Someone else’s story

So it’s related to mine, but I loved this blurb from the details of the trip for Luc’s brothers and mother (who arrived at Pearson just minutes after we did, in a – well the – different terminal, on a different flight, from a different city…isn’t modern travel cool?). Anyway…

On their way through customs, the officer asked the reason for their visit. They responded that they were coming for their brother’s wedding – “he’s marrying a Canadian girl”. With a big grin, the officer responded “good choice!” and barely looked at their passports (apparently) before stamping them and letting them through.

Cute

Another little detail – the smile and the comment cost nothing, but made the travel that much more pleasant for those three people, and reminded me (once again) why I miss dealing with Canadians so much!

Final thoughts of a smooth flight

One more tasty snack, early arrivals, no wait at customs, all bags arrived…
The trip was definitely the smoothest yet. And the tasty snack was a hot pastry with either lamb or vegetables, and both (we each got one) were fantastic. We’d had this kind of pastry the last time, and they were great then too. I kept the box for a while the last time planning to look them up, and, having tossed it ages ago, despite seeing the name again just a couple of hours ago, I’ve already forgotten. Ah well.

We’re checkin’ in (they’re checkin’ in) aka why I’ll also fly Air Canada again

After first going to the wrong check-in desk (silly us for assuming that buying our ticket with Swiss meant checking in at the Swiss desk) we got to the right place (the Air Canada desk) where there was no line up, which was great, since I was concerned it would take a few minutes having not received a boarding card with my web check-in, but a paper that said “this is not a boarding card: go to the check-in desk”. The woman at the desk greeted us in Swiss German and asked where we were going. In the sliver of German I have, I said hello, told her we were going to Toronto, and then told her that my German wasn’t very good. She respond something pleasant, and then asked Luc (in English) for our passports.

We put the first (biggest) suitcase on the scale and held our breaths: we were right around the limit, but were pretty well prepared for the potential need to readjust. We were lucky though: it wasn’t too heavy. As Luc wrote the paper address tags, I realized that he had not included an address in Canada, so I asked the woman if I could switch them, explaining that my wedding dress was on the bag, so I wanted to be sure it got to the right place. While we wrote the other tags, I realized that she had added a “priority” tag to the suitcase and smiled: “we’d better make sure it gets there then!” and then, looking at Luc and back at me, “but I can’t even ask you what the dress looks like!”. I had almost forgot to tell her that when I checked in online, it had not given us seats together, so she had a look and said “well, the flight isn’t very full, shall I give you to aisle seats with an empty seat between them so that you have more space?”. As I write this (4 hours later, while sitting on the plane) it still makes me smile to think about. For her, these actions are nothing: they cost her nothing, nor did they cost anything to Air Canada or Swiss, and yet the effect on us is huge. It’s a shame that such customer service is so rare, but at the same time it makes it that much more amazing. Bravo Air Canada.

So here we are, in the plane, (not “on” the plane, as George Carlin once noted – around 2:58). As we took off, Luc and I couldn’t help but quote this video that we both saw just a few days ago. And here we are, flying to Canada on our first direct flight ever…ok, so we had to get to Zurich, but that is hardly a burden compared to past trips where we were stuck at Frankfurt airport (3-4 hours from home) for 8 or 9 hours, because of issues with connecting flights.n

Free hugs

The French don’t hug. Well, not often, and it’s mostly reserved for couples, although some people don’t freak out too much when anglos hug (or more specifically, when anglos hug Frenchies; I almost got myself into a lot of trouble with a hug once!). I think I’ll start this post with a tangent, and then come back to the reason I’m writing: anglos (or at least North Americans?) are often perceived (at least by the French) as fake, because we’re too nice to people, and its perceived as being, well, fake. The hug is one manifestation of that, and French people find it widely over-used (frankly, at times I agree). I suppose that it can be roughly (but only roughly) compared to our perception of the “bises” (the cheek-to-cheek kiss that is used as a greeting in France between men and women, and among women, but only rarely among men). Of course, the anglo use of the “bises” comes across as extraordinarily snobby, but actually living it takes some getting used to. I distinctly remember the heat flooding my face when someone I found attractive extended a cheek, that is until I got used to it, and discovered that even less emotion goes into the bises than goes into a hug, since the bises tends to be distributed more widely than hugs. Well, to be fair, some bises (just like some hugs) can be anything but cold and detached, but it’s different.

Where am I going with this…I have, to some extent – to a great extent even – over-adapted to French society, and sometimes feel downright strange in a hug. On the other hand, hugs between friends (particularly in France) