the service industry

My dad had a sour face on for the first 20 minutes while
waiting for his beer. The place was filled with smoking
advertising and ashtrays, and the smell lingered.

Bolivia does a lot of things well, particularly considering their lower GDP and possible corruption throughout the government and such.  Everyone here can agree that service, however, is not one of them.  Particularly when it comes to restaurants.  I'll just leave one tale, from my sister and dad's last night in Bolivia (more on them soon!).

 We stopped in a Peruvian restaurant to look at the menu, which was mostly seafood.  They listed two chicken dishes on the extensive printed menu, both of which were not available.  My sister was already a bit queezy for seafood, so we decided to pass it up.  The lady followed us out of the restaurant, then explained that if we all wanted chicken, she would run to the store to get it!  Talk about bending over backwards for business!

We went to a place called "Fridays", that looked exactly like the American TGIF.  It even had a slogan "every day is Friday", and Jackie joked about the Bolivian version, EDIF.  

--> On the menu was a bunch of pasta dishes along with dishes like "Friday's Sandwich  and with no explanation.  When asked about it, the waiter was like "you know, it's bread, with meat.  And cheese...  It's really good."

--> Also on the menu was "Panini".  No description, nor could the waiter describe it.

--> I asked what the piña colada was like.  He described it as "you know, pineapple, and like... whiskey.  Yeah, it's blended"  (thankfully they used a drink book to make it without whiskey, but it was definitely not blended)

--> Our drink orders sat on slips of paper on the counter for literally 20 minutes, until I turned around and asked the bartender if he could at least open the beer for my dad.  He had no other customers.

The funniest thing about this bill is the it's listed in order that 

they were made. Beer, mixed drink, 4 main dishes, then the 

other 2 drinks.  Total of $40- can't complain I guess.

--> Misa's and Jackie's drink order was confused twice before they even started to make anything.

--> The food came out by some lady from the kitchen.  Then our silverware.  Then a few minutes later our bread.  Then a five minutes later some parmesan cheese.  Surprise!

-->  The sauce was great, but the lasagna and ravioli were notably microwaved.

--> The waiter gave me his phone number on a slip of paper under the bill.

At least we all left with a good laugh!