Strikes on both sides of the Channel

Pension rallies hit French cities

London Underground strike causes severe disruption

Rant: He’s a connoisseur

During our long weekend in Florence, the Brit and I had dinner at Osteria di Giovanni. Everything was wonderful except…there was a loud, obnoxious American dining at the same restaurant.

It was bad enough that he was speaking very loudly at (I can’t really say he was speaking with them) his two companions, but at one point he complained to the waitress that his filet mignon “had too much tendons”. He said that he was a connoisseur of filet mignon and his piece of meat should be like bubble gum, but it came from too low on the cow.

His companions appeared to be quite embarrassed while I and people at other tables starred at him in disbelief. The waitress offered dessert as compensation for the too-low-on-the-cow-filet. When she brought a slice of chocolate cake, the jerk’s response was “I don’t want it”.

A few minutes later he left the room with his glass of wine. His companions got up and apologized to the people at the table next to them and on the way out they apologized to one of the waiters. Mr. Connoisseur was not only oblivious to the discomfort of his fellow diners, but he clearly didn’t notice or care about that of his companions.

He and people like him are the reason American tourists have a bad reputation abroad. To Mr. Connoisseur and anyone like him, please stay at home with your bubble gum filet mignon.

Where are the famous people?

I’ve lived in Paris for a few years and I have yet to spot anyone famous (at least as far as I know). A couple of friends, however, have hit the celeb jackpot. The first had been in Paris less than two months, when she dined in a restaurant just a couple of tables away from Carlos Santana. Mr. Santana was apparently in the company of a couple of thin and significantly younger women. About a week later she spotted Benjamin whats-his-name, the supposed lover of the latest Mrs. Sarkozy.

Another friend almost ran into (literally) Carla Bruni herself a few weeks ago. Clearly I spend time in the non-celeb parts of town.

In the news

France expels Roma

Body of French chef found in freezer

Friday the 13th

This exchange took place today, in French, at the office.


Her: Is Friday the 13th unlucky in England?

Me: I don’t know, I’m not English.

Her: Where are you from?

Me: The US, I’m American.

Her: Oh, I couldn’t tell from your accent.

No tea for you

A colleague and I had lunch at a Thai restaurant that we go to quite often. On this day, the lady informed us that the tea machine was broken so there was no tea with lunch. Because the fixed-price lunch menu includes jasmine tea, my colleague politely asked if the price would be reduced. Since we were getting less, it made sense to us that we should pay less.

Rather than just saying, “no the price is the same” the lady went off and told us that everyone else in the restaurant agreed to pay the full price. As if that wasn’t enough, she then told us that the price was already cheap and asked how we expected her to pay taxes and pay the rent.

After the lady’s tired, my colleague and I agreed that we wouldn’t return to that restaurant any time soon, which is a shame because the food wasn’t bad.

Paris Plage in the morning