French Dissing...

So Jesse and I took a whirlwind trip to London last weekend and had a wonderful time. We toured some great Peter Pan-centric locations, and then did some regular old sight seeing. More on that later. I would like to share with you our first experience with genuine French...ness.

I always thought the view of French people as "snobby" or "stuck up" was slightly biased. I'm sure there are polite people and not-so-polite people in every country, yada yada yada. So Jesse and I dined at L'Escargot in London, which was quite hoytie-toytie. Dinner was yummy (and reasonably priced as we ate early in the evening--I guess lots of restaurants have a "pre-theatre" rate).

Have you ever seen the episode of Frasier where Niles and Frasier decide to open a restaurant together? There's a small table in a cramped corner that they dub "the enchanted grotto"--this is where they stick Bulldog and his date, etc. Well, Jesse and I were dressed fairly nicely, but we had backpacks on and looked like tourists. When we asked if we needed a reservation to eat, the greeter sort of sized us up and said she would see if they had a spot for us. She returned and led us through the (empty) restaurant to a table in the corner. The ambiance was very romantic--soft candlelight and muted, elegant decor. That is, except for the HUGE gold-leafed T-Rex scull with rhinestone-bedazzled teeth hanging over our table! We were definitely seated in the enchanted grotto. After a nice dinner (the kind where the waiter is ridiculously concerned with the state and location of your napkin), we asked our overly-attentive waiter if there was a story behind the dinosaur head.

"Story? I'm sorry, I don't understand," he replied in a thick French accent.

"You know, a story. Do you have a name for him? Does the staff call him Rex?"

"Eh, just a moment, I don't know--I go check."

At this point, I erupted in a fit of snorts which I tried to hide behind my tired napkin. Oh what a funny miscommunication, right? Another waiter returned to take some plates, and Jesse asked him the same question about having a nickname for the thing. The waiter said,

"Actually, it is art. My boss is very into art, you know, and one day he brought it in his truck. It is 24-karat gold." I laughed at him, thinking, it's so stinkin' huge, he MUST be joking with us. But no,

"It's gold-leafed," he said. We could hardly get ourselves out the door fast enough. There was no language misunderstanding! They were just that serious about their art! And what art!