Last night I went to a jazz club on a street famous for it's jazz scene called Rue des Lombards. The bar was called "Le Baiser Salé." Here's a picture of the inside:
Just kidding, that's Gordon Ramsey's restaurant in Tokyo (the guy from Hell's Kitchen). I really want to go to one of his restaurants one day. Anyway, here's what it actually looked like:
I didn't take this picture I found it on google..but this is basically what it looked like outside except darker and way more crowded. Pretty cool, huh?
I tried google translating it in French and all I got was the word kiss, but translating it from Portuguese gives me "The Salty Kiss." I tried portuguese because I think the singer was Brazilian and I think he was singing partly in portuguese last night. The show was at 10 and we decided around 9 that we wanted to go there (we'd walked down the road to find the best bang for our buck). So, we sat down and ordered a drink and tried to ignore the cold. It was so crowded that we were as close to the street as possible and thus weren't under the heat lamps. Around 9:45 we waited in line to pay our 20 Euro cover and go sit upstairs where the show would be.
We got seated as close to the stage as you could get (which I don't think was a good thing). The show wasn't starting until 10:30 so the waitress said if we wanted food we could go to the corner for a crêpe and come back. A few of us left and when I got back, there was a chick in my seat. The friends of mine who'd stayed behind said they'd tried to tell her that I was sitting there but she ignored them. I stood there awkwardly in this teeny tiny super crowded room with nowhere to go because the other 2 friends who had left with me were behind me, and in front of me was the table my friends were sitting at and the bench next to it that I had been sitting on, that was now occupied. I was holding up my friends behind me, who had nowhere to go until I found somewhere to sit. I told her she was in my seat, and she argued with me, telling me that she had been there before. I know she was lying because when I sat down earlier her friend scooted over to make a spot for me, and didn't say a word about me sitting in an occupied seat. Then, when my friends sat down and I was the only person standing up with nowhere to move, literally, and the waitress was looking at this woman trying to figure out what had happened to my seat, the chick pointed to a little white bag sitting on an empty chair and said she could take that and I could sit there. So I KNOW she was lying- that was where she'd been sitting! Ugh. I took my spot, which was situated perfectly so that when I looked straight ahead all I saw was a music stand in front of me holding a big red music folder. But I told myself, all I really need is to be able to hear, not necessarily to see.
The music was good! The best way I can describe it was that it sounded similar to "The Girl From Ipanema" song.. with a little more drums. At one point this guy randomly walked onstage from the crowd (who obviously knew the band) and joined in for one song. He was singing in fast spanish and I was so relieved. Being here and not knowing french has made me realize that I am more fluent in spanish than I thought. (Not to say I'm fluent in spanish by any means, far from it). He left after his song and soon after they had an intermission. It's funny how you can understand so much faster than you can speak. For example, I speak a ridiculously small amount of french, but I understood the vocalist of the band when he said-in french- "We're going to take an intermission for 5 minutes and we'll start again in 20 minutes." (Insert crowd laughter).
Ok but back to the point of this post. So, the seat stealing liar bothered me more than I realized, because I'm pretty sure my dream last night was a manifestation of my rage towards this woman. See what you think:
In my dream I was eating dinner at a restaurant with some people. The waitress came by and someone asked her for her recommendations. At the same time I somehow had the internet open to a page of reviews about the restaurant. All of the reviews said that the restaurant was really good but to never order these two specific items mentioned, because they sucked. Literally every review said that. And lo and behold, those were the two items she recommended. I could tell (as you sometimes can in dreams) that she was doing this to be cruel. All of my friends were nodding and smiling, ignorant of the warning from the reviews. I was not going to let this happen.
"I'm not buying this bullsh*t! Who do you think you are?! Did you think we wouldn't know?! How is it that you are recommending the very two things that are supposed to be horrible at this place?"
She sneered and stayed silent, knowing the jig was up! Without a moment's pause, I turned to the head waitress standing nearby listening and said; "We'd like a new waitress, please." She smiled, nodded, and said; "right away."
This evening I realized that my rant at the waitress is exactly what I could have said to the lady sitting in my chair- minus the part about the menu. I never would have said that, but I think dream me was able to vent her frustrations the Gordon Ramsey way.
Until next time!
Hillary
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