Something on ice

"So, when was the last time you skated?"  I asked him.

"He" was a middle-aged middle-eastern man from San Francisco who just happened to also be my schoolmate at the school for French immersion.  His name: Mohommad. We were presently on our way towards the Plains of Abraham* to take in a afternoon of leisurely outdoor skating on one of the many outdoor skating rinks of the city.  Accompanying us was an 18-year old young lady from Mexico, also a schoolmate, who despite her vehement dislike of the cold, also claims to love snow and outdoor winter sports such as skating.  Her name: Alinna.  Mohommad from the USA, Alinna from Mexico, and me: a 30-year-old something from British Columbia, Canada. Yes, between the three of us we were together proudly representing the nations of North America.



Is the French word for a Zamboni "Zamboni"?

"Never." Mohommad replied to my question.  His voice was so matter-of-fact and devoid of self-consciousness that I was taken aback.  Maybe I had heard him wrong?  Or maybe he had misunderstood my question?

"Never?" I tried to confirm.  "You have never skated outdoors - or have you never skated at all?  You have never worn skates?" 

If you have ever learned how to skate you can understand why confirming this fact is very, very important. After all, I had just purchased skates after a personal 15 year skating famine, and for my first reintroduction onto the ice I had purposefully chosen to go on a freezing cold day to an out-of-the-way abandoned rink in order to avoid having an audience for my imminent performance of shame. And how shameful it was!   When I had first stepped onto the ice, it had taken all of my latent muscle memory and willpower to not become an ungraceful pancake.  At first I couldn't even move forward - I just let my legs wobble like a newborn Bambi.  After a couple minutes I had managed to summon enough stability to kind of scoot forward a little bit. And then I hit that little bump in the ice that sent me flying into a snowbank like a hockey puck.

If it had been that difficult for me, who had been a decent skater when I was a child, to get back on the ice - then for Mohommad, if he was truly a beginner.......

"No, this is the first time for me." Mohommad's voice was light and optimistic, giving off the impression that we were on our way to a picnic, and not about just about to go gliding on a rock-hard surface of frozen water on razor-thin blades of metal using muscles in his legs that he had never thought of using before.  A shiver of simultaneous horror and glee rippled through my spine.  The sadistic part of my soul couldn't help but revel in his apparent naivety, which was immediately in conflict with the nurturing, caring part of my soul that actually cares about the spiritual, mental and physical well-being of other human beings.

I couldn't blame him for assuming that learning how to skate is easy.  Watching the other people glide effortlessly on the rink in front of us made skating look as simple as breathing.  It requires the experience of having gone through the gauntlet to know what Mohommad was about to learn: that he was about to learn first-hand the true meaning of humiliation.

Sorry Mohommad, I thought to myself as we entered the shack adjacent to the rink to don our skates, but you are going to lose a little bit of pride today.  Let the fun and games commence!



On the ice and ready to go!

*If you managed to stay awake through the Canadian history portion of high school social studies, then you will remember that the Plains of Abraham are the site of a very important war fought between the French of the English, which ultimately determined the British dominance over British North America (later to be known as Canada).  If you weren't able to stay awake for that portion of the class then this footnote is for you.

Something velcro

It was after I arrived in Quebec that I began to see them.  They were everywhere - seemingly sprouting up around every corner - and I began to wonder to myself: "How many outdoor skating rinks does a city really need?"  No, I'm not talking about the frozen puddles in the middle of the street intersections or the ice-covered risk-your-life-to-use-them sidewalks. I'm talking about honest-to-goodness real-life skating rinks!



IT'S AWESOME!!! 

 

I have seen outdoor skating rinks before, but they have always been small and few and far between, kind of like my lottery ticket wins. It is probably because the winters in southern British Columbia are occasionally prone to periods of crazy thawing, making ice retention a bit of an issue. Take exhibits "A" and "B" for example, taken a month ago near my hometown:

 



EXHIBIT A:
Tulip Creek in Southern BC
Taken around January 16, 2016
Photo by Cristi-Lynn Villecourt

 "Winter in the Kootenays is kind of like having a generous aunt who shows up from time to time with cookies and a warm hug.  Winter in Quebec, by contrast, is like that cantankerous uncle with the frigid personality whom you can't seem to get to leave the house."
~ Myself, written right now 



EXHIBIT B:
Same place. It's only a little difference right?
Taken 2 weeks later, January 30, 2016
Photo by Stephanie Michelle Harron

A real benefit to the more consistently-cold winter of Quebec is that it allows for a genuine urban winter-culture to develop in and around the city.  And that culture manifests itself as skating rinks: many, many, beautiful puddles of frozen water for people to gracefully glide and fall on.  And seeing all of those many, many beautiful puddles of frozen water I couldn't help but feel an inner longing to join the people of the city in their winter-cultural pastime of gliding and falling.

Yes, it didn't take me long to make the decision: I needed a pair of skates.

Doing the mental math I quickly determined that it would probably be cheaper for me to purchase a pair of skates then trying to rent a pair any time the fancy to skate overtook my imagination.  My imagination can be rather overactive, and rentals average around $8 a pair per session. This equates to a hole burning through my pocketbook if I had to rent a pair everytime I wanted to step on the ice for 20 minutes.  And yes, I am under no illusions: my flights of fancy on the ice would last for almost exactly 20 minutes.  My feet have special magical skill of turning blue whenever they decide that they are getting too cold.  Spending prolonged periods of time in outdoor temperatures of minus something ridiculous is one of the fastest ways I can think of to tell my toes that I don't need them anymore.

On the other hand of the cost equation, I knew that the likelihood of using the skates again after I left Quebec City would probably be equivalent to me deciding to spend $6 for a head of cauliflower (aka: not likely; does anyone need cauliflower that much?).   The most economical decision therefore was to Google whatever "a thrift store" was in French (un magasin deuxieme-main) and hope that someone else in the city has perfectly average size 8 feet, just like me. 

Fortunately, stressing the perfectly average size of my feet and the abundance of skating ponds in the city, I correctly assumed that such thing would not be difficult to find.  The first thrift store I visited, La Village de Valeurs (translation: Value Village), had exactly 3 pairs of skates that would theoretically fit my feet.  One was missing the laces, the second pair was so rusted over that I wasn't even sure if they could be sharpened, and the third used Velcro fasteners that were falling off.  After weighing my options, I chose the pair with the least amount of rust - option #3 - and discovered that the skates were lacking one vital piece of information: a price tag.

It did not take me long to determine what needed to be done; I needed to go to the till and utilise my fledgling French communication skills to tell the cashier:

1. that I couldn't find the price tag, but
2. that the Velcro on the skates was falling off, and
3. ask if she could quote me a price for the skates. 

It would be like a right of passage for my advancement in Quebec society from "I can't speak French" to "I can communicate in rudimentary, pre-thought-out sentences!"  Advancement! What an exciting and novel concept: never before attempted on such a scale by yours truly!

I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders, taking out my phone.  First things first.  I needed to find out the French word for Velcro. 

Incidentally, it is Velcro.

And so, having officially passed that advancement test with flying colours, I am now the proud owner of a pair of size 8 used ladies skates that sport a minimal amount of rust and velcro that likes to fall off.

The best thing about the purchase was the price: $5.99.  Less than the cost of rentals!  Less than a head of cauliflower!  I am feeling like the queen of bargain hunters!

TA-DA!

Something('s) cooking

I'm pretty sure that my host family in Quebec thinks that I'm trying to burn their house down.  In my defense I want to say that it's not that I am doing it on purpose! It's just that every time I cook lately it seems to result in an ungodly amount of smoke and other burning things.  And it's not that I'm a bad cook either.  ... ... ...  Okay, so I'm not a great cook, but I can get by all right.  When I started travelling more I determined that I would start doing right by my body and stop eating popcorn and nachos for supper.  Like a proper adult I determined to start applying the fundamentals of healthy cuisine. It's amazing how many different ways you can use onion, pepper, rice, eggs, broccoli, and a bit of cheese.

No, the problem with my cooking is not my cooking.  The problem, I've determined, is trying to speak French and cook at the same time!  This is because the process of trying to speak French at a beginner's level is not all sunshine, roses and pamplemousse.  It requires patience, dedication, a constant technological lifeline, a ridiculous amount of repeating words over and over again, and absolute focus.  Focus, which cannot be spent on such trivial things as making sure the food that you are cooking doesn't catch on fire.

