In the interest of exploring the 6th arrondissement, John and I have started venturing out to some local restaurants recommended by the French guidebook that we bought. Tonight we tried a fairly decent place, which seemed pretty empty when we first walked in but was teeming with a mostly-French crowd after about 9pm. What made this particular dining experience interesting for us was the very polite, middle aged American couple sitting at the table next to us. John and I covertly monitored them throughout their dinner, and they neither yelled "HEY GARCON!!!" across the restaurant to get the waiter's attention, nor did they loudly complain about their meal/wine/menu choice, etc... And then to top it off, the wife actually spoke to the waiter in what seemed to me to be fluent French! Compared to the last American couple that we had encountered, this pair was single-handedly redeeming our countrymen. I simply had to know what part of the States these well-mannered people came from, and it turned out that they were from Florida with the wife being a retired high school French teacher (of all things). We chatted for a few minutes as they paid their bill, and John and I even got a small teacherly admonishment from the wife for not speaking French to each other during our meal as practice. I just kept thinking that it was so nice that there were some Americans who can come to a foreign country and not completely disgrace the rest of the U.S. by acting like belligerent wackjobs.
....which actually kind of sucks for Canada, because something tells me they don't walk around telling everyone they're Canadian.
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