-or-
My Quest for French Onion Soup
brought to you by the Genius of Josh
Our day starts at the early hour of 9 in the morning after I shamefully passed out at 9 o’clock the evening before from a combination of jet-lag and traveler’s exhaustion, emasculating myself and severely hurting my own self-image as a night-owl/veteran traveler in the process. Suffice it to say my pillow was not fully dry as the ramifications of such an early sleep set in, but I had scarcely the time to begin sobbing like a small child before sleep overcame me. Don’t worry, I kid…or do I? But anyway, I digress. As I was saying, we awoke at the previously unknown to me on a weekend hour of 9 o’clock in order to prep ourselves for a lovely day in the town of Brugge, Belgium. We had heard tell of a wonderful brewery tour that was a must, but only if one attended the tour at 10 o’clock, lest the poor helpless traveler was to be forced to feign understanding and nod knowingly as the tour guide explained the process of creating beer in French. Apparently, the entire town of Brugge was much like me and the 9 o’clock hour on a weekend was something unheard of to them as well as we wandered through the empty streets of Brugge with our arms outstretched, tightly clutching a tourist map, attempting to find the brewery.
When we arrived at the site noted on our map, we were dismayed to find only locked doors awaiting us. Treachery was afoot. We waited till approximately 10:10 only to find a locked door awaiting us even at the end of our wait. Dejected, we decided to wander over to the tourist office hoping to find that our barred entrance was merely a misunderstanding and not a game of laugh at the tourist perpetrated by some brewery tour guides who had already sampled some of their tour wares. After trekking across town to the tourist information building, we found that not only were we attempting to get into the building across the street from the brewery we were supposed to be going to (you’d think it would be hard to hide a brewery, but then you’d be mistaken) but the tour was also not until 11. Thus all thoughts of foul-play were struck from our minds…for the moment. We once again walked across town (after stopping in at the Basilica of the Holy Blood where we were informed that the cloth bearing Jesus’ blood was only on display between 2 and 3:50, go figure) and arrived just in time for the brewery tour. Long story short, the tour was fine. After the tour, I was treated to a free beer in exchange for my tour ticket while Leah stumbled into the bathroom complaining of an upset stomach. It being noon, and me not having had breakfast and holding a beer in my hand, my natural mental progression coupled with the urgings of my stomach cried out “lunchtime!” at the top of it’s teeny, mind/stomach voice. I couldn’t argue. A sick Leah, on the other hand, could. However, after much cajoling and the denial of the concept of a state called “sickness”, Leah finally agreed to allow me to order some assorted meats. If only Leah’s agreement was all I needed. This brings me to one of the major “perils” that I make reference to in the title. Some explaining is in order. Older people are envious. They are envious of my boyish good lucks and my youthful splendor. How can they get back at me? By ignoring me. We sat at the table for a good 20 minutes as the waiter ignored us and tended to all the other people in the restaurant. Me being naturally non-confrontational and slightly passive-aggressive, rather than throwing down my glass of beer, proclaiming their “great, Brugge brewed beer” swill and claiming I would rather die than eat at their terrible restaurant and drink their piss water anymore, I instead glared at the waiter, moped for a couple more minutes, and then told Leah it was time to leave and we didn’t need their “Assorted meats and fresh garden salad for 8 euros.” Best 8 euros I didn’t spend all vacation. The aforementioned sickness of Leah became too overwhelming to chalk up to crazy Belgian mind games and I had to admit that perhaps Leah was not imagining it and she was indeed having “tummy problems”. We thus decided to take from the hours of 12:30 to approximately 2 o’clock and designate them “Leah recuperation time” as she took a nap, and I pretended to stay awake and read Frankenstein so as to not emasculate myself more in the eyes of my sister, while actually sleeping on the hidden bunk above her. At the delightful hour of 2 o’clock, we emerged from our hostel, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to take on the afternoon. We did it all. We looked at paintings, we bought some chocolate, we saw a guillotine, we climbed a belfry tower, we bought some more chocolate, we kissed a container holding Christ’s blood, we kissed a container holding chocolate; the usual tourist stuff. But alas, the substitution of a mere curry chicken sandwich for “Assorted meats and fresh garden salad for 8 euros” caused the mind/stomach voice to once again cry out for fulfillment. It was because of these cries that we found ourselves in the middle of Markt Square. Background info: Markt Square is the center of town; Brugge is a tourist center; hence, Markt square is the center of a tourist center, meaning that food is hideously, hideously, expensive. For some bizarre reason, Leah and I convinced ourselves that while the past 6 restaurants were hideously, hideously overpriced bourgeois opresstaurants as I prefer to call them, the next restaurant would be a cheap but quality little place catering to our proletariat traveler’s budget. Alas and alack, this unfortunately was not to be found. And above all, damn that little voice, I noticed on one of the earlier menus that they served French onion soup, and from that moment on I would not be sated until I tasted that luscious blend of beef broth, onions, cheese, and a little piece of bread. At first my stingy half got the best of me, and we agreed to quit this devilish square and fan out in search of a cheaper restaurant (but of course, one that had French onion soup). Unfortunately, this was not to be. After stopping to buy some more chocolate, I finally cracked under the intense weight of desire, threw caution to the wind, and decided that I would spoil myself because I had been so good and treat myself to a delicious dinner, which would of course contain the delectable French onion soup. We wandered Markt Square up and down, examining menu upon menu to find the perfect balance of price and French onion soup availability, and after much deliberation we finally settled upon a nice little French restaurant. We walked up, and being the worried travelers that we were, inquired as to whether it would be fine if we only ordered soup and a starter rather than a whole meal. Our waiter stared down his nose with the greatest French loathing and informed us in a crisp French accent that “yees, dat woud be fane”. He then seated us, and partially due to hunger, and partially due to pent up guilt for all the deaths incurred by France as the United States sat on its haunches waiting to enter World War II, I decided to go all out and order an actual meal. Thus it was that Leah and I found ourselves sitting in a small French restaurant in Belgium, awaiting our French onion soup, beef stew, giant meat platter, and garlic bread. And then the restaurant caught on fire.
Postscript: Although it’s against my better judgment, and I feel the story should end right there, many would be left asking: were you okay? What happened to the restaurant? Did you get your French onion soup? Did you eat more chocolate? Did you challenge the Frenchman to a duel because of the obvious slight to your reputation in the way he treated you? Well, gentle readers, I will answer these questions for you. Leah and I were fine, though highly angry. The restaurant was fine for the most part (or so we think) as there was really only a small fire on the roof, but the aforementioned anger came because they decided to close the restaurant after we waited half an hour to see whether I would get my damn French onion soup or not. I eventually did get my French onion soup at another restaurant down the way, and blew over 20 euros on dinner. Yes dear friends, we did indeed eat more chocolate. Finally, I already told you, I’m non-confrontational and somewhat passive-aggressive so I did what came naturally: I glared at the waiter. After dinner, we wandered the streets of Brugge, enjoying the beautiful architecture and night, and finally went to bed at the slightly less emasculating hour of 10 o’clock.
-Fin