How I Got Sick of French Food

When I’m in Canada, my French foodie friends and I some­times indulge in food porn fan­tasies, nam­ing the brands of cook­ies we miss the most and the dishes we wish we could recre­ate but can’t because there is always some key ingre­di­ent miss­ing. So when I went to France after a two-year long absence, I had my eyes set on the food.

French Presidential Elections This Weekend

On Sat­ur­day, I have to go vote for the first round of the Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tions at the French Embassy in Ottawa. France will only vote on Sun­day, but as “French abroad” we have to cast our bal­lot a day earlier.

The Phone Quest

One of the first things I had to do when com­ing home, along with doing loads of laun­dry, was to get a phone.
Well, tech­ni­cally, I have a phone. Two, even: a land­line (pri­mar­ily for tele­mar­keters to call) and a cell phone that I never use because I haven’t bought min­utes in ages.

Going Digital

I’m the kind of per­son who reads a book a day (and because OCTranspo is rarely on time, I have the chance to do so). Like most women, I carry my life in my bag, plus a cou­ple of books (just in case I fin­ish one, I like to have a backup). Some of my friends have tried to get me to switch to an eBook reader but I reacted like a granny. “It’s gonna hurt my eyes! It’s not the same as paper!” I protested.

The Food Dilemma

We attract super­mar­kets.
When we first came to live in the neigh­bour­hood, there was only a Loblaws. Then came Food Basic and Shop­pers Drug Mart, right across the road from Loblaws. And when we came back from trav­el­ing this win­ter, we dis­cov­ered that a huge Wal-Mart had popped up on the other side of the road. We now have three super­mar­kets within a 20-minute walk.

Naked!

For a con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment city, Ottawa has many lit­tle quirks. For instance, Four-Twenty aka National Pot Smok­ing Day is cel­e­brated on Par­lia­ment Hill and there is a yearly Zom­bie Walk (where you can meet zom­bie hockey play­ers and peo­ple with a bad headache). We also have inter­est­ing alter­na­tive places such as the Prince of Wales Bridge… and let’s not for­get about “Maman”, the huge spi­der.
I’ve just added one on the list: appar­ently, Sat­ur­day was Naked Bike Ride Day. And by “naked”, I don’t mean with­out a hel­met. I mean naked.

Political Pawns

I’m a bit dis­con­nected from French news. But recently, a few head­lines caught my eyes again, mostly because they quickly spread inter­na­tion­ally. First, there was the tragic story of the Dupont de Ligonnès family—the father is still on the run by the way.

France’s Most Wanted

The U.K and Roy­al­ists around the world cel­e­brated the Royal Wed­ding, the U.S.A finally got “America’s most wanted” and Canada woke up from the fed­eral elec­tions with a hangover—Harper in a major­ity gov­ern­ment, seriously?

Mean­while, the head­lines in France were all about a grisly case that took place in Nantes, my hometown.

A Movie Rant

When I first came to live in Canada, Feng got a job work­ing in a movie the­atre. We were two pen­ni­less trav­el­ers and the per­spec­tive was very excit­ing: a job! Free movies! And so we started going to the movies reg­u­larly, thanks to the free passes Feng got at work.

Talkin' Bout A Revolution

On this cold Sat­ur­day, hun­dreds of Cana­di­ans gath­ered on Par­lia­ment Hill, right in front of the Peace Tower, to march in sol­i­dar­ity with the peo­ple push­ing for democ­racy in Libya and Yemen. The pro­test­ers peace­fully called for the end of the Gad­hafi regime in Libya and a loos­en­ing of oppres­sion in Yemen. Despite wor­ry­ing reports from Libya where vio­lence escalade and demon­stra­tors clash with Gad­hafi ‘s bru­tal secu­rity forces, peo­ple were opti­mistic in Ottawa and hoped for a bet­ter future.