Sunday 3 March 2013

Le MacDo. Fast food French style.



Or MacDonalds as we usually call it. In France, its nickname is Le Macdo. Yesterday I told you my MacDo experience deserved a post. Well, here it is.

We were on vacation in France last week. And hungry, but didn’t know where to find a restaurant nearby. And the supermarket wasn’t open on Sunday. Good thing we remembered the MacDonalds!
We never drove in the dark before, so it was kinda exciting. The road was very, very dark… and about 15 kilometres long, going up and down with many turns. But we made it! Yay, there’s the Macdo!
Let’s go through the McDrive.

Holy sh*t. This menu seems different. Do they have the same? Oh thank goodness, I see a Big Mac.
“Jejajieblableebleu le MacDonalds, blableebleu blieblaaaa s’il vous plait?”
“Uhmmm…. Parlez vous Anglais?”, I tried. (“Do you speak English?”)
“Blablibleublaaablie ”
Damn. Ok. Let’s just try in French.
“Je voudrais….. (“I’d like”)…. A menu Big Mac.” That’s not how I learned this language. Why did I forgot these basic things? Yep, I just called ordering at MacDonalds a basic thing. I can do it in Dutch, English and German. So French should be in my head somewhere.
“blabliebloujejajeja”, she answered.
I turned to my hubs and said I don’t understand her. He didn’t either.
“I don’t… Je ne comprends pas!” (“I don’t understand”)
Lightly irritated she continues, a bit slower, but still in bliebluebla. She repeats it a couple of times and finally says slowly:
“ blablieblue Anglais: medium ou large!”
Oooooohhhh, do I want a medium or large menu! She could have said that right away, jeezzzzz.
“Medium!”, I yell back.
“Coca?”
“Oui”
Then she says something which I think it means, “Anything else?”
So I order a second menu for the hubs. I recognize the medium or large question this time. But it’s not fair. Medium sounds like “maydeehume” and large like “larch” (ch as in the word French).
I’m not even hesitating about asking something else than a coke or asking for sauce. This will have to do.
“And… uh… et… une royal cheese, mais non menu!”
Oh my goodness, it’s a good thing my French teachers aren’t there. They would hit me in the face for such bad French speaking.

I do know, somewhere in a little corner of my head, that I should have said something like “A royal cheeseburger, mais pas de menu. S’il vous plait.” Or something. I’m not sure.
What I’m sure of, you say “s’il vous plait” all the time. I didn’t say it enough at the McDrive.

And we were being punished for it.
‘Cause when we got back at the cottage, we noticed the fries were cold. Like really, really cold. And they couldn’t have gotten that cold. I suddenly remembered being surprised to see that we could immediately drive away from the Macdo, ‘cause there were at least three cars waiting for their order.
Guess they wanted the stupid Dutch one to go. Give the cold fries to that car. To the woman who didn’t say s’il vous plait enough.
Oh well.
It tasted good anyway!



I find it funny how other countries have slightly differerent MacDonalds menu’s. This French “pommes frites sauce” was like a mustard mayonaise. Much better than the ordinairy mayonaise, but also a lot different from the yellow sauce we get in Holland. Also, we got ketchup too. The size of the fries and drinks were the same.
People who’ve been to the USA always tell how big a Mac menu is over there. I’m very curious.
Who wants to take a pic of an American medium Mac menu and show it to me? How large are the drinks?

Anyway, I’m ending this post with one of my favorite moments in Friends: Phoebe teaching Joey how to speak French.
You suddenly know why I write “bleebluebla” when I’m referring to French talk.

Au revoir!



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