Hallmarks are weird - they ought to be the same, but I think their franchising department works differently, because apart from the cards, I never find the same things in the same store. (And most of the stores I run into these days don't seem to focus on cards so much as ornaments and tchotchkes.)
Most of the time, though, I kind of like the regional differences between stores. Like McDonalds - McDonald's is all over the world, and can be guaranteed to have more or less the same hamburgers and french fries, but the restaurants in different countries also take on a slightly different flair. The McDonald's in Istanbul had hummus; the McDonald's in Xi'an, China, had noodles. Bill says the McDonalds in his current part of the world has an "Arabian Nights Chicken Sandwich", but he hasn't ordered it yet, much to my dismay. (I want to know what exactly makes it Arabian!)
I wonder what the McDonald's in Bishkek would have served, had there been one - but there wasn't. There was, however, a "MacBurger", which was reportedly "just like" a McDonald's. Not that any American ever ate there. It's not that we were being loyal to an American brand obviously being copied. It's more that half the Americans who did try it ended up with food poisoning.
On the same note, Bishkek didn't really have grocery stores. It had what I liked to call glorified 7-11s. While we were there, a new one opened up, and the owners called it "Tesko". We all wondered if it was affiliated with the Tesco chain from the UK (and we were somewhat hopeful, too). So someone asked the owners. "No," we were told, "we visited London, and went into a Tesco, and liked it, so we gave our store the same name."
*headsdesk* Ah, former Soviet Union. Gotta love 'em.
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Date: 2011-11-13 10:52 pm (UTC)Most of the time, though, I kind of like the regional differences between stores. Like McDonalds - McDonald's is all over the world, and can be guaranteed to have more or less the same hamburgers and french fries, but the restaurants in different countries also take on a slightly different flair. The McDonald's in Istanbul had hummus; the McDonald's in Xi'an, China, had noodles. Bill says the McDonalds in his current part of the world has an "Arabian Nights Chicken Sandwich", but he hasn't ordered it yet, much to my dismay. (I want to know what exactly makes it Arabian!)
I wonder what the McDonald's in Bishkek would have served, had there been one - but there wasn't. There was, however, a "MacBurger", which was reportedly "just like" a McDonald's. Not that any American ever ate there. It's not that we were being loyal to an American brand obviously being copied. It's more that half the Americans who did try it ended up with food poisoning.
On the same note, Bishkek didn't really have grocery stores. It had what I liked to call glorified 7-11s. While we were there, a new one opened up, and the owners called it "Tesko". We all wondered if it was affiliated with the Tesco chain from the UK (and we were somewhat hopeful, too). So someone asked the owners. "No," we were told, "we visited London, and went into a Tesco, and liked it, so we gave our store the same name."
*headsdesk* Ah, former Soviet Union. Gotta love 'em.