Whine Making

On Saturday, we had our first experience in wine-making! Well, not exactly wine-making, more like wine-bottling. My parents have been bottling their own wine for several years now. It's a very simple process: they got to the Shops, order the kind of wine they want and the people at the store make it for them. Six weeks later, it's ready for bottling and Mike and I went to help with this part of the process. Basically, one person fills the bottles, another puts in the corks (with a nifty little machine, at that!), someone else puts the covers on the corks and then a last person sticks on the labels. It was kind of time-consuming but enjoyable, I suppose! Mike also put aside his first batch of wine and we will bottle those in another six weeks! Then, we'll have to wait another 4-6 months before it's ready. We'll be drinking Cabernet-Shiraz, Valpolicella and Vieux Chateau du Roi by Christmas!

After that, we went out for dinner to the Imperial Palace for some Szechuan and Thai. Food and service was good, despite the confusion at the end of the meal...! The waiter came with our bill which appeared to have a total of $39.90. There were $6.00 in taxes. Since the taxes equal 15%, we gave the waiter $46.00 as payment plus tip. He asked us if we wanted change. We answered no. While we were finishing our tea, he came back with a dime on the little black tray the bill came on. Why was he bringing us a dime back?! Anyhow, we forgot about it and then left the restaurant. As we were walking across the parking lot, we heard someone yell, "Excuse me!" We turned around and sure enough, it was our waiter, holding the bill tray with the dime on it. "Was there a problem with the service?" he asked. "No, it was great, thanks," Mike answered. The waiter, obviously confused, gestured with the little tray: Then where's my tip? he seemed to be asking. Catching the waiter's meaning, Mike said "Our bill was $39.90, we gave you $46.00." The perplexed waiter said "Oh... ok" and retreated back into the restaurant. As we were driving through the parking lot, I did some quick addition in my head and quickly realized that we had, in fact, not given the poor guy a tip! "How could our bill have been $39.90 if it costs $19.95 per person?" I asked (this had been clearly stated at the top of the menu). We instantly realized that the bill had probably not stated the full amount, but only the subtotal. Sheepishly, we got out of the car, went back into the restaurant and gave the waiter another $6.00. He was nice about it, but we were still pretty embarrassed!

Wow, that turned into a long story!