The first "incident" happened, incidentally, on the night of my birthday.  I had bought a 2 pound bag of carrots from the grocery store because it was on sale and seemed like a good idea at the time.  As I stood there contemplating what to make for dinner, however, I had to acknowledge the fact that I am actually not a person who eats a lot of carrots.  That probably would have been a good thought to have while I was at the grocery store. 

I knew that I  would have to come up with a strategy for consuming said carrots, or my very limited fridge space (which the carrots were commanding a majority of) would be perpetually lost forever.  I looked at my almost-completed dinner and decided that I really should try to include a generous helping of boiled carrots.  I peeled and chopped the carrots and put them on the stove, then sat down to eat my dinner with the rest of the family.

And we started talking, in French.  The French which, if you remember, requires absolute focus.  This time I was able to multi-task enough to remember to eat the dinner that was in front of me.  Unfortunately, I was not able to remember that there were, in-fact, carrots cooking on the stove.  Nope, I did not remember this until my female host Helene left the table, effectively pausing the conversation for a moment.  My brain thus freed up to think about other things than French, I suddenly recalled the carrots I had been cooking and turned around to see a cloud of smoke billowing out of a pot on the stove like someone had just let off a nuclear bomb.  Yikes!  I dashed over to the stove to try and stop the disaster in progress, madly turning on fans while the male host, Franck, ran over to the sliding glass door to vent the smoke into the freezing elements outside.

It was then, when I holding the smoking pot of carrots in my hand that Helene returned to the room with a birthday cake full of lit candles ready to burst into song.  I was caught: orange and black-handed.  For the record, it is probably the most awkward thing in the world to be in the process of burning your dinner while someone else is trying to sing to you Happy Birthday.

I wish I could say that this was the only time that I had nearly set off the smoke alarm in home here, but the sad fact it that within the first month of being in Quebec it has happened, oh, four, or five, or six, or seven, or eight times.  In fact, it's been so regular that Franck finally declared (in English) last week while I in the middle of diffusing another such incident: "When you are cooking, it's English time!"

"Yes sir!"

Even French immersion must yield to the force of nature that is me in a kitchen.

Proof that I can cook a decent meal when it has my full attention!

Something that needs a better version of Google translate

I could see the very first night I had met the host family that there were going to be massive hurdles to overcome in learning the French language.  I greeted them as politely and properly as I knew how to in French (aka: "Bonjour"), and they greeted me back with a string of words that sounded like this to my ears: "Puweki sille ai u hogeons sow m'yden?" I immediately felt like a deer that had just been caught in the headlights: brain completely frozen and unable to process anything.  I tried to communicate my confusion: "Je....je ne......ahhhhh.... je ne sais pas!!!!!!!"  They tried to ask again: "Asayg fioreq titoe u'ka?"  Oh boy, I could tell we were not going to get anywhere fast.  As time wore on, however and I settled into my new home I devised a strategy for circumventing the language barrier:

• Step one: Always have my cellphone or tablet with me so I could look up any words that I didn't know on Google translate.  I'm a bonafide internet addict anyways, so the step proved to feel quite natural for me.
• Step two: Repeat back words I don't understand back to them to make sure I am hearing them right.  For example, today I got my host to repeat the word "Olive" to me four times (which in French incidentally happens to be "olive") because my brain couldn't make the correlation between olives and crackers.
• Step three: If all else fails, just smile and nod and say "oui" as though I totally understand what they are saying.  This last step has proven very successful when I'm at bus stops or in other public places.

Fortunately the language barrier hasn't prevented me from making new friends!

The second evening with the family I was ready to try again.  Armed with my cellphone I sat down opposite them at the dinner table for supper, and thus began the interrogation.  About an hour and a half later they had managed to find out that I had a family with both boys and girls in it and that I liked to travel across Canada every once in a while, and I was finally able to eat my neglected dinner that had surrendered its heat to the time it took for me to look up all the words we had used on the internet.  It was then that I realized that learning to be bilingual will require the sacrifice of a warm dinner every once in a while, all in the name of progress.

