I always order my coffee the same exact way: "un cafe creme, s'il vous plait." That's how I like it, that's the phrase I know - it never varies. What does vary, however, is the price and the quality. Strangely, both can vary significantly in the same restaurant from one day to the next. There's a cafe nearby that generally makes a good, cheap cup. There's an old couple who run the place and they sometimes have their dog there, roaming around. Last Monday, while playing hooky, I got a cafe creme there for 1.20 Euros. I made a mental note, things are rarely so cheap here.
Today, for some reason, they were exactly triple in price and weren't as well-made. So, what could account for this? Monday vs Saturday? Drinking at the coffee bar vs drinking at a table? The old man who served me Monday vs the young guy who served me today? No idea. I have learned that the price of things vary if you order them to go vs sit in the restaurant. However, in this case, I will probably never know. Just another variation on a theme: things are overly complicated and confusing here. A restaurant should charge one price for a cup of coffee, whether I order it on Monday or Saturday, whether I take it away, drink it there at the bar or pour it over the head of some overdressed Parisian sitting nearby in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
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