Convenience Store Heaven--Other areas
This is sort of a special section of the c-store reviews. It includes some international places that I may or may not have been to. And pictures of 7-Elevens on 3 continents (other than North America!).
Before on this page, I said, "I might make it over to Germany and Norway." Well, I made it over there all right. Now you can read about the c-store situation
in Europe (at least the parts I saw).
My mom says she saw at least three (3)
7-Elevens in Oslo, so at least we know Norway is cool. (Check out the
candid photos of 7-Elevens there!)
If you're still reading (assuming you hit this one last), I'll bet you're ready for
yet another big frosty beverage, eh?
You don't have to call me a loser. If I don't already believe I'm a loser, then
your telling me won't convince me. And if you're still reading this, then you might be
more of a loser than I am, so there.
International Section
I changed things again, of course. I figured I'd put the International section first, just cuz it's more interesting probably. I still oughta split the stuff up, but oh well, I don't care that much I suppose.
Cancun, Mexico
You know, this is one hot little town. For those of you who don't know, it's a city the government of
Mexico built up into a resort on the Yucatan Peninsula. That's the
part of Mexico in the southeast that sticks up in the Gulf of Mexico. If you
still can't visualize that, get a map. Anyway, the year-round temperature is
somewhere around 85, I guess, and the humidity is up there, too. It's sort of
like southeast Texas (where Lake Jackson is), except moreso. For such a hot place, though, there surely
is a severe lack of convenience stores. I think people go there just to drink
booze, not soda. Ah, well, it's a young town yet (about 25 years old), so
maybe they'll come around. It'd be the perfect place for a 7-Eleven, I think.
Where but in Mexico would a big bite be a safe food choice? Just kidding, the
food there isn't bad at all. It looks more like a US town than a Mexican town,
until you step out of the tourist zone. We were only there for 3 or 4 days, so
maybe I just didn't get a chance to look around much. Most of the time we
were out on archeological tours, anyway. It's a good place to see Mayan ruins,
after all, like the pyramid at Chichen Itza, etc. On our last day there, Linda
and I wanted to finally write out our post cards. We found stamps at some mall,
and then just wanted to sit down somewhere. We ended up at a McDonald's
(they're everywhere, of course... they had a few Domino's pizza & KFCs, too,
but not a single Taco Bell, which makes sense). There, at McDonald's, I got
a large fries and a large Diet Coke. Yup, the only place I found a tall, frosty
beverage was at McD's. Maybe I'll talk to the Bureau de Turisma and suggest mercados convenientes.
Taipei, Taiwan
I have never been there, of course. But Linda, my ex-wife, was born there. Several years ago, she went back to look at the job situation and was
not impressed with her homeland. She said the air quality there makes L.A.
seem like.. well, something clean. You can dust the furniture in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and it looks like it's been sitting untouched for a month. While the whole 'sexist' situation in Taiwan may be no worse than it is in Texas, where the women in the office laugh about how their husbands beat them, at least a round-trip ticket to Texas is cheaper.
However, there may be hope for Taiwan. Linda came back with a few pictures of
the place, to give me a sense of how life is like there. And, just for my benefit, she took a nice photograph of a 7-Eleven. Wow! At least now I know what I'll do if I ever go there. And finally, after all these years, the picture is available to you!
Oslo, Norway
Ja, vi elsker dette landet, som det stiger frem..
Yes, we love this land with fond devotion... because they have 7-Elevens there!
I know, because I have photographic
proof!
For more from Europe, check out my Europe page! My mom took the pictured linked above, but a year or two later, I went and found 7-Elevens there myself. So there ya go.
