Religion of Awkwardness

It's been 2 days in Toronto, and we (Me & my family) are still not used to Toronto, and not having that much fun unfortunately. And today I had one of my most awkward moments.

First, we had went to this restaurant that had a bar in it, my family is conservative and we are Muslims, so we are not allowed to eat non-''Halal'' meaning meat that wasn't cooked and prepared in an Islamic way. Of course we did not know that the place was going to be for the none-Muslims because we thought it was a middle eastern restaurant which led us to think it might be for Muslims and has halal food. For me, I don't mind I'm not a religious person, but my family are. Specially when it comes to food.

So we enter this restaurant, it was full and crowded and had many people in it. There was no table for us so the nice waiters told us to sit in the bar and wait. Then the bartender asked me ''what would you like to drink?'' and as you all know, I love alcohol but I can't drink with my family. So I said ''No thanks''. I felt kind of guilty because I wanted to drink an alcoholic drink while at the same time I couldn't, all because alcohol is a big deal for my family. I was saying No to myself and to the nice bartender. Even when she asked me if I wanted Water I said no because I just wanted to not let her think that I wouldn't want to drink alchol but I didn't want to drink anything at the moment. I was trying to play it cool,  and not look like one of those closed minded people. Though I respect religious people but it's just not who I am, and I don't like to pretend to be something I am not. It's not fair to me nor others.

After that, They let us sit in a table and gave us the menu, we checked the menu and saw there is no islamic food, so we had to leave the place and walkaway. It  was embarrassing, the nice waitress came twice while she was giving the food orders to other costumers and apologizing to us. She was saying that we need to wait for a second, and she will get back to us after she's done. She was nothing but nice to us, but she had to see us leave. When she was seeing us leaving our table and going outside the restaurant, she said ''It's not for you, isn't it?'' while she was smiling. Then I said to her ''Yeah I'm sorry!'' then she was like ''It's okay!'' and then I felt guilty and said ''I'm sorry'' again!

It was awkward and embarrassing for me, it might not be for my family nor for any other people, but for me it was, because I hate these kind of situations where I have to do something that I don't want to do. Let alone, apologizing for my family's beliefs.