Today is my birthday.
I floated down the river with all the other young hippies from around the world. It was slow and picturesque. It was odd to see Lao people working along the river as I gently floated by them. How strange is it that I have the time and money to do such a thing while they fish, collect weeds, and wash clothes? What's even stranger is that so many of them have quit their former careers in favor of setting up little beer gardens all along the inner-tubing route. Some of them had elaborate schemes to get swimmers to stop. For example, an old grandma and grandpa had two fifty foot swings and a bamboo diving platform. The grandpa yelled, "Swing, swing! Beerlao, Beerlao!" as we paddled by. We didn't stop because the sun wasn't shining through the clouds and it was just too cold to submerge our entire body in the freezing water.
Last night, I saw another bootlegged film. It was called The Client. I was super distracted during the first fifteen minutes because the English subtitles were ridiculously incorrect. Al Pachino, for example, states that the main character of the film is a good athlete; the bottom of the screen read, "He's very nimble on a linear grid." The subtitles kept the puny audience howling until the restaurant owner finally turned them off.
Time to rant.
Something that routinely pisses me off around here is that restaurants never have what you want. Say you crave a hamburger and you ask for one because it's on the menu. They don't have hamburger. So, you order a mutton burger (that's on the menu, too). Sorry, no mutton burger. So, you order spicy beef-- two of them, one for Krista and one for me. The spicy beef comes to the table and it's made from gound burger. What's stranger is they bring only one plate of it when you've asked for two. It happens all the time!
Another example which occurred on the same day. The person next to us orders plain yogurt. They bring her fruit salad with yogurt poured on top. She says she doesn't want fruit. They bring her a plate of fruit without yogurt. It was incredible.
Yesterday, I asked for vegetable noodles, they bring me chicken noodles. In Vientiane, Krista ordered vegetables and rice and she gets shrimp and squid on top of vegetables. ...I don't get it. It happens even if you point to the item on the menu with their native language right next to it. It's some kind of crazy conspiracy. Every night out is an adventure. I've only encountered this kind of behavior at one place back in the U.S.: Laurelwood Pub in Portland, Oregon. Ask for a hefeweizen and you'll get a stout.
I floated down the river with all the other young hippies from around the world. It was slow and picturesque. It was odd to see Lao people working along the river as I gently floated by them. How strange is it that I have the time and money to do such a thing while they fish, collect weeds, and wash clothes? What's even stranger is that so many of them have quit their former careers in favor of setting up little beer gardens all along the inner-tubing route. Some of them had elaborate schemes to get swimmers to stop. For example, an old grandma and grandpa had two fifty foot swings and a bamboo diving platform. The grandpa yelled, "Swing, swing! Beerlao, Beerlao!" as we paddled by. We didn't stop because the sun wasn't shining through the clouds and it was just too cold to submerge our entire body in the freezing water.
Last night, I saw another bootlegged film. It was called The Client. I was super distracted during the first fifteen minutes because the English subtitles were ridiculously incorrect. Al Pachino, for example, states that the main character of the film is a good athlete; the bottom of the screen read, "He's very nimble on a linear grid." The subtitles kept the puny audience howling until the restaurant owner finally turned them off.
Time to rant.
Something that routinely pisses me off around here is that restaurants never have what you want. Say you crave a hamburger and you ask for one because it's on the menu. They don't have hamburger. So, you order a mutton burger (that's on the menu, too). Sorry, no mutton burger. So, you order spicy beef-- two of them, one for Krista and one for me. The spicy beef comes to the table and it's made from gound burger. What's stranger is they bring only one plate of it when you've asked for two. It happens all the time!
Another example which occurred on the same day. The person next to us orders plain yogurt. They bring her fruit salad with yogurt poured on top. She says she doesn't want fruit. They bring her a plate of fruit without yogurt. It was incredible.
Yesterday, I asked for vegetable noodles, they bring me chicken noodles. In Vientiane, Krista ordered vegetables and rice and she gets shrimp and squid on top of vegetables. ...I don't get it. It happens even if you point to the item on the menu with their native language right next to it. It's some kind of crazy conspiracy. Every night out is an adventure. I've only encountered this kind of behavior at one place back in the U.S.: Laurelwood Pub in Portland, Oregon. Ask for a hefeweizen and you'll get a stout.
posted by c. @ 3:47 AM
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