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 !

Losing My Religion

I knew Chris­tian­ity, Islam, Judaism, Bud­dhism, Hinduism—and that was about it. I was—and I still am—clueless about Pen­te­costal­ism, Angli­can­ism, Bap­tists, Methodists, Lutheran, Pres­by­ter­ian, Pentecostal/Charismatic, Episcopalian/Anglican, Seventh-Day Adven­tist, Born Again etc. And what the hell is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”? A bunch of peo­ple who believe they will even­tu­ally end up in Heaven because they have the longest reli­gious group name ever???

Morning Glory

Oh crap. It’s 8:50 and my brain is still sleep­ing. I ought to wake up.

I extri­cate myself from the car, a task harder than usual con­sid­er­ing I’m hold­ing a can of Diet Coke and my hand­bag, slung across my shoul­der, is burst­ing with col­ored fold­ers, papers, pho­to­copies and pens.

I step on the side­walk and slam the car’s pas­sen­ger door. I stand there and root around my hand­bag and pull out a lighter. Woohoo, first vic­tory of the day, not a small one con­sid­er­ing the mess in my bag.