You know Big Mac?

Went out to lunch with a few female foreign students here. They hadn't been to Jenny's yet and seemed excited at the prospect of western food. When we sat down, "Pinky," who has never told us her Russian name, spots a bottle of ketchup, picks it up and looks at me and says, "Ketchup! Progress!" Because you know, that's way more forward-thinking than soy sauce. She loves anything American. When discussing cost of living at home vs. here, she interrupted me to ask, "You know Big Mac?" Very slowly, as if no one outside of Russia has heard of this Beeg Mahk before. Over lunch we chatted as best we could, despite multiple language barriers. No deep conversations, but I found it refreshing that even though we were from all corners of the world, we had a few things in common.
We complained that the air here is terrible for our skin and hair, and that all the oil in the cooking is going to make us fat.
We laughed about the weird Australian guy from class who is so obviously head over heels in love with [married] Pinky ("He does not like Americans!" she whispered. I told her I was ok with that).
We rolled our eyes over the styles here, and then, in a moment of pure brilliance, all realized that we had something very important in common: our favorite clothing store. Zara brings people together, apparently.