Melbourne, Australia
Well, hello there friends. Australia's the newest addition to the page, as I went there for the first time in January of 2001. Ahh... what a lovely place. If you don't mind, I'm quite keen on moving there, most likely some time in summer 2002 (which would be their winter). If it's not then, maybe it'll be sooner, we'll see. I'm just getting tired of the US. And of course the women there are lovely (especially one in particular). So let's see. They have 7-Elevens there, actual 7-Elevens, same logo, and they even have Slurpees. What they don't have is fountain soda.. But.. you know.. when I move there, I'm gonna be pretty close to 30, and I'll probably be mostly over the whole fountain soda phenomenon by then. They do have some sodas over there that we don't have here. They have this stuff called Lift, which is sort of a lemonade soda, and it's very refreshing, especially if you're really thirsty, which can happen walking around in 40C weather. They also have this stuff, I never can remember what it's called, and they have a couple flavors, but my favorite is the lemon, lime, and orange. It has 5% fruit juice. It's something like Mountain Spring? I dunno, I know what it looks like, though. I discovered it one day whilst walking along the banks of the Yarra River, in the convention center. I told Joan (Sally's mum) about how much I liked it and they didn't have it in the US, so the went out and bought me a few bottles of it. And.. well, I think I overdosed on it, cuz I had planned to take some home with me but couldn't be bothered when I left. That was the second time (which was June of 2001).
So let's see.. You wanna see a 7-Eleven in downtown Melbourne? Okay.. It's on Swanston, a block or two from Flinders Street. There are several downtown, like one on Flinders Street a couple blocks down, sort of in the middle of the train station but across the street. We also stopped in one by the beach somewhere, but I don't know where that was. We got Slurpees, though, and it was like being in the US. They don't have fountain drinks as far as I could tell, but they have Slurpees (as I have mentioned too much already). Some of the ones outside the downtown area have gas stations, too. Sorry, gotta call them petrol stations.
So without further ado, here's the picture of a Melbourne 7-Eleven.
Additional Places
Texas, the Lone Star State
Lake Jackson, TX
This little city in Brazosport Co., south of Houston, with about 25,000 people is a
bedroom community for the huge DOW Chemical plant. It's kinda scary, really, how
they have everything fenced off for DOW. They have nice stories about how DOW
gave up some (used) land for a nice wildlife pasture/refuge. Now mutant cows
and stuff live there.
Anyway, Linda worked for the city's engineering department. The job market in California
wasn't too hot at the time, so it was either Texas or Taiwan for Linda.
She was born in Taiwan, but that doesn't mean she'd want to live there.
So how's the convenience store situation? Well, Lake
Jackson would be a small town in California, but in semi-rural sections of Texas, it's a
budding metropolis. They've got a Wal-Mart and a Target, as well as all
those other fast food places you'd like to have. It's like any LA-bedroom community,
except it's really flat and really green (and the tap water is yellow).
And don't get me started on the crawfish festivals..
I only visited 3 or 4 times during the year and a half Linda lived there. I visited during the
summer, though, so you know I had the opportunity to be thirsty. One week when I was
there, they were having a record-setting heat wave (90's both temp and humidity). Yuck.
But Texas is spotted with stores called Stop-n-Go. They look like any old convenience
store, for the most part, although some of them have delis or Taco Bells inside. The most
striking thing about these stores was that they had a special where you could get any
size drink for 39 cents! Wow! Are you kidding me? No! Can you imagine? If only the
stores were a little closer to Linda's apartment, I probably would have had 5 drinks a day.
I can't remember the address of any Stop-n-Go I went to, except one was on a highway.
Another one was in the 'downtown' section--it had a
broken ice machine, so to get ice you had to scoop it out of a big bucket. They
don't care about health hazards out there as much as they do here, I suppose.
And a clerk there carded me when I tried to buy a lottery ticket.
I didn't look 18 when I was 18, much less when I was 21. I don't mind that as much
as I minded that the clerk wouldn't accept my California driver's license
as legal proof of age. The CA license has all sorts of fancy things like a magnetic strip
and holographic images, whereas the TX license looked no better than my high school ID card.
Stupid freak. I left the place with my drink on the counter.
There was one Stop-n-Go on the fringe of the city, by some railroad tracks,
maybe it was in neighboring Clute (about 9000 people live in that town). I got
two of those 39c drinks, gave the woman my spare change, and she gave me
an extra nickel. I kept it, since I figured it's her own fault for not being up on her
math skills.
Bonus Restaurant Recommendation!
If you're ever in the Houston area, though, check out Pappadeaux's restaurants..
They're in various locations, several on the Loop, some in other cities.
When you're in the mood to clog an artery or two, get one of their many lovely fish-swimming-in-butter-sauce dishes, several have nice plump shrimps in the sauce.