Unsatisfied with my continually low rate of comprehension however, as I near the one month mark, this past week I decided that in order to expand my vocabulary more swiftly I should buy a book in French and attempt to read it.  I went to a second-hand store and picked a chapter book out of the children's section that had a title I recognized "Le Livre de la Jungle" (The Jungle Book).  Perfect! I thought to myself.  A child's book should be easy to read and have simple vocabulary!  I went home and happily displayed my new purchase to my host.  "I am going to read this tonight, and I might get two or three pages done!" I proudly announced.  She smiled and laughed a little at my obvious enthusiasm.

Two hours later......  "J'ai terminé!" I announced to the household.  It had been long and arduous work and I had been tempted to give up more than once, but I finally had read two pages!  (Oh my word...as having typed that last sentence I feel shame for how far my lofty self has fallen!)  Of course, even having finished the two pages there were still things that didn't quite translate properly with Google translate so I called over to my hosts for help.  The lady took one look at the phrase I was having trouble with and her face immediately wrinkled in consternation.  She took the book over to her partner and they started to conference over the phrase, as though they didn't quite know themselves what it meant or how to explain it.  I overheard the word "difficile" in their conversation.  Finally, after a couple of minutes the lady comes back to tell me that she doesn't actually know how to the explain the sentence to me, because the language the book is using is actually quite archaic and isn't really commonly used anymore.

Great.  I go out and buy one book - a book for children - thinking that it is going to be filled with simple easily-translatable words about cute fluffy jungle animals, and instead I end up with the French equivalent of Shakespeare!  Go figure.

Something about a tuque

Before I left home to study French in Quebec I had spend a lot of effort getting ready to prepare for the Québécois winter I had heard about in legend: 

• I had invested in a quality pair of winter boots that had extra insulation, super treads, and came in an incredible trendy combination of brown leather and teal. 
• I had dug out my Walmart special down-filled white winter jacket that was now a little off white and losing a few feathers, but still warm. 
• I was wearing my hand-crocheted blue winter scarf that is still a little singed from that time I wore it while cooking (don't ask). 
• I also had my awesome blue gloves on that let me type on my touch-screen while wearing them - you have no idea how amazingly useful this is!!! 

Yes, I was well equipped except for one thing: the night before I had left home I had somehow managed to misplace my favourite white, slightly stained and strangely large, winter tuque*.  I had torn my room apart but for some inexplicable reason it had disappeared!  I even bemoaned the fact to my mother in a whimpery voice, doing my best impression of a whiney child, "Moooommy, I can't find my tuuuque...."  As the day of my departure was literally one sleep away, I had to resort to packing what I considered to be my second-best winter apparel.

Bienvenue à Québéc! Il fait froid ici!

And so the first day of school in Quebec dawned, bright and clear with a forecasted temperature of -12**, feeling like -27 with its 40km/h humid wind that strips the warmth from your soul and leaves you feeling like your face had just been dipped in liquid nitrogen.  I donned tuque backup #1 for my 20 minute walk to school: a green knit beanie that likes to contract until it completely slides off my head.  The walk to school thus consisted of me walking with my hand up above my shoulders, tugging my beanie back down like it was a bra-strap that wouldn't stay up.  To be honest, I would have just taken the beanie off, except for the fact that I was pretty sure that if I didn't wear something on my head I would probably lose my ears to frostbite.

Frustrated with day one's experience I decided to try something different for day two: a pair of black sparkly earmuffs that would have no problem covering that particularly vulnerable area of my anatomy.  Ears fully protected, I ventured out into the cold only to be confronted with a completely new adversity; not even halfway to the school I began to get a temperature-inflicted headache. That's right, without the proper covering for my forehead I was getting brain-freeze!!!  Previously I had thought that brain-freeze was an affliction for those who liked to pig out on ice cream or drink their Slurpee's at record-breaking speeds. Now I know the truth: brain-freeze can also be mother nature's way of mocking you for wearing fuzzy earmuffs and not a more practical head-covering.  I went home that evening knowing that I would have to come up with a new solution or cave and buy a new tuque.

But I am stubborn.

And lucky.

