Ignorance Is Bliss

How did I get into this con­ver­sa­tion, already ? Oh yeah, I’m on the #151 going down­town, and I took the last free sit, by a mid­dle aged woman who was obvi­ously bored and started up the con­ver­sa­tion as soon as she saw me pulling a French book out of my bag. The con­ver­sa­tion wasn’t about lit­er­a­ture though.

Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

Rock’n’roll stars, rap artists, red­necks, tycoons, politi­cians, lob­by­ists, aliens… North Amer­ica has it all. But there’s one cat­e­gory that have never trav­eled across the ocean from its beloved old con­ti­nent : the nobility.

Don't Look Back In Anger (I heard them say)

Leav­ing France was not an oblig­a­tion but just an option. A very tempt­ing one, mind you. The world might be watch­ing us eat, smoke and have sex with a dis­dain­ful smile, yet it casts envi­ous eyes. But we know the other side of the story : no jobs, almost impos­si­ble to rent a place to live, a coun­try stuck in the days of its glory.

Cigarettes And Alcohol

I finally came to my sense before embar­rass­ing myself by ask­ing the stu­pid ques­tion. Of course I wouldn’t find wine in a super­mar­ket. I was in Ontario !

Geographical Humour

But one thing helped to make it through the long days (that is, other than the pack of cig­a­rette I smoked and the cup of burn­ing hot cof­fee sit­ting by me on the table) : when cus­tomers called, I had to ask them for their address. And I soon dis­cov­ered Cana­di­ans had some kind of humor when it came to nam­ing places.

Ten Priceless Canadian Experiences

Oh Canada ! Since com­ing from France a few years ago, I expe­ri­enced Canada in many dif­fer­ent ways, some good, some bad…

A Walk In Ottawa

The big heat seems to be over and win­ter will be here soon enough… So on Sat­ur­day, I took my cam­era and went down­town for long walk. Despite its “bor­ing” rep­u­ta­tion, Ottawa is actu­ally a really nice city.

I first went on Par­lia­ment Hill. Fun place to hang out, there’s always some­thing hap­pen­ing: deposed politi­cians try­ing to net­work, busy Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, demon­stra­tors, tourists try­ing to take a per­fect picture…

To Be Or Not To Be

Stand­ing in front of a busy LCBO meant attract­ing all kind of weirdos. I was known as the “flower girl” and peo­ple would stop by and talk to me about their life, their kids, their prob­lems. With­out buy­ing flow­ers, of course. Peo­ple would first speak to me in all kind of for­eign lan­guages : Russ­ian, Lebanese, Ital­ian, Span­ish, Greek… I guess I did look like an immigrant !