Their fried seafood platter is huge, too. I hear Hakeem Olajuwon keeps in
form by maintaining a steady diet of blackened opelousas in buttery shrimp sauce..
Or maybe it was the Houston Oiler offensive line.
Florida
So hey, this is new for July, 2000. Florida, like Texas, is hot and muggy. Probably even more so, or longer parts of the year. I was in Gainesville most of the time. Not a lot by the way of convenience stores-- it's a big college town (UF, the Gators, blue and orange, you know), so I suppose the people there drink alcohol instead of diet coke or something. Lots of liquor stores and clubs. At least that I could see. But no worries! You can always get cans of Coke and stuff. I think we drank a 12 pack of Coke a day between the two of us. More or less.
And what's a trip to Florida without stopping by Orlando? Spent a good portion of Wednesday in Disney-MGM Studios. Luckily our admission was free, cuz the drinks were like $3.50 or something. They got this cool stuff there-- iced coke. Nothing too unusual.. they've got it at Burger King, and it's pretty much just like a Slurpee. But man it tastes good. We got one with mostly coke and a little blue raspberry on top. It's sweeter'n hell, but tasty when the rain's coming down and thunder is keeping you inside those overpriced shops.
Just outside the whole Disney complex is a 7-Eleven. Sure, the gas is like 20 cents more expensive than anywhere else, but the Super Big Gulp was just 99 cents. And inside, it was exactly like the ones back home. Really neato. We got there after midnight, and I got me an SBG of Diet Coke. I tell ya, I finished that super big gulp so fast, we were on the freeway, but I don't think we were quite out of the Orlando area when I was done.
Alaska, the big lonely state
Wisconsin and International Airport Drive, in Anchorage
Seward Highway, in Girdwood
Yup, we got a chance to visit Alaska, and we took it. Only stayed for about 3.5 days.
Not nearly long enough to see everything, but long enough to get a feel for things.
And definitely long enough to review the c-store situation there. To read about
out Alaska adventure, follow the link. There are nice pictures
there, some 7-Eleven related, and some not. The glaciers are quite lovely, though I
think I (so far) only have an iceberg or two right now. I can always add more later,
though.
Denver, Colorado
26th and Federal
I've never been to Denver. I don't plan on it, and I won't miss it, I'm sure. And not
just cuz I'm a lifelong Charger fan (and thus an anti-Denver Bronco fan) (not that I'm a rabid football fan, but old habits die hard, I guess). Anyway,
some of us aren't so lucky and end up in Denver for business or whatever, like Linda
did. Happily, though, when she was in dire need of a 7-Eleven, she found one.
She said it was like a beacon in the dark because she was lost, thirsty, and almost
out of gas.
Lafayette, Louisiana
Robley Drive and Ambassador Gaffery Pkwy (Circle K)
As you know, my wife goes on business trips. This one she went on during late August of 1999. Lafayette is the "capital" of the
French (or Acadian or Cajun) portion of Louisiana. It's also
the home of one of the oldest and largest oak trees, estimated
to be 450 years old. So Cajun food, muggy hot weather, and
old trees sure could make someone thirsty. Luckily Linda found
this Circle K nearby. She said the drink selection wasn't so
great, but the ice machine "spit out big chunks of ice before you
barely even touch the lever." Fast ice. That's good, since if
you're all thirsty, you don't wanna have to wait for ice.
Give me a day or two and I'll have a link to that old tree!
Farmington, New Mexico
7 2 11 Food Stores
Sounds like 7-Eleven hasn't made the rounds to NM to check on
their copyright infringements. Linda found these on her trip
to NM in September of 1999. They're a little bigger than
7-Elevens, but their drink selection is "woefully small," with
maybe 5 drinks, with the largest cup being 44 oz. If you ask
me, it's so hot in NM, they oughta have those 85 ounce cups, but
go figure. But in that area (Farmington, Bloomfield, Aztec),
there are cool Anasazi ruins to see, and that means
walking around a lot, so drinks are quite handy to have at hand.
Shortcut to other pages:
Go back to 7/Eleven main page!
Go back to home page!
No, I'm not a whore, but go ahead and visit these other people if you like.
