Katie's Asian Adventures : Vientiane is not an easy place to do Valentine's Day

Nick and I have been dating for over two years now, so we just "celebrated" Valentine's Day (as much as you can celebrate a holiday which pretty much only exists to (a) make single people feel crappy, and (b) sell a lot of stuff) for the third time. This was, however, the first time we were in the same city- usually he was in North Dakota doing recruiting trips and sent me flowers (the first year) or chocolates (the second year; he got to know my preferences more over time and now knows that chocolates trump flowers). (He did get me roses this year but to be fair there aren't as many V-Day gift options in Vientiane)

But we got to celebrate Valentines Day in Vientiane. We didn't really make plans, assuming that since we're in Laos, most restaurants would still have space. Decided last minute I wanted the Valentine's Day Special at Pimenton (which came with duck AND TWO DESSERTS). Tried to call and make reservations day-of. Got denied ("already booked"). (Turns out later a couple of coworkers were able to get in without a reservation, no problem, so I'm still kind of kicking myself.)

So as a back up I called La Signature, the nicest/ most expensive restaurant in Vientiane (French), and made a reservation for 8pm.

En route to the restaurant, 7:50pm, we got pulled over by cops at a checkpoint. After a long time of trying to communicate with the police officer, we found out our crappy Kia's headlight was bust so we had to pay a 50,000 kip ($6) "ticket" (but really it's paying off the police officer) (#laoslife).

Then we arrived at the restaurant. La Signature has a really pretty outside area, with white table clothes and candles and Christmas lights. You can sit there... if you have a reservation. But they lost our reservation. So we had to sit in the upstairs area which is noisy and way less romantic. "Fine," we said. "This will work."

They left us with the menus, a single red rose (sweet) and took our wine order pretty quickly.

The Valentine's Day Special at La Signature (for $45)

They left us with the wine and the menus for a really, really long time.

Which means I drank a lot of wine before ordering, and then more wine while we were waiting for our food.

Nick was really entertained.

(This is a joke. He was driving later so he couldn't drink as much... and I was probably getting really grouchy waiting for the food. I get "hangry" pretty easily ("hangry" = anger caused by hunger))

On the plus side I got to wear my Wreck-It Ralph dress. (From Chhing Chhing in Siem Reap)