Cafe Flore

I am so sorry, but writing this blog post I can't avoid it: the rant. Let me start this unattractive monologue by telling you a story of the last time I placed myself in the famous and always comfortable Cafe Flore in Paris. Story starts here:

So I'm in Cafe Flore, the wellknown cafe on Saint-Germain and there's an American girl next to me. She doesn't know a word of French, which is fine, but when the friendly and hospitable waiter comes over to serve her, decides that it's not her job to know French in France, but his to know English. She wants a scone, she tells him. When he doesn't understand him, she figures that it's probaby easier to shout the word "SCONES!" in his face until she gets the bright idea to spell it out for the poor man, who desperately tries to understand her in his own broken English. She asks her if she doesn't want to come with him to see their pastries, but she strictly refuses and decides to just go with a hot chocolate, which she tells in a very. Slow. English. Now, I have a lot of American friends. Hell, some of my best friends belong to the big country. Sweet people who try to speak the language of the country they're in. When I lived there, when I travelled through, all I met were good people. But that's not the idea that the outside world get when Americans like this particular girl gets annoyed because the unfamiliar world around her doesn't speak her language. Only speaking one language is fine, but the least you can do in strange surroundings is try, try at least, to be open to the fact that not everyone is like you. Or as someone told me the other day: "if I sit next to someone who only speaks French (for instance), and I speak German, English, Danish and Swedish, then I don't feel like I'm the one with a problem". Lets be aware of the fact that they speak French in France, German in Germany, English in England and so on. Let's not try to impose our mother tongue when we're somewhere else. It's just rude. And that goes for everyone.

But that's not what this is about. This is about Cafe Flore of course, the charming place where waiters are friendly - even to people who aren't so friendly towards them...

172 Boulevard Saint-Germain

Paris, France