimes, they’ll have people walking down the aisles selling them out of a cart.

Conversely, in the US, not only do they not sell you ice cream, but if they DO sell you food (usually a cookie) and drink at intermission, you are frequently forbidden from taking it into the theatre at all (particularly true of theatres like Broadway, with large numbers of patrons).

Now, I was born & raised in Europe until I started middle school. My PARENTS were American, and we used to visit in the summer, but I spent my childhood in Europe. So I had a handful of memories of the times we went out to the theatre in England, and I loved getting ice cream, because I was a small child and it was ice cream. (A particularly vivid memory involves me eating ice cream at a performance of Cats and I swear one of the cats looked right at me and wanted my ice cream, but that’s a different story.) 

Then we move to the US, and I am rarely back in Europe, and even more rarely in England, and even more rarely able to see a show in England. I am, however, going to see a lot of shows in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, etc.

And I guess I just… never bothered to ask? Because I realized that I could no longer buy ice cream in the theatre and I assumed that it was just a change in theatre policy because too many people were, I dunno, spilling melted ice cream all over the seats or something. In my head, the divide was when I was young vs when I was old, not when I was in England vs when I was in the US.

Fast forward to literally last summer, when with one exception I hadn’t been to a theatre in London for probably a decade or more. I walk into the Globe, and see a glorious sight: they are selling ice cream. I was giddy like a kid at Christmas. Oh sure, I thought, this must be because we’re groundlings, the whole theatre is open to the sky, why not still sell ice cream here? I bought some and felt very nostalgic.

Except then I went to another theatre and they were doing it there too. And this is when I started to connect the dots that I had been an idiot, and the difference was geographical, not chronological. And I ended up texting my mom, like, “wait, they still sell ice cream in theatres in England??? Is that just a thing that the *US* doesn’t do???”

tl;dr I’ve been in the US for over a decade at this point but there is STILL shit that I don’t realize is a European thing until US people are very confused by what I’m talking about

8 months ago / 324 
via: polyglotplatypus
src: thatgirlonstage
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  11. aiyukilove7 said: We do have icecream in cinemas, but its like dippin dots and this bite sized icecream bits. Most have popcorn, hot dogs, pretzels, slurpees, 10-15 different types of candy… Oh yeah the fancier ones have bars. Musical Theaters on the other hand..idfk they will have alcohol in the fancier ones. Drive ins(where you park your car, tune your radio to a specific frequency, and watch the movie on a giant screen outside from your car) is also a choice mix.
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