That night, after I met my real host family and started unpacking my belongings into my new room I pulled a box of feminine products out of my suitcase that was bulging strangely.  I was instantly excited, because I suddenly remembered what had happened!!!  The day before I left to go to Quebec I had been packing my suitcase and thought that I might not have enough room in my suitcase for everything.  So, in an effort to save space, I had shoved my white tuque into the little bit of empty space that existed in my box of pads.  In hindsight I acknowledge that it was a really strange place for a tuque.  It was so strange that afterwards I never thought about looking back in there for the tuque.  Yes, I might be just a little dense...and strange.  But I was really happy!  So happy, in fact, that I found my tuque that I started to do a little happy dance in my room because I knew that on day three I would have a proper tuque!  On day three my head wouldn't freeze! On day three I could instead happily take this picture:

From Facebook:
"Il y a -17 degrés ici, mais je trouve ma tuque blanche donc maintenant je fait chaud!"

NOTES:
*Fun language fact: "La tuque" is a French word that refers to a winter hat that covers the entire head and ears, like a proper winter hat should.
**For any Americans: all temperatures posted in this post are in Celsius.  Please use Google's temperature conversion feature if you want to know how ridiculously cold it was in Fahrenheit.

Something about a language barrier

My eyes opened and I picked up my cellphone to check the time: 6:30am.  Good morning Quebec!  Normally I am a firm believer that any hour before 8am was created for sleeping, but the fact of the matter was that I was so exhausted from my 24 hours of travel that I had gone to bed at 8pm the night before. And I might have also had a 3 hour nap before that.  Needless to say, I was actually feeling pretty well rested and it was Sunday - which meant that in a few short hours I would be meeting the friend of the family who would be hosting me during my stay in Quebec. 

Okay, I know that sounds convoluted.  At this point I hadn't even met the host family I would be living with as they were currently in the Dominican Republic, having fled the perils of a Quebec winter for a splendid extended Christmas vacation.  Thus, to begin my French immersion adventure, I would be staying with one of their friends, whom I had also never met, for a couple of nights.  Living with a stranger who was a friend of strangers - talk about networking at its finest!

Welcome to Quebec!  It is as cold as it looks!

I checked out of the hostel at 9am, and hauled my enormous 50 pound bright blue flower-printed oversized suitcase out onto the sidewalk.  On my back I had my plus-sized, multi-compartmented backpack filled with my laptop, my camera and anything else that I consider particularly heavy or valuable.  I looped my purse/laptop bag over the handle of the suitcase and took my first steps forward into the snowy hilly streets. Solene's apartment, according to Google maps, was 1.3km away, which meant that - even though it was the middle of winter and freezing cold outside - I was going to walk.

It had snowed the day before and the streets were filled with massive puddles of slush.  At each intersection I had to stop to lift the monster suitcase I was lugging behind me over these puddles.  Aware of what I sight I must have been, I tried to convince myself that surely no one in the street was looking at me strangely because I was taking my suitcase for a morning walk.  It certainly didn't help that most of the 1.3 kilometre distance was at a slight incline up-hill.  Needless to say, by the time I arrived at the address, both of my arms were tired and I was feeling more than a little exercised.

There was a problem though with my destination however: it was not a home.  No, even with my limited knowledge of French, I could tell it was definitely a business. Do people live in flower shops here? I wondered to myself.  I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, my big suitcase behind me taking up most of the space on the narrow ledge, forcing people to practice a tightrope routine in order to pass me without stepping into traffic.  I pulled out my phone to text Solène, then hesitated.  Did she even speak or read English at all?  I didn't have the slightest clue. 

Sighing I opened Google translate, being grateful in my heart of hearts that my cellphone data plan was more than well equipped to handle the rigours of being in a foreign -national- city.  "Hello  Solène.  I am at your home but it seems to be a business?"  It was painstaking work, trying to read her texts as they flew at me in French, meanwhile trying to write my own responses and translate my own responses and re-write my own responses in the text box.  There was never created a more inefficient way to text!

Summarizing the conversation:
 Solène: She was outside her apartment now and I was not there.
 Solène: She thought maybe I had gone to the same address on the east side of Quebec, not the west side.
 Solène: She wanted to know what business I was in front of.
 Solène: She was outside of her apartment.
 Solène: Where was I?

As you might have noticed, there are no responses from me in that conversation. It didn't take me long to understand what was wrong: that I had indeed gone to the wrong address and was about a block away from where she actually lived. I kept trying to write a response in the midst of her flurry of texts and questions, but trying to write out my location in French was like one of those bad dreams when you are trying to run from a bear and you find out that your legs don't work, or they do and you start running in slow motion.

