It was a tough day at work today but we did get to go out for lunch with J and have a proper French-style multi-course meal: first a (tiny) 1664 beer while waiting for a table, then a trip to a salad bar (except without any lettuce), bread, wonderful butter, and wine, then the meal, then café, though we elected to skip dessert. Oh, and then cigarettes, of course, outside in the gusting wind - for those who opted for them.
J is so fun to talk to though occasionally a little frustrating because he wants to understand everything! I don't want to even think of how many minutes we wasted trying to get him to understand a joke about pecans.
Oh! And we tried to find a restaurant to go to after work and it took forever. Nothing was open. They don't open their restaurants here until 7:30 or so and it was only 6:45. We finally found a pizza place open and the owner spoke very little English - just enough to be dangerous ;) - and when we finally got our order placed he insisted his credit card machine couldn't accept our low-tech American cards. AJ practically had to muscle the machine out of his hands and swipe the card on the side of the machine (instead of sliding it into the front) and, voila! Instead of being offended by our rudeness, he was (seemingly?) genuinely pleased and said, "That is the first time it has ever worked!" The pizza was good - very high quality though perhaps a little hard to appreciate because of our American expectations of what pizza should taste like. Still, though, very good. :)
(And the traffic is still crazy but I'll get to that though I fear I cannot do it justice.)
Ugh, then home to shower!!! and report on the day's troubles only to also find troubles incoming from the other side of the pond. C'est la vie, I guess.
Bonsoir!
Our credit cards are hard for Europe to handle because we don't have the chip that theirs have.
ReplyDeleteNever heard a joke about pecans that I could understand either, and I think I speak the language fairly well...!