Eating out is quite a production...

This is a picture (that’s actually really funny) of me holding all of our money, and my cheque dejuners in the front.  (I don’t know how to spell cheque dejuner, and I’m too lazy to get up and look- I think it’s actually French anyways).  The first time I really used these coupons that the school gave me was on Friday night.  Megan and I went out and tried a new restaurant in Tata.  I don’t know what it’s called, but it was quite interesting.  It felt like a wine cellar with brick ceilings and walls with arches to make you feel like you were in a basement or something.  It sounds stupid the way I am describing it, but it was actually quite nice.  The dinner was good – we ordered chicken with cucumbers and potatoes – which in Hungarian apparently translates to pickles and tater-tots… but it was good.  I wanted to use up some of these coupons since I rarely get out – and why not?!  They are in 400 forint denominations… ($2.00) so I decided that I’d use as many as I could.  SIDENOTE: In Hungary when they bring the check, they hover to wait for your money – there isn’t a period where you can do the math and collect money from everyone – it’s now or never.  I got nervous because I was using the food-stamp coupons and decided I’d rip 12 of them off at the same time.  Well, try ripping out 12 checks from your check book at once, and see how that goes- not well.  I tore off the ends of about 10 of them, of course the end that has a numerical code that the vendor needs inorder to redeem the coupons.  Shit – the waitress kind of gasped as I did it, so I apologized and used my best Hungarian swear word- Bosmeg!  Megan was horrified and shushed me because I was spazzing by that time.  The waitress left and I managed to coerce the small pieces off the pad of coupons.  I fanned them out so she could see that I had them all, and put a 1000 forint bill on top of the whole thing (which was about 4x what she needed for a tip).  I wanted to bolt out as soon as possible, but as I turned to escape before she came back, I turned right into her carrying a large tray of food.  Yikes!  Argh.  I don’t think I can ever go back.  Oh well.  I got to use quite a few coupons!