I would have appreciated your approach. When I studied French we focused on reading and writing, not speaking. So, I was admittedly not a strong French speaker.

I would have appreciated your approach. When I studied French we focused on reading and writing, not speaking. So, I was admittedly not a strong French speaker. I can understand their frustration. Had I been given the choice I might have chosen English. You've been to American restaurants and only been interrupted once or twice by waiters? You were quite blessed then. Ordinarily, we expect conversations to be interrupted 5-6 times per meal. (I'm only slightly exaggerating.) Here's a true story illustrating how ridiculous it gets. I proposed to my wife in our favorite restaurant. I chose purposefully an early dinner time so we would have the restaurant to ourselves. As I began to kneel and pull the engagement ring out of my pocket, a busboy stepped between my wife and I to refill our water glasses. It was a bit awkward for about 20 seconds or so.