killing two birds with one stone

Chris was born on 8 March, 1974. Chris also, some of you may not know, officially entered the Foreign Service on 8 March, 2004, exactly 30 years later. It was his first day of orientation and his first day on the government's payroll. Weird, but true.

So on 8 March, we went out to lunch to celebrate his anniversary. We had beer with our lunch and then we went back to work. It was fun. Then we went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday, where we had some wine. It was also fun.

We eat a lot.

Being the middle of the week, we were sort of laying low. In fact, we were thinking of just going home because, with the mothers here so recently, we had eaten at every good restaurant in town within the past two weeks. Lamenting this, Chris happened to say to an Indian co-worker “Where would you go to eat for a special occasion if you had been everywhere in town so many times?” She said, “At my husband's restaurant, I guess”. This was surprising. We didn't know that her husband worked at a restaurant. She described it to us and, low and behold, we had never even heard of it. It boasts “fine dining”. Like, in the real sort of sense.

So. We went there and I'll be damned if it wasn't actual “fine dining”. We had, quite certainly, the best international meal that we've had in Chennai. It was expensive, but it was worth it.

Just goes to show you that you can't ever really know everything about a place. There's always at least one little thing that might surprise you.

Happy birthday and happy anniversary, darling!