Bon jour!
Ive now exhausted 12.5% of my French vocabulary. The rest of it is as follows:
- bon soir
- merci
- monsieur
- mademoiselle
- enfant
- voila
And the following phrase that, unless used with the utmost tact at the precisely correct moment, will get one, at minimum, slapped in the face:
- Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir
Fortunately, I never had cause to use this last phrase on my recent trip to Quebec City and, therefore, be put in the awkward position of asking ones self, is this phrase appropriate right now?
Now what the list above should underscore is my complete and utter ignorance of the French language. I dont have anything against it, quite the opposite in fact. Its probably the most beautiful language around. The problem is that I just dont know anything. To paraphrase Steve Martin, Its like the French-Canadians have a different word for everything! Lucky for me I was able to stumble through my time in Quebec with a lot of smiling and lots and lots of mercis and a few very nice Quebecois that conversed with me in English. Its sad really. You dont really realize how little you know until you are tossed in that kind of situation. While my Spanish is very, very limited, I realized that if I had been in a Spanish speaking country I could have gotten by OK. Now I cant carry on a conversation with anyone in Spanish, but I can get/give directions, order in a restaurant, tell time, count, read most signs, and know enough general vocabulary to get by. The French-Canadians really do have a different word for everything though.
The conference itself was pretty boring. Not much that I hadnt heard already in different venues. I did meet with the director of the institute (a fine French-Canadian gentleman known in our circles for his lets say a certain je ne ce qua damn, thats nine French phrase I know, so bon jour is actually 11.1% of my French vocab, but I digress) who is very interested in having me come work there. An intriguing offer as he is one of the most prominent researchers in my field and it would be a big boost to my career to work for him, but with my French in its current state, I hardly think that is advisable. Besides, I just started a new job in Boston that Im not planning on vacating for at least two years. I also was able to extract some info out of one his students that will help us start work that weve been trying to get off the ground. Since this was basically the goal of me attending this conference I guess we could say Mission Accomplished at this point.
With the conference out of the way, I had an afternoon to explore the lovely city of Quebec. You wouldnt know it from were I was staying a Holiday Inn style hotel in an industrial park on the edge of a strip mall district. I had no real idea where I was or where I wanted to go, but from the travel guide in the room (in French) I was able to discern approximately where I was (from the map I printed out from Yahoo showing me how to get from my hotel to conference site about 1.5 miles away) and approximately where all the cultural crap was. From the map in the guide it didnt look like it was too far away, I needed some exercise, I had nothing but time to kill (conference ended at noon and I wasnt flying out until noon the next day), so I decided in my infinite wisdom that I could walk it. Oh I walked it all right. And it took me well over an hour to get there. Upon return home, I mapped out my approximate walk (one way):
Six miles! And that doesnt include another 2-3 miles of walking I did once I actually happened upon some cool old stuff to take pictures of. And it was a jackpot once I found it. Old Quebec City is absolutely gorgeous. Ive never been to France, but this is what I imagine it would look like. Some cool stuff I saw:
* that is all a painting ... a person is not coming out of a window.
It wasnt the best day for site seeing since it rained on and off for most of the day (luckily, I had the foresight to check the weather before leaving Boston and brought an umbrella). Id love to go back to visit when I had more time to explore the city. But I cant argue because this whole trip was paid for by BU.
My return trip was much less eventful since I was able to figure out that there was a bus that ran between where I was staying and where I was (this information would have been more helpful BEFORE I walked six miles with no breaks, but it wouldnt have made for much of a story now would it). A very nice bus driver informed me that for a measly twoony and 2 quarters, he could drop me off right outside my hotel. Many mercis later I was back at the hotel massaging my feet.
And while we are on the subject of Canada, let me just get philosophical here for a second. I grew up in Detroit, a stones throw away from Canada (Windsor to be precise). For us, its quicker to get to Canada than any other state and for a vast majority of our own state for that matter. I love Canada. I love its cities, I love its people, I love hockey. They are so much like us, yet so different (ever wonder why Al Qaida doesnt attack Canada?). Ill never be able to understand why so many Americans have this bizarre hatred of Canada (honestly, I think it has a lot to do with jealously). I used to take great pride in the fact that the US-Canadian border was the longest unprotected border in the world. And it would almost bring a tear to my eye to see the American flag flying with the Canadian flag (a common occurrence in border towns like Detroit). You could cross the border with a drivers license or a birth certificate. We were brothers, allies, friends. All that has changed now since 9/11 of course. And while I can understand the tightening of borders, the strained relationship between our countries saddens me deeply. Things didnt have to turn out like this. We could have and should have never gotten to the point we are at now. I can only hope Canadians will be nice enough to call us friends again when Bush is out of office. Everything I know about Canadians tells me that they will, with open arms.
The spark for all of this was the Canadian and American flags flying side by side outside my crappy hotel in Quebec. You just dont see that much anymore. And that makes me very sad.
And so I dont end this rather long journal entry on sad note, here a nice piece of local Quebec color that I captured with my phone (I knew that camera thingy would come in handy sooner or later):
Ive now exhausted 12.5% of my French vocabulary. The rest of it is as follows:
- bon soir
- merci
- monsieur
- mademoiselle
- enfant
- voila
And the following phrase that, unless used with the utmost tact at the precisely correct moment, will get one, at minimum, slapped in the face:
- Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir
Fortunately, I never had cause to use this last phrase on my recent trip to Quebec City and, therefore, be put in the awkward position of asking ones self, is this phrase appropriate right now?
