In France, the saying goes that “le client est roi”. But in fact, the customer is anything but a king: at best he is an idiot, a minor annoyance in your day. As this funny article on “How to play the French service game … and win” explains: “The customer is king. But we all know what they did to their royal family. The guillotined head of Louis XVI bounced across the Place de la Concorde as a few thousand Parisians laughed at it”.

Everybody knows that Canadians are peaceful and polite people. Yet, I noticed my fellow citizens can be quite annoyed by a few things… that are Canadian in essence.

Disclaimer: this post is to be read with your morning/ afternoon coffee. It is not meant to be taken literally. I know some Canadians are going to disagree (but I’m sure they will apologize about disagreeing).

Unlike many immigrants to Canada, Yasmine and her family hadn’t thought of immigrating anywhere. They hadn’t really chosen Canada either: they came as refugees after leaving their war-torn country. Their story is truly moving, from a perfect life in former Yugoslavia to coming as refugees in Germany and then Canada, where they eventually settled.

Winterlude may be over, but the Rideau Canal, our national landmark, is still open for skating. Downtown Ottawa, I keep on seeing passers-by casually carrying a pair of skates in the hands or on their shoulders, heading to the longest skating rink in the world (okay, I know some may argue it’s not!). The crowd on weekends is pretty impressive!

The more I attend classes at university, the more I feel like I belong in a museum. The big museum of failed and forgotten ideals. Move along, nothing to see here.

This weekend marks the end of the Winterlude festival (but sadly, not the end of winter yet). I found myself hanging around in Confederation park, where it all started a couple of weeks ago, thinking I will miss the ice sculptures.