Journal #3

                                                       Dinner Cruise on the Seine

As me and peers are standing outside waiting to go onto the dinner boat, I notice bus loads of tourists are staring at us from their dry interiors (it had began to rain) and I couldn't help feeling important. There's something about being in a group of smartly dressed individuals about to get on a boat for a nice dinner, that makes you feel fancy. Anyways, it was raining, so of course the chorus of groans from students, myself included, as to why they weren't letting us on the bus already ready rang out amongst the crowd. Finally the doors opened. As we filled in handsome boat workers attended the door. Although I tried my best to be attentive to details, i didn't actually know the boat workers were attractive, this fact when over my head, it was my table mates, a group of 5 girls, not counting myself, who informed me of this little tidbit. it seemed that everyone had took note of how attractive this particular boat worker was, but me. Me, the one who was supposed to be taking notes. Anyways, as we sat at our tables, me and my group of girls, we bonded and made table arrangements before entering the boat, picked a table in the middle to enjoy our dinner cruise. This was it, we were on the boat.... "What now?" I wondered to myself as we bobbed up and down docked closely to the wall of the Seine. After at least 5-10 minutes of waiting, the chaos began. First we were given water for our tables. Evian and sparkling. then we were offered a white wine. I did NOT like the wine. Then after making sure our drinks were filled, a waiter began to flirt with a girl at my table. "How do you say delicious," she asked.
"deliciouso" he responded, "like the wine. Like me."
As she awkwardly laughed to herself, the waiter insisted that she agree with him stating repeatedly "aren't I delicious."
It was weird to say the least, but not as weird as my first course. It was a salad... I think. The first course consisted of half a tomato topped with some other vegetable, two little fishies ( i'll say they were sardines) and a vinaigrette.... This was the strangest salad I had ever had, but boy was it pretty. As I pulled out my phone to snap an instagram worthy picture, I noticed all of my other table mates did the same with their phones and cameras. We actually all looked pretty ridiculous, treating our dishes as if they were Kim and Kanye and we were the paparazzi trying to get their best angle. After, snapping a few shots I looked at my beautiful salad tomato and began to plot the best course of action in eating that thing. as I looked around the table I noticed everyone kind of looking down at their plates mesmerized, no one wanting to take the first cut, I assume nervous they might do it wrong and look like an idiot. So I stepped up to the occasion with my utensils in hand and made the first incision. Everyone then followed suit.
 I started by first removing the sardines to the side of the plate, I would get to those later. As I worked the knife through the first chunk of my salad tomato, I begun to wonder things only poor people like myself think about I assume. Like, why the heck would someone pay so much money for half of an uncooked tomato with more uncooked things thrown on top of it. Salads are way too expensive, but this salad tomato seemed just a bit lazy in my opinion. I mean, come on chef, can't you cut my tomato up and and toss the rest of the stuff around?!? Alright, so the first bite of my salad tomato was pretty good. About what you would expect from eating a raw tomato with salad dressing. Then I tackled the sardines. I hate fish. But I'm in paris and I'm feeling adventurous, so why not? First bite. I hate sardines. I abhor sardines. If sardines were the only thing on earth to eat, I would create factories and manufacturer my own food and... Oh wait, America. Ok, so processed foods already exist, but I would make my own just so I never had to eat another salty sardine again. Lucky for me, one of my table mates loved sardines and happily took them away so I never had to see their ugly little bodies again.
Moving on, 2nd course. As I braced myself for something completely outlandish and bizarre, my waiter set my plate in front of me. Steak and potatoes. When i think of steak and potatoes I don't necessarily think of froo-froo french food, but hey, i was not complaining. I was hungry and ready to eat. As my table mates complained of the toughness of the meat, I happily sawed my steak to death and chewed until my jaws hurt as it was cooked exactly how I liked it. Well-done! Yes! no one else at my table enjoyed the steak, but i was very happy. Next was dessert but that was not before a waiter grabbed two unsuspecting girls from their table and started a dance party. Everyone applauded as the waiter excitedly twirled the nervous looking girls in circles. It was our flirty delicious waiter. He really made his rounds this evening! The dancing was fun and lightened the mood in the room, which was nice, and right on time for the best desert I've had in france thus far. It was ice cream layered stuff that tasted amazing! I loved every flavorful delicious bite! I began to notice the volume in the room increase slightly and i realized some of my peers had helped them self to quite a few glasses of wine. Yay, wine! As I sipped my own wine, I smartly pointed at a whale tail art piece we had passed earlier in the cruise and said, "look guys, another one." Of course, it wasn't another one and we had indeed turned the boat around. Thats when I put my glass of wine down. We capped our dining experience with some expresso which tasted amazing! As our boat began to dock back against the Seine wall, we noticed how cute the waiters for the next dinner cruise were. Well, a table mate noticed and decided to take a picture of them, too which they responded by pointing, winking, and laughing at us. Yay. That was it. The cruise was over. The food was great. the people were fun. The sun shone on us from the open top boat and lit our ways all the way home... Just kidding. The second we stepped off the boat a torrential down pour scattered paris, and people ran for their lives as if they were searching for Noah's Ark. The perfect Parisian ending to a fun trip if you ask me.