Columnist Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe writes in her weekly column about life as an expat in Romania. This week she writes about how she and two friends ended up waiting for two hours at a restaurant in Bucharest before they were finally served the ordered dinner.

We were three friends who at around 8 o'clock in the evening decided that we wanted to go to a restaurant in town.

I had been to the restaurant before, and had always enjoyed it, so we went there and were seated outside in the open air restaurant. The waitress was quick to come to our table, and to make it easy, we decided to order the same, so we all ordered a dish with lamb (to celebrate Easter) together with a baked potato each, and then a cola and a bottle of Rose.

The wine was quickly served together with a breadbasket. When the waitress poured the wine, she spilled on the table, and she said; “oh, just a second.” We all expected that she would return to dry up the spilled wine, she quickly return and served the cola but did not even notice the rose spot on the table.

We began to eat the bread, since we were hungry and at one point there was only one loaf of bread left, when the waitress walked by and shouted to us with a smile: “two minutes”. At this point we had already waited for around 30 minutes, but we were having a great chat, so we hadn’t really noticed.

Two minutes later, she placed a lamb dish and a backed potato in the middle of the table; we looked in surprise, and said we had ordered three of the same dish. She looked at us and said: “three, not one?”

No, we said and laughed, and after 15 more minutes we asked her to take the dish, because it was getting cold, and asked her if she could serve the three dishes at the same time, so we could all have warm food. She took the dish, while we were sort of joking about how close we had been to getingt food, because now we were getting more hungry.

We could see people that came at the same time as us had finished their dinner, and we could see people getting served who came after us, so we began to be a little impatient, but for some reason we ended up finding it hilarious because it was so absurd.

We began to divide the last bread from the basket so we had something to eat, but after 20 minutes another waitress came and cleaned our table and took the bread away, so now we had nothing at all to eat or drink.

We decided to order three mojitos because then we could have a mini party when we didn’t get anything to eat. We stopped our waitress, and told her that we had been waiting for one and half hours since we ordered the food. She just looked at us and raised her hands and said carelessly “it's on the way.” When we ordered three mojitos, she answered "one?" and we just burst into laughter and said: "no, three!"

Time passed and passed and at one point we could see the cook standing outside the kitchen having a smoke, and I sort of said loudly: "Get back into that kitchen, smoke later!" I don’t know if he heard it, but he went in again. More people were leaving their tables, and we we still waiting for our mojitos, thinking if they were going to cut the mint leaves first. After 20 minutes, the mojitos, all three of them, were served, and while we were sipping our drinks, suddenly, as if sent from heaven, three plates with lamb and three baked potatoes arrived.

We cheered, but after the first bite we realized the lamb was like shoe soles and the potato completely overdone, it was terrible. The waitress came back and asked how is the food, of course we all said it is really bad, awful, but she just raised her arms and didn’t say anything, sort of signaling she couldn’t do anything about that.

We asked for butter for the potatoes, to see if that could help, and still being three people she only gave us two butters. We couldn’t stop laughing, while we tried to just get something to eat, but we gave up.

We then asked for the bill, and 1 point to the waitress, that came in two minutes, and it was correct, which we did not expect, so we paid the bill. We didn’t see any point in trying to talk with a manager for a discount, but we decided against leaving a tip.

And then we left but we actually laughed all the way out, and walking was a bit problematic since our legs were stiff after sitting for so many hours. It was now 22.30 and we had arrived there at around 20.00.

This is the story about how a recent dinner out in town ended up being a truly hilarious evening, when it indeed was not supposed to end like that considering what happened. But sometimes absurdity gets funny.

By Eleonore af Schaumburg-Lippe, columnist

Eleonore is Danish, she holds a BA in Organization and Management and specializes in Corporate Communication & Strategic Development. She is also a Market Economist and a Multimedia Designer. She is currently working in Bucharest as the Executive Director of UAPR the Romanian Advertising Association. As a Danish Viking in Romania, with a great passion for ’covrigi’, she has a burning desire to find out more about Romania especially Bucharest, and enlighten the small differences in the culture between Denmark and Romania.. Her weekly columns will give you insights into an expats life in Bucharest written with humor and a big Danish smile.