Now what the list above should underscore is my complete and utter ignorance of the French language. I dont have anything against it, quite the opposite in fact. Its probably the most beautiful language around. The problem is that I just dont know anything. To paraphrase Steve Martin, Its like the French-Canadians have a different word for everything! Lucky for me I was able to stumble through my time in Quebec with a lot of smiling and lots and lots of mercis and a few very nice Quebecois that conversed with me in English. Its sad really. You dont really realize how little you know until you are tossed in that kind of situation. While my Spanish is very, very limited, I realized that if I had been in a Spanish speaking country I could have gotten by OK. Now I cant carry on a conversation with anyone in Spanish, but I can get/give directions, order in a restaurant, tell time, count, read most signs, and know enough general vocabulary to get by. The French-Canadians really do have a different word for everything though.
The conference itself was pretty boring. Not much that I hadnt heard already in different venues. I did meet with the director of the institute (a fine French-Canadian gentleman known in our circles for his lets say a certain je ne ce qua damn, thats nine French phrase I know, so bon jour is actually 11.1% of my French vocab, but I digress) who is very interested in having me come work there. An intriguing offer as he is one of the most prominent researchers in my field and it would be a big boost to my career to work for him, but with my French in its current state, I hardly think that is advisable. Besides, I just started a new job in Boston that Im not planning on vacating for at least two years. I also was able to extract some info out of one his students that will help us start work that weve been trying to get off the ground. Since this was basically the goal of me attending this conference I guess we could say Mission Accomplished at this point.
With the conference out of the way, I had an afternoon to explore the lovely city of Quebec. You wouldnt know it from were I was staying a Holiday Inn style hotel in an industrial park on the edge of a strip mall district. I had no real idea where I was or where I wanted to go, but from the travel guide in the room (in French) I was able to discern approximately where I was (from the map I printed out from Yahoo showing me how to get from my hotel to conference site about 1.5 miles away) and approximately where all the cultural crap was. From the map in the guide it didnt look like it was too far away, I needed some exercise, I had nothing but time to kill (conference ended at noon and I wasnt flying out until noon the next day), so I decided in my infinite wisdom that I could walk it. Oh I walked it all right. And it took me well over an hour to get there. Upon return home, I mapped out my approximate walk (one way):
Six miles! And that doesnt include another 2-3 miles of walking I did once I actually happened upon some cool old stuff to take pictures of. And it was a jackpot once I found it. Old Quebec City is absolutely gorgeous. Ive never been to France, but this is what I imagine it would look like. Some cool stuff I saw:
* that is all a painting ... a person is not coming out of a window.
It wasnt the best day for site seeing since it rained on and off for most of the day (luckily, I had the foresight to check the weather before leaving Boston and brought an umbrella). Id love to go back to visit when I had more time to explore the city. But I cant argue because this whole trip was paid for by BU.
My return trip was much less eventful since I was able to figure out that there was a bus that ran between where I was staying and where I was (this information would have been more helpful BEFORE I walked six miles with no breaks, but it wouldnt have made for much of a story now would it). A very nice bus driver informed me that for a measly twoony and 2 quarters, he could drop me off right outside my hotel. Many mercis later I was back at the hotel massaging my feet.
And while we are on the subject of Canada, let me just get philosophical here for a second. I grew up in Detroit, a stones throw away from Canada (Windsor to be precise). For us, its quicker to get to Canada than any other state and for a vast majority of our own state for that matter. I love Canada. I love its cities, I love its people, I love hockey. They are so much like us, yet so different (ever wonder why Al Qaida doesnt attack Canada?). Ill never be able to understand why so many Americans have this bizarre hatred of Canada (honestly, I think it has a lot to do with jealously). I used to take great pride in the fact that the US-Canadian border was the longest unprotected border in the world. And it would almost bring a tear to my eye to see the American flag flying with the Canadian flag (a common occurrence in border towns like Detroit). You could cross the border with a drivers license or a birth certificate. We were brothers, allies, friends. All that has changed now since 9/11 of course. And while I can understand the tightening of borders, the strained relationship between our countries saddens me deeply. Things didnt have to turn out like this. We could have and should have never gotten to the point we are at now. I can only hope Canadians will be nice enough to call us friends again when Bush is out of office. Everything I know about Canadians tells me that they will, with open arms.
The spark for all of this was the Canadian and American flags flying side by side outside my crappy hotel in Quebec. You just dont see that much anymore. And that makes me very sad.
And so I dont end this rather long journal entry on sad note, here a nice piece of local Quebec color that I captured with my phone (I knew that camera thingy would come in handy sooner or later):
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
See, when we worked at the MFA, they had a W&G exhibit so the videos were playing constantly on the shop monitors. Sometimes I got stationed in the special extension shop where I sold nothing but W&G gear all day.
Anyway, I can't seem to find any solid info on the Dunkin' Donuts promotion with the Bruins. The shops out here don't know what I am talking about. Have you seen anything on it?
Even if that doesn't work, do you guys have any preferences on when to go or who you'd like to see them play? Red Wings?
Thank you
There's info on the Bruins web site about it. You buy 4 tickets to a game and get 4 tickets to another game from a certain set. You have to have a code from a coupon from DD though, and that's the part I can't find. The stores out here aren't "participating".
> I doesn't look like they play the Wings at all this season.
C'est la vie. Should we shoot for a weekend game?
Thank you