What a fool I am

I have a theory about the Italian restaurants cafes. If it is packed with Americans, stay away. If it is packed with Romans, you stumbled upon a hidden gem. Luckily, right around the corner from our school is Remo's Pizzeria, a small little store that is nothing special to look at. The same man (is it Remo?!) works behind the counter every day, and each day he concocts a different yet equally delicous kind of pizza. Some of the the slices are rather exotic for the typcial American. For example, one that he makes often features eggs, prosciutto, and a paprika-like condiment sprinkled on top of the mozzerella.

Instead of paying by the slice, you tell him how big of a piece you want, usually via hand signals, then he weighs it and tells yow how much you owe. I thought I had this method down to a science, but yesterday I severely botched the order and embarrassed myself in front of my favorite pizza chef. I only had one euro in my pocket but was hungry, so I ask for one euro worth of the cheese pizza. Subconsciously, my four years of high school Spanish seeped into my brain and I blurted out "Uno euro, por favor" as I pointed to the cheese pizza. The man shot me a puzzled look, so I repeated, "Uno Euro, por favor." This time, he looked even more confused and irritated. Brian was standing next to me, so I gave him my own puzzled look. Brian softly whispered, "Spanish," and I finally realized the err or my ways.

The man finally intervened and said, "No. No 'uno.' Es un, un." My face started to turn bright red. As I stated earlier, this is a popular spot for the Italians so I imagined that he was incredibly frustrated over this American kid who thinks that Italian and Spanish are the same language.