A Bunch of White People Sitting in the Corner

Last night Brad and I were invited to a "preview" of a restaurant that's been revamped and about to open back up. (Lucy was already in bed when we left and our great friend Randall stayed here with an oh-so-difficult babysitting job.) We got there at 8:25ish and we fully expected it to be a LONG night. We were right.

Once everyone else started arriving - closer to 8:45 - we went inside and the women went to one side of the restaurant and the men to the other. I immediately noticed that the white ladies vastly outnumbered the local ladies.

*Here in our current, village-like tiny town, most all of ALL of the locals I meet know at least one other "foreigner," making every initial conversation include, "So do you know....?" They assume that ALL white people know each other. Funny. I guess because our language school is here in this tiny town and usually all the white people here in this tiny town are in language school.*

So, the friend that invited me also knows, let's count...1 other American lady, 2 Swiss ladies, and 3 German ladies - and that's only those of us that were there! So, including me, that's 7! That's quite a gaggle of white ladies all gathered around 1 table with only 4 locals! And at one point, the local ladies weren't sitting with us because they were still mingling and we were all just a bunch of white people sitting in the corner of the restaurant. Funny.

I've mentioned before how hard it is to meet local women here in this town. Maybe because it's so small and so conservative, yet so inundated with foreigners coming to learn Arabic, that the locals who want to mingle with foreigners are few and far between! So, those are the ones that continue to meet us, while the rest of them don't. Hmmm... something to ponder.

My Restaurant Review:
While I thought that the food at this place was delicious before, I was completely surprised at how over-the-top delicious it is now! They've changed it from a local food place to a seafood place. One would not expect good seafood in our landlocked town, but one would be pleasantly surprised by this place! I had vegetable soup as a starter - easily the best veg soup I've ever had! Then I had grilled filet of hammour (white fish). WOW! It was so tasty!!!
The service was super slow, taking about an hour and a half to get all our food out. But we did have a whole slew of women at our table. Brad and the men ate and were done about an hour before we even got any food. And the men were able to go and pick out their cut of fish...which I'm not sure I would've liked to do. Picking from the menu is just fine with me.

I was very happy to have LOTS of cultural time and Arabic-speaking time and to get to know another lady in my friend's family (the wife of the restaurant owner). I hope and pray that she and her hubby and child will become family friends for me and Brad and Lucy. We miss having friends we can visit together as a family. *You can Pray for this, too!*

And when YOU come to visit us, we'll take you to the best seafood place around!

By the way, I got home at 11:45PM!