Mami Mia

After frisbee we went to the "Mami Mia" restaurant for supper. Fortunately there was ample seating outdoors for our sweaty mob. Once we had pulled 5 tables together and seated our 20+ selves around them, the ordering ritual began.

My friend "Storm" speaks the local language fluently, and when the waitress discovered this she decided to talk to Storm rather than trying to deal with the varying levels of French spoken by our assortment of Americans. I thought it was a wise choice on her part, as did Storm, but it quickly got complicated. I have learned enough of the local language that I could follow the general gist of what Storm and the waitress were discussing. The conversation went something like this:

Waitress: What would you like?

Storm: I'll have a chicken chawarma.

Waitress: A what?

Storm: A chicken chawarma. It's right here on the menu.

Waitress: (squinting at the menu with a perplexed look on her face) Sorry, we don't have any of those right now.

Storm: Oh. How about a chicken sandwich, then?

Waitress: Yes, we can do four. Does anybody else in your group want a chicken sandwich?

Storm (in English to the huddle masses): Does anybody want a chicken sandwich?

Me: I do.

Waitress: Does anybody else want a chicken sandwich? We have four.
(I wasn't sure whether this meant that they could only make four, that they wouldn't bother killing a chicken unless they got four orders, or whether it meant that four had already been sitting on a shelf for the past half hour and she wanted to get rid of them.)

Storm: Who else wants a chicken sandwich? We need four people.

Random people #1 and #2: I do!

Random person #3: I want a chicken burger!

Random person #2: "Oh wait, I want a chicken burger too."

Storm to waitress: Do you have chicken for chicken burgers too?

Waitress: Yes, four.

Storm: No, I mean for burgers, not for the sandwiches

Random person #4: I want a chicken burger!

Random person #1: Me too!

Storm to random person #1: I thought you wanted a chicken sandwich.

random person #1: Yeah, sorry. I thought they were the same thing.

Storm back to waitress: We want four chicken sandwiches and three chicken burgers.

Random person #5: I want a chicken burger too!

Storm to waitress: four chicken burgers. Do you have enough chicken for all of that?

Waitress: (said something I didn't understand, but she accepted the order)

We then went on to order pizzas, chawarmas, and other items in more or less the same manner. I was astounded when, some time later, the food came and everyone actually got what he or she had wanted. It was tasty, too.