On Little Caesar's

It wasn’t actually Little Caesar’s, by any means. Quite the contrary, it was a little Indian (read: Nan) restaurant with some sort of Caesar in the title. But it sounded good. Plus, I was starving. We had just finished the lovely Wisconsin exam (a test designed to make sure you improve well you are in France – well, not really, but that’s what WE at BG use it for), and it was getting kind of late. We had a rendez-vous at 10PM, so we had to eat fast. Answer: Greek fast food. Marvelous. Except when you apparently can’t communicate in French. Then you are stuck sipping your expensive bottled water while your dinner partner munches on Nan and yummy-looking salad and tells you she’s sure they understood and are about to make it at any minute. This is a problem, especially if your dinner partner is always right besides this time. Your stomach growls, you gaze around at the interesting décor, trying not to stare too much at the waiter (that’s not really what they are, but we’ll call them that for simplicity’s sake) as you wonder if he really understood (I’m sure he thought I was hitting on him hard-core, but it turned out well, as you well see), and finally it dawns on you to ask: “Liz, do you know like you KNOW for a fact or just somewhere deep inside your soul?” Without missing a beat, Liz replies, “Somewhere deep inside my soul.” That settles it, especially once one “waiter” goes outside to chat with some friends and the other lights up a cigarette. By now, the clock is inching towards 10PM and your stomach is growling louder and louder. Qu’est-ce qu’on peut faire, alors? Certainly not interrupt the smoking waiter. But wait! A savior arrives (in the form of another customer)! You run up and get in line again, breathlessly asking for a “Salade du poulet” (zut, or should it be “avec poulet” or “au poulet”?? Too late now.). The waiter makes it, pronto. Is he smirking? You eat all of it, and run too pay so as not to be late for your rendez-vous. And then your bill…wait, that was definitely a Euro less than it should have been –for each of us. For a fastfood meal that was barely more than five anyway, that’s pretty sweet. You leave, triumphant and satisfied, laughing about your inability to speak in French and reminiscing about the last time you were undercharged, at a much too expensive crepe restaurant right by the Louvre where the owner told you that he “loved Americans” because they are “so friendly” and then told one of his employees to make a good crepe that was so overflowing with chocolate and bananas you spilled half of it on the ground in front of the Louvre while listening to one of the street musicians play there. Yum.