This is Dominique:
This is a post about the hilarious times with Dominique.
You see, Dom is from Switzerland. That means she’s Swiss. She came to the US to study English in San Francisco, and then made a trip out to the Rockies. She has a distaste for Amtrak, and, like me, doesn’t understand why everyone in the US drives, eats fast food, destroys the envrionment, and tips.
Let’s start there, with tipping. We go out to a bar, I order a Sunshine, she orders a Coke. She pays, then puts the remaining $.50 in change down on the bar. “Like this?” she asks. I tell her no, we’ll tip when we leave. “You’re sure?” I smile and laugh. A little earlier, we were at a Chinese place, and at the end of the meal, she gives me $10 for hers, I put down my card, and then leave a $5 tip, which surprises her. “Really? A whole $5?” Five bucks was the smallest denomination I had, and the bill was something like $25 anyway, so, it made enough sense to me. We open our fortune cookies and read them aloud. She asked if I believed in that kind of thing. I told her I’ve got a fortune on my desk, just because I like it. (Note: It says, “From now on your kindness will lead you to success.” I found it interesting, because the one I got at the Chinese place said, “You will soon be repaid for your kindness.”)
Later on at the bar, this crazy black guy from Cinncinati (which, he informs me, is a big town with no mountains) puts his hand on Dom’s back. She’s visibly uncomfortable with this, so I take his hand and remove it…from her back. I’m pretty sure the guy still has his hand. He starts in on a story about how he respects me, shakes my hand, talks more and I can’t hear him very well. I finish my pint, drop a dollar tip, and we head out.
Earlier in the day, Dom wants to go to the Hot Springs, and I want to get a snack and go for a walk. I drive her down to the pool, and she comments on how everyone has such big cars, and was glad that I drove a little German car. As I’m walking down the street to grab dinner, I see Dom on her way back to the hostel. I ask if she wants to get dinner, she says, “You’re getting food, and I come with, so that way, I am not alone, and neither are you!” She then told me a story about how some creepy old guy tried to pick her up at the pool, he wanted to take her up the canyon on his motorcycle. “In Switzerland, you just wouldn’t see that.” I’m surprised. “No one tries to pick you up?” I ask. “Not like that,” she says.
We hung out at the hostel and talked about politics, how I need to visit Switzerland, how it’s hilarious that I got my learner’s permit at 15, license at 16, car at 18, and can’t drink (legally) until I’m 21. She commented on how she “wants to go out, because it’s been probably a lot of weeks since I have gone out, even just to sit in a bar or something!”
We also played with this kitteh that was six weeks old and living in the hostel. The crazy black guy also tried to pick up Dom, and so did some other creepy guys outside of a place we went to. She also didn’t cross the street against the signal, even if there were no cars coming. I literally stood in the middle of Grand Ave (SH-82) and shouted for her to cross. The language barrier was postively broken when I said, “Entschuldigen Sie mein schlechtes Deutsch.”
