Eating out

I don't know whether it's a lack of self-esteem or too much of it, but I've always sort of thought of myself as a notch above the rest. The hoi polloi enjoy Hollywood crap, but I enjoy film. I'm American-with-an-asterisk, and when I got here I was determined to prove I was everything an American was not: I was thoughtful, patient and cultured. Imagine my surprise when I realized I'm none of the above.

"Now, some of you are used to being served quickly at restaurants and stores," our program director said during orientation. "In South Africa, we're not lazy, but we take our time. So be patient -- this might be hard -- but remember the pace of life is slower here and relax, and you'll get used to it in no time."

Her warning was directed toward all of us, the typical American college students. In the U.S. we want our food fast and we eat it fast. Lunch break for 30 minutes? No problem.

That wasn't exactly my motto, though. I always thought going out for dinner (usually at 9 or 10, right? That's when evenings begin) was a fairly relaxed occasion. Yeah, eventually you get your bill and you pay, but the whole point is having good company, good food and enjoying yourself. The whole American idea of time-is-money, much like that rabbit in Alice in Wonderland ("I'm late! I'm late!") is a little tiresome because this defeats the purpose of truly enjoying yourself. If you're constantly looking at your watch and calculating how soon you can leave the restaurant, you're not going to have any fun. I thought the whole European idea of meals that stretch for hours was a brilliant one and always wanted to go somewhere where the idea was to savor your meal, not to finish ASAP and go.

So I thought.

I spotted a Greek restaurant the first or second day I was here -- it was located fairly close to the university, so it was one of the few places in town I could actually find sans map (oh; good luck navigating even with a map, because there are no street signs, just the occasional street name painted in the gutter). I had passed by during lunch, peering longingly in the darkened windows (it was only open for dinner) and reading the menu. Chicken shwarma and hummus and tzatziki! Oh my! This, I thought, is the next place I'm going. I'm not going to spend any more money on wraps or bacon or reduced-fat mayonnaise.

So last Friday, me and Alyssa went to the Greek place. Despite some initial confusion over lemonade (here, what they call "lemonade" is actually Sprite), we sat down and leisurely perused the menu. I ordered hummus to start and we conversed for a while, seated outside French-cafe style, near the street. The sun had long since gone down and a breeze was in the air and everything was perfect, and Alyssa started telling me the entire plot of Nip/Tuck, seasons one through five. By season three's recap, though, I was starting to get a little impatient. Not so much at the unbelievable plot lines (who writes that show? Seriously? Julian McMahon's character has the worst luck ever) but at the fact that I was starving and my hummus had yet to appear. I'm not the most patient person in the world, but I'm not unreasonable, either. Still, what were they doing in there? Thankfully, by mid-season four, our hummus arrived with warm bread. And though it wasn't the greatest I've ever had, I was beyond desperate and would've enjoyed anything. As we went through season five, I finished half the hummus and had run out of bread. The waitress brought us more and I ate slowly, hoping our shwarma was coming soon. If nothing else, I could just eat the hummus until the food arrived.

I think the biggest difference here (though maybe I just haven't been to enough upscale restaurants) is that people spend hours eating at restaurants. They eat their appetizer, they finish their appetizer. Only then will the kitchen start putting together their meal. If you think about it, it sort of makes sense. I always order appetizers and fill up before the main course, so perhaps spacing the courses out helps a little.

Our shwarma came twenty minutes after I had given up on finishing the rest of the hummus. It was good -- not quite as good as I'd hoped, but it's a Greek restaurant in Africa, and that's a little weird. Almost as weird as having KFC in Africa. Perhaps in a romantic setting, you'd want to finish your meal, stare deeply into each other's eyes for thirty minutes and then pay the bill, but for us, this romantic lull in activity was definitely not needed. Having no more Nip/Tuck plotlines to go through, we sat and stared awkwardly at the inside of the restaurant, hoping someone -- anyone -- would deliver the bill. It was like a two-hour movie; at first, it's relaxing and fun, then you've had enough, and then you just want to leave because you're over it already.

The moral of the story is, try as I might to escape it sometimes, I'm an American. Sure, I worked at a grocery store once and hated the "customer is always right" mantra, but at least it speeds up customer service. Here, it's not uncommon to wait in line for twenty minutes at the grocery store and when you finally get there, have the cashier scan your groceries with the most relaxed attitude in the world. There's no sense of this "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" sense of urgency and I thought that would be nice, but, true to Ms. de Wet's warnings, I'm more frustrated than anything else. Still, this whole "I don't have all day" mentality is misleading, because to be honest, I do have all day. I have all day and all week, because I don't have anything to do until school starts. It's an odd position to be in.

We did finally get our bill, after a good two hours at the restaurant. The hiking here is intense. The scuba diving is challenging. But in the same way, eating out is intense, and right now, I think I lack stamina. We'll see how the rest of the semester goes.