L'Arlequin

To culminate the end of the semester, the professors suggested a dinner for everyone in III-5 (which sounds like a prison ward). I found my way there at 8:15, which I found to be a little tardy but was actually kind of early for dinner at a restaurant. The tardiness had just begun, however - we didn't order until 9:15 and didn't start eating until at least 10:00. Happily, the food was great and it was a fun time. To the left is Yanna (Russia) and my professor, Madame Monier. Next to Yanna is her husband, whose name I promptly forgot. He's French and works for some company that harnasses wind energy.

Due to the abundance of spare time, I was able to get some pictures of people in my class that I usually am not inclined to photograph. Here, I seem to be conspiring to get a really bad shot of Max, the fake English boy whose accent I love, faux as it may be. That's Marianna (Columbia) in the foreground .

Here's a better shot. Also included is Petra (Sweden). Max read to me the other day from my gigantesque Sherlock Holmes volume II anthology. He jumped around with Sherlock's accent from upper-class barrister to Cockney to Jamaican until he finally settled on a bizarre feathery-eunuch concoction that he really liked. I think he was disappointed that I didn't lug the book to dinner with me so he would have a chance to practice it more.

Here's Jia (China) and Iyman (Syria) (I have no idea how to spell his name) before dinner. Eye-man has big plans to be a dentist. He told me that he wants to move to Canada since it's a lot easier to get a license. He had very nice teeth.


This wasn't my appetizer, but it looked good. That's half of my professor holding the plate, which was a warm-chevre salad. If I didn't have such a profound aversion to goat tastes I would have been tempted.

Instead, I went for fried goodness. I was halfway through the rings before I thought to take a picture. The orange sauce was kind of like a thicker, tangier French dressing (appropriate), and instead of having onions in the middle, it was long rings of calamari. Mm. Squidrings. They were actually really good, with the caveat of being hard to bite through all the way.

This is my lovely main plate. I went bold and ordered the salmon, and didn't even think about bones being a problem until the first crunchy bite. Ugh. But after that it went well. It was really tasty.

Here's the main course of Saif (Iraq), which is some kind of poultry in some kind of sauce. I forgot ot ask how it was. This wins the award for least memorable plate of the night.


Ah yes, the grand finale. True to form, I ordered the creme brulee (blogger isn't very accent-friendly) and it was quite good, even if not brulee'd enough for my palate. Any kind of dessert is good dessert, though.


Here's Tanya (Norway) with her own creme brulee. It was a popular dessert. She just got engaged a few weeks ago to her boyfriend, who is also Norweigan. He took her out on a weekend vacation to the coast and proposed to her on the beach.



We finally were all finished at around midnight, after getting coffee (except for pesky me, who requested a hot chocolate) and I managed to grab one of the candies from the basket on the way out, feeling like it would be like in Monty Python with the after-dinner mint. Luckily I stayed in one piece and had to straggle home and get up for class today.