An interesting difference between cultures: how they enjoy eating.
I traveled to Nis in Serbia where we met up with someone we knew who would show us around the city. We preferred to avoid tourist traps, so we requested to hang out where the locals did. One such establishment was a cafe located on the second story of a building near the down town strip. You basically seat yourself and the waiter comes by and asks if you want drinks every so often. Everything is in small portions and you take your sweet ass time chatting with friends. We chatted for hours with the person we met up with, and amongst ourselves while hardly consuming everything. Drinking was secondary to the social experience.
Fast forward to a recent bachelor party. Many events were planned in a day, and diner was thrown in to a small time slot. It was an all you could eat buffet, and everyone was focused on eating and not as much on socializing. It was easy getting caught up in the crowed mentality, and I found myself gorging before I called a time out and started to socialize. I found most of my attempts were in vain unless I was talking about food. No one paced themselves, it was a fill up as fast as you can with as much as you can. The idea of chatting amongst friends was secondary, or even tertiary if one considers the racket made about the food itself.
Echoing someones post earlier, I feel that some of societies habits are irrevocable. America pushes people to do as much as they can as fast as they can at the expense of the moment. We don't seem to appreciate anything except how much more we can out eat the next guy. What is sad is that western Europe is attempting to emulate the states in several regards. Lets hope this does not happen as I need a vacation spot over the years to escape from the states!