fine dining

its my first time spending the holidays out of the country and away from the family. since, i'm all alone in the apartment, tita susan invited me to spent christmas at her house. i practically lived and fed there for three days.

we had a very busy schedule; visit her in-laws for christmas eve and a filipino family for christmas day and celebrating her birthday and visiting other friends in between. plus the never ending errands. hectic!

so, i was told beforehand that this two families, american in-laws and filipino friend, are rich.

in the in-laws (christmas eve):

i was wearing the best dress that i had and was willing to pay dollars to get my hair done, if i only had the time. 

so, we went there. the house was enormous and elegant and those christmas trees (there's at least 4 of them) were so beautiful that i was tempted to snatched one of those coca-cola collectible items that was dangling on it. yeah, i was willing to be jailed just to stole one of those christmas trees had it been fitted in my bag!

what surprise me was the simplicity of the event. everyone's wearing [holiday] sweatshirt and pants. FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I WAS OVERDRESSED! and were talking america here, people. even their food were simple; just pizzas, pies and cakes and everyone's standing everywhere.

they're nice and very welcoming and they smiled a lot.


in the filipino friend (christmas day):

so here goes the tale of vella and her always underdressed issues. 

i was wearing t-shirt and jeans and flat shoes. we're having a sit-down dinner and i thought it's just as simple as the name. but, i was, as always, WRONG! coz everyone's in their fancy dress.

dinner came and we went to the table. i was surprised to see names on it which means that the person would sit on the chair opposite with his/her name on the table. then, there's this three piles of plates in different sizes and a lot of utensils in the sides which i'm too lazy to name. i've been to a lot of fine dinings already, but that's different coz i've been with friends and coworkers whom i wont ashamed to messed up. 

first course - salad. i like salad (preferably, caesar salad). so, its okey. i helped a plateful of it myself. i was observing at the other twelve participants of that dinner. if anyone of them will start eating, then i will, too. coz i was afraid that i might stuffed food in my mouth sooner than required. hey, it's a fine dining and i dont wanna get a mistake.

so, everyones eating, and i noticed that it's a different salad that i used to have, but it's okey, it taste good. what wasn't okey was the whole tomatoes and olives. i dont like tomatoes, i only liked it on my scambled eggs and on vinegar for fried fish. other than that, i despise tomatoes! and olives, too. so, i ate everything except those. and i must have scooped plenty of them coz there's a lot of them on my plate. so, here again, i observed everyone's plates and looked what had had left. surprised!, everyone's plate was clean. meaning, everyone ate to the last piece of their salad. meaning, i, too, need to ate those tomatoes. and the olives. [i heard that it's a compliment to the host if you eat everything on your plate in front of her/him] uh, i started to hate fine dining! so, i braced myself and tried to ate those tomatoes without breathing. that makes the taste tolerable. i was on my fourth piece when i finally gave up. i stopped or else i would throw up.

other than the dress and the tomatoes, everything went smooth. and the host/hostess were very nice and chatty. the house was pretty big and beautiful, too.

that's how i spent my christmas here in the US.