We watched this woman manually sift, and extract, and roast, and grind these recently dried coffee beans, all by hand, using just a homemade campfire and a pestle. The whole process took about 45 minutes, but coffee doesn’t get any fresher this, folks!

And oh, how I wish I could tell you it was the most delicious cup of coffee I’ve ever had, but sadly, after all of that work, just like so many places outside of America, they went and found me a cup made for a doll and handed me the tiniest amount of coffee you’ve ever seen.

I felt like a giant holding a thimble— a feeling I recognized all too well from my time in Europe— and I always have to make a conscious effort to try and somehow extend these minuscule portions into something other than the single sip they really are.

DIATRIBE ALERT!!!

Tiny portions make me wildly and irrationally nervous. I can’t help it! When there is so little liquid in my cup that I have to forcibly resist just gulping it down like a barbarian, I end up spending so much mental energy concentrating on trying to be dainty or trying to figure out how to make the tiny beverage last for the duration of the whole meal, that I am unable to enjoy the beverage or the meal at all.

Anyone who has ever traveled abroad knows that you’ll often be handed portions of liquid the likes of which we have no precedent for in our daily American lives. Other than maybe the capful of mouthwash we use for swishing and gargling? But even then, during my daily ablutions at the sink, I frequently find myself swigging directly from the Listerine bottle like a heathen and ending up with an oversized amount of mouthwash in my cheeks like a chipmunk… so there really is no instance I can think of where I am presented with such diminutive portions of liquid, outside of world travel.

And this doesn’t extend to just fancy beverages like coffee or liquor, you’ll find that even the water cups you’re given overseas rarely hold more than a typical American shot glass. I always try to get into the spirit of things, and attempt to attenuate my water intake accordingly, but after about one week in any given location, I find myself getting unreasonably irritated at their tiny glassware.

After the first month of living in Italy, I abandoned all pretenses of blending in. I would just sit down at a restaurant and ask the waiter, first thing, if he could please just bring me the largest glass that they had on hand.

“Of what, sir?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I’d say. “I just want to drink out of a realistic sized glass that doesn’t need refilling every 5 seconds, or that forces me to try and parcel out a tiny amount of precious liquid over the course of an entire meal. It’s distracting and ruins my dining experience.”

I can think of countless times when, even though the waiter seemed willing to oblige my request, he was physically incapable of doing so. Why? Because the restaurant simply did not have any such glasses. They don’t exist in many parts of the world.

It’s like if a factory produces a glass over a certain size, there’s no questions asked, they just ship it straight to America.

“Get this hand-trough out of my sight! Send it to the grotesque Americans forthwith!”

I joke, but I have made this “larger glass” request enough times that I can even tell you exactly how it usually plays out. The waiter will go and retrieve their “largest glass,” but I’ll be able to see from clear across the room that what he’s returning to the table with is a tall, narrow shaped glass— like a beaker— and I’m about to be unable to resist explaining to him that even though the glass got taller, the fact that it simultaneously became inexplicably narrow as well, means that it still holds about the same amount of liquid as the short squatty glass. “Nothing was gained here. I’m not fooled by this,” I want to say.

Piaget would be rolling in his grave, because based on my experiences, I am now convinced that it isn’t only children in the pre-operational stages of development that can’t comprehend the conservation of liquids, it’s also almost every waiter in Italy.

I eventually switched tactics and solved the problem another way. Instead of futilely asking for a larger glass, I’d just sit down at the table and immediately order a whole slew of beverages for myself, multiple drinks all at once. A stockpile, if you will.

I have untold pictures of me at Italian restaurants surround by so many empty water glasses that it looks like I’m about to perform some kind of musical trick. Like, maybe I was about to start rubbing their edges or playing “Hot Cross Buns” with my spoon.

Even though I spoke no Italian, on days when I was feeling especially guilty or overly sympathetic towards the waiter, I might try torturously explaining to him how the creatine I was taking made me unnaturally thirsty and required I drink obscene amounts of water. This was always a delight for all involved. They clearly couldn’t understand any of what I was saying, but the explanation seemed to somehow work well enough anyways. So I stuck with it.

My friend later told me, “I’m pretty sure they think you’re saying “cretin,” and apologizing for being an extremely stupid person. I looked it up, and that’s what the word “cretin” basically means. A cretin is someone who’s retarded.

"Ah. You’re saying they oblige me because they think I’m retarded. Actually… yeah, that checks. A lot of conversations I’ve had with Italian waiters over the years are now coming more vividly into focus."

It certainly explains all the LITTLE BOWLS OF ICE.

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Read more about Italian misunderstandings HERE!