Brief Exchanges

During this trip, my exchanges with people have been quite brief but memorable, if only because my awareness of everything seems heightened when travelling.

As you know, my knowledge of French is laughable. I would be more able to cope in German, having taken it for two years at uni, but even that is not saying much.

For the most part, as soon as people hear me pronounce bonjour, they switch into English, god love them, but when I went into the SAQ yesterday in search of a local cider, and I responded in English to the employee’s offer to help me (presumably that is what she was offering when she said bonjour followed by some eloquent phrase I could not decode), she just shook her head and went in search of a young male employee who was better equipped to help me, if only to tell me that they had no individual cans of cider.

I appreciate the kindness people have shown in their efforts to converse in English, and I am at least able to thank them for such using my limited French. If only they wanted to hear me sing a song about Henri Leduc, which is the only French that ever floats into my head.

I have certainly had some interesting exchanges. Outside a store in Rigaud, on route from Hawkesbury to V-D on Thursday, an older woman with a heavy French accent asked if the bike was mine, and was it a pedal bike. Yes I said, it is powered only by me. Then she asked if I was a Scorpio. No, Sagittarius, I said, which means little to me beyond the fact that two of my closest pals are also Sagittarius, and we celebrate our birthdays together each year. Ah, she said, then you have to watch out for sciatica. Very big issue for Sagittarius. I reassured her that I was stretching diligently, then climbed back on my bike eager to navigate through the busy downtown, but I confess I did feel a twinge in my lower back as I walked downtown yesterday.

The other exchanges, or more aptly anti-exchanges, have been with the older male cyclists I have encountered on the bike paths. Most have a similar look, riding vintage racing bikes, and wearing cotton cycling caps rather than helmets, looking like riders of Eddy Merckx’ era. They don’t even make eye contact let alone say hello, as they pedal furiously with their bowed legs, perhaps living out races of bygone years. Oh yes, the patriarchal vibe is alive and well here in Quebec.

Well those are my brief musings for Saturday morning. Having fallen asleep before 9:00, I was awake again quite early, though to the sounds of trucks rumbling past rather than to birds gossiping. The skies have cleared here, but it is chilly and windy, so I am going to take a slightly shorter route to meet Christina, which she recommended. It is plenty hilly, though, so she will have to wait for me to catch up on each hill.

Enjoy the weekend everyone. Am missing my Saturday run with my squad. Hope it is sunny, and full of great conversation!

PS am including photo of the croissant I had yesterday. I mean I have to include at least one photo