Late nights and drinking

Interesting evening last night. That is to say, it started off kinda bad and got really shitty, but wound up okay.
I do say for the record, I am never going to my friend's house again. Too far, and I have 100% rate of getting lost on the way there, and I am guaranteed to be driving home on winding, narrow, shitty roads in the rain.
We arrived at the designated meeting house at 8 p.m.. Would have been there at 7:30, but as I mentioned before, I got lost... The directions we got for navigation sucked. We figured we would just barely make it in time. No such luck. We were informed the reservations at the restaurant had been changed to 9 p.m.. This is when my blood pressure started to climb... As we had the kids, and they go to bed at 9 p.m. on late nights, usually at 8:30.
We went inside, and the ritual of watching the alcoholic buddy swill beer began. At about 8:40, the rest of the guests had arrived.
We drove down another shit country road to the next village to get to a pizza joint (yes a pizza joint- not a fine place worth the drive), listening to the kids rejoice in the back seat that we were finally going to eat. (They usually have dinner at 6:30ish)
Cute place, I suppose; small, homey, and quiet with a little bitty bar and about 10 tables.
Didn't know going in that it also had the SLOWEST FUCKING SERVICE in all of Germany. We got our menus 30 minutes after sitting down, not because they were busy- there was hardly anyone else in the joint- but just because. We ordered 30 minutes after that. The food was on the table about an hour later. (Except the salad. That took them 45 minutes to prepare.)
This means my children did not eat dinner until almost 11 p.m, when they should have been having sweet dreams, they were just sitting down to eat. They were patient, of course- as patient any half starved tired cranky 4 and 6 year old can be. This is to say the closer it got to 11 o'clock, the grumpier and more intolerant they became... So did I, for that matter. I was proud of them for not kicking the host in the leg. I wanted to.
After consuming the meal, which was tasty, but incomplete, I chased the waitress around for 25 minutes trying to pay the check. My poor kids. Now they had full tummies and were exhausted. I was fuming by this point. Heather would be proud of me- I was "Gracious under pressure".
We finally left and retired to Scott and Heidi's house. The kids slept the long way home, and crashed out in their kid's rooms when we got there.
We had such a good time with them. We laughed and shot the shit until 2:30 am. It was just the decompression I needed after the evening we had. They are wonderful people, and parents like us. So nice to have someone to hang with with whom we share a stress, a life experience.
M & A can just come here if they want to hang out from now on. I am asserting my territorial nature (I may lift my leg on the wall). They have no kids, and so I can't completely fault them for not knowing that schedules are important.
I can fault them a little, as they have known us for 9 years. The real crux of the whole night- we didn't even talk to them much, as they were on the far end of the table. Such bullshit.
I told Kev I didn't want to go in the first place. I love being right.