We played cards...a game called gin for those who are curious. J killed me the first time, but I won the second time. During our second game at a different restaurant at dinner, we experienced our first encounter of rudeness toward us by the wait staff...we perceive to be due to the fact that we were American.
Before I start on this tidbit, I want it to be clear that the entire trip and experience has been great with this one small exception. This did not spoil our trip at all. We simply took it as a learning opportunity.
First, the vast majority of the waitstaff this entire trip that we have encountered have been women, and they have all been extremely nice. In this particular case, the majority of the wait staff were men. Second, we started straight off the bat with "Parlais anglais?" While we did this with one or two other places, we did not do this often.
We first sat down, and the waiter we had spoke english quite well and did not seem to have a problem with our english-speaking request. He asked if we were drinking or eating (a common question as many will simply sit to drink and then move on). We said drinking and he also had no problem with this. When we decided to stay to eat for dinner, he said that he couldn't help us because his shift was almost over, but he got a different waiter. Again, this was not unusual because it was almost 7pm, when most places start serving dinner. As the evening went on, our original waiter continued to serve tables, even stopped once to take another drink order from us. For the record, the food was VERY GOOD...the best in town that we had experienced. We were there for about an hour or an hour and a half (not unusual in France at all), and just as we had finished dinner, were immediately pressured to pay the bill. This was very unusual in that everywhere else, the wait staff leaves you alone until you ask for the bill. Disgusted, we promptly paid and left to explore the St. Martin Cathedral some more.
In the end, we think that first off, we didn't attempt to speak french right out of the gates and that may have rubbed the waiters the wrong way. Second, I think that because they were guys, they took it a little more personally in that their culture was not being respected. J was curious if we were not the clientele they wanted around. We will truly never know, but took note to never go to that cafe again.
The distraction turned out to be a good thing. We found a lot more sculptural details and intricasies on the St. Martin Cathedral that we had completely missed before. Below are some of the finds...
We also discovered that there were some anti-semitic sculptures on the cathedral not posted here. We had to "Wikipedia" them to learn about some rather disturbing sculptures we found. You learn something new about Catholic history every day...especially in Europe.
Finally, we finished our second card game at a restaurant/cafe right outside of our little place of residence for the weekend. It was, once again, a very nice atmosphere with a predominantly female wait staff and and very nice bilingual waitress. The tarte flambee we had was good. It was a good way to end the evening.
Tomorrow, we will try to visit Haut Chateau Koenigsburg and perhaps Strasbourg or Riquewihr or Ribeauville. We can't do all of them, so we will re-assess tomorrow. I know that the Chateau is high on our list, though.
2 comments:
So fun to experience the culture in other parts of the world. Treatment of foreigners varies from person to person abroad just as it does in America. If you are polite, most are nice and welcoming, and some will still be jerks. As Mother Theresa says, "If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives; be kind anyway."
I just figure you get rude service from time to time regardless of who or where you are. I have had bad service in MN. Just pull a big daddy on the wall outside and the universe will re-align.
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