Finally, frustrated and realizing that I am literally a 2 minute walk away, I decide to ignore all her questions and type this message in English: "Longer to translate and type. Oui je est.  (Translation: Yes I east.)"  I grabbed my lovely suitcase again started walking.  I would explain everything, in French theoretically, when I arrived.

Something français

STOP!  In Montreal.

 

"Excusez-moi? Parlez vous anglais?" I asked the man behind the desk at the Metro in Montreal.  My innate sense of direction was not accessible this far underground and I needed to find the bus station so I could purchase my ticket to Ottawa. Unfortunately old-reliable Google maps couldn't get a signal either, so I was forced to approach a random stranger and reveal my general incompetence at speaking the French language in the hopes of garnering some directions.

 

The man did indeed speak English and pointed the way asking, "How old are you?"  I hesitated for a moment, not sure of the relevance of the question.  What did my age have to do with getting to the bus station?  Figuring there was no harm in telling him, as I am not one of those people who feels like they need to perpetually lie about how young they are - who would I be fooling anyways? - I answered him "I am almost 30."

 

"Almost 30!" He says incredulously, "You don't know French and you have had 30 years to learn the language?!"

 

I flushed in embarrassment, swallowing the words of protest before I took anything needlessly personally.  The comment was rude, but the man was right; I had 30 years to learn the French language and I still can barely say anything more than "Je ne parle pas francais" (which itself is an oxymoron in that I claim to not be able to speak French while speaking French *sigh*).  What that man didn't realize though is that I have tried, more often than most would, to learn a language that is as elusive to me as the legendary Canadian ogo-pogo lake monster.

 

My handicap began at a young age.  Unlike most average school-attending children in Canada I did not go to a public school that offered French education from the elementary grades. The private school curriculum I was studying did not offer French until grade 9.  Incidentally, grade 9 was when I moved to a home-schooling curriculum where French was required, BUT the course-work was all done by correspondence.  Have you ever tried learning a language by correspondence?  It's like trying to whistle, not realizing that you don't have lips! It was a complete utter disaster and waste of time!  When I entered public school at grade 10, French became an optional elective, and realizing that I was 10 years hopelessly behind in the subject compared to my peers, I exercised my option to not take it.

 

Now I have to admit, in those mid-teen years of my life French was not a language that appealed to me.  It was too flowy, too elegant.  Words blended together like the notes of a melody, indistinguishable where one left off and the other began.  Personally, I was much more a fan of the harsher sounding languages like Russian, or Japanese, or Klingon.  "P'tak, get me my borscht! Itadakimasu!" But as I grew older and developed a greater interest in all things Canadian, my interest in the French language began to change too.  I began to realize that there is something very precious and unique in being a bilingual nation of people.

 

I tried to rectify my previous reticence to learn the language in later years.  I took an intro course in Fruitvale offered by my bilingual pastors, and there I learned that the bathroom is "la salle de bain". I took an intro course in Calgary as part of a continuing education program and there I learned how to ask for the time "Quelle heure est-il?"   I took an intro course on my computer using the Rosetta Stone software.  I can now identify articles of clothing by their French name, and construct a few rudimentary sentences. "Je porte un manteau blanc" = "I wear a white coat".  Every time I take a new intro course I retain a little more, but I've reached that uncomfortable impasse where I am absolutely sick of intro-courses and yet my French is still at a beginner level!

 

You see, what that man failed to realize is that it's not that I haven't learnt French for the lack of motivation in taking French courses.  It's that I haven't learnt French because I haven't lived in the right environment to help me retain it!  And one thing I realized as I travelled this autumn is how wonderfully multi-lingual Canada is, especially out east.  That bilingualism made me jealous.  I want to be a good Canadian too.  I'm already struggling in that regard because I don't really like maple syrup or hockey, but maybe, just maybe I can learn to speak French.

 

Today I arrived in Quebec City to embark on a 6-month long French immersion educational experience.  I've had about 6 hours of pitiful sleep over the last 24 hours that I was able to squeeze out of the uncomfortable bus seat and 3 plane transfers. I am exhausted but excited because finally I know that the legendary lake monster that has been evading me all my life will be mine.  I am here to learn French, in an environment that is overwhelmingly French Canadian, and this time no English-dependence/addiction will stop me!

 

Quebec City, from my week-long visit to it in September of 2015