Meet the Europeans

Two people from the European offices of CoCE were over visiting last week. We think of it as the European office - CoCE has 4 offices in the USA, the largest of which has something like 1500 employees. The European office has 30 people, and is in England. (There's also an office in Dubai, but I've never heard anything much about it).

Because they were from England, we went out with them - me, two of them, and M - who's actually from New Zealand originally, but lived in London for 5 years, so I count him as an honorary Brit. (He seems to live in Vancouver most of the time, it's something of a mystery to me how that actually works). It turned out that one of the Europeans was actually American, but we didn't worry about that.

Anyway, we took them to a Mexican restaurant at the end of the pier. Which was cold. Vast quantities of food were brought - when we sat down, they brought a basket of tortilla chips, and a little bowl of salsa (each). As soon as anyone's bowl of salsa, or the basket of chips, looked half empty, it was replaced with a full one. Before the starters came, we were all reasonably satiated, and could have happily left.

We ate starters and man courses (most main courses were barely touched, but I finished mine) and drank cocktails. When the bill came, they forgot to charge us for the drinks, so we feasted on fine food for about £12.50 each (in old money). This was a double bonus, because we'd talked about work, we decided that it was a work meal, and because there was no alcohol on the bill, CoCE could pick up the tab.

We left the restaurant, M went back to work, and J asked what music I liked. I said I wasn't all that fussy, so she said "Oh good, because it's hip hop night at this cocktail bar." So we went to the hip hop bar and drank (expensive) cocktails. Amongst others, I had a 'Paradise Martini' which was coconut milk, crushed strawberries, and vodka. And came with an orchid floating on the top.

I was planning to get the bus home, but it was cold and there was a row of warm, empty, inviting taxis just sitting there. So I got one of them. Then I discovered I hadn't got enough money to get all the way home, so I had to walk the last couple of miles, and the bus would have been a better idea.

The boys had their special "Daddy's been out drinking" detectors finely tuned, so they woke up at 4am ("It's too dark Daddy"), 5am ("Blanket not right") and 6am ("Is it daytime?"). Then the next day it was my turn to go to the nursery and be a working parent. Which actually wasn't too bad, which rather spoils the end of the story. Still, the next one is better.