just "sauce" & the luck of the point

Paris, so far, has been a blur. Touring a city is often tiring so when the weekend arrived I was ecstatic at the thought of sleeping in. On Thursday night I literally fell into bed and awoke a blissful ten hours later. It was awesome. But I had a buttload of homework--which was slightly less than awesome. Eight readings, eight corresponding responses, and two assigned journals filled with sensory details later, the sun (or what constitutes as "sunshine" here) had set and I was starved. Some of my classmates and I rode the Metro to a promising taqueria called Guacamole. I scarfed down three carne asada tacos having been deprived of good Mexican food for over a week! And when you live in Southern California where there's a taco joint on every corner, it might as well have been a year! I have a feeling Parisians aren't too fond of spicy foods though. The hot sauce should have just been called "sauce." I noticed too, when I had Pho the week before, the Sriracha seemed a bit watered down. It was in a different container so it was probably a knock off rooster sauce. Note to self: bring your own Tabasco. The only somewhat "spicy" sauce here is their mustard which Parisians seem to put on their food religiously.

On Saturday I awoke pretty late as well. My friends and I had planned to go to what we've dubbed as "Little Vietnam" on a Metro stop called Tolbiac to scour about for some Thai food. We needn't scour very far, though we did have to wait thirty minutes for a table. The place was packed which we thought to be a good indicator of the restaurant's food. The servings were pretty small and the prices were a wee bit steep, though it was lunch time in a European country. However, what it lacked in substance, it made up for in flavaaa. Every time I place an order here I feel as if I've just gone through an interrogation. Usually when the waiter comes by to take my order I do what I refer to as "The Luck of the Point," wherein wherever my finger lands on the menu, I'll have to eat. 

Later that day my friend Nina and I went to a brasserie close to our hostel. We planned to have a drink and do some reading, très French, excluding the fact that we don't surround ourselves in a cloud of smoke. We walked into the building proud of ourselves for pulling the door open upon entering rather than pushing (we've had many an incident in which we open and close the door of a shop the wrong way). A waiter materialized before us and I held my fingers up in the universal sign for two--and it didn't hurt that this symbol is also universally known as peace. We come in peace, I tried communicating through my eyes. It didn't work. He pointed to a booth so Nina and I got ourselves situated before studying le menu. My finger ran down the Vin Rouge list. I stopped on a word that read Bordeaux, a city in France I'm familiar with having attended a school named after a saint from the city. I shrugged (Luck of the Point!) and told Nina my order while she told me of her plan to ask the waiter for something fruity and dry. The round-bellied, hairless headed man (all of the waiters I've had seem to be balding old men, don't they?) came to our table five minutes later, notepad in hand staring at us in boredom. "What you eat?" he said. Nina began asking him about the wine and was interrupted by the bewildered man. "No! What you eat? This table for eating!" We told him we just wanted drinks. He shook his head. "This table for eating!" he said again. He pointed to the fork: "This is a fork!" He pointed to the knife: "This is a knife!" He pointed to the place setting: "This is for food!" He was like a culinary drill sergeant telling us what was what on the table: You place food on table! You pick up fork with hand! You lift fork with the tongs end toward mouth! Insert food! Chew and swallow! A-TEN-HUT! We put our hands up in surrender. "You want to drink only? You sit over there! This table for eating!" He took our order then, before we slumped red-cheeked and sweaty-palmed, to a new table setting-less booth. We get our wine (which wasn't too bad) and some trail mix in a little ceramic bowl. A few chapters and an hour and a half later, the waiter returns. "You pay bill now, I leave." I got my wallet out and started fingering some of the bills and counting coins. "Where you from?" I hear. I looked up at Nina before staring at the waiter. "California," Nina said. He smiled as if remembering something, and then: "I have cousin in Monterey! You know Monterey? Near Santa Cruz! I love San Francisco!" He then proceeded to name every street and tourist sight in SF: "Fisherman's Wharf. Union Square. Lombard Street. Coit Tower." Gone was the vicious waiter of old, replaced instead by this amiable fellow who I thought would have made a very good Bay Area tour guide. After he was finished reciting the San Francisco traveler's book and the l'addition was paid, we exchanged Au revoir's and Bonne Annèe's, Nina and I rather puzzled at our waiter's temperament.

And on that odd note...guess what! Guess WHAT! GUESS! WHAT! I just received my first essay grade for Writing Through Paris as well as a fully detailed evaluation (on how awesome it was! DUH!). If you couldn't pick up on my excitement through my use of CAPITAL LETTERS, let me just lay it out fo' ya! I got an A! And I couldn't be happier!

I have failed to tell you about my Sunday meal (escargot, pasta with porcini mushrooms and ham [which was EH], one scoop of chestnut ice cream [eh, again], and one scoop of coconut [BOMB]), but I can't stop reading my paper eval, so I'm going to call it a night! Also, I have class in the morning!

So bonsoir Paris! Good morning California!

You'll be hearing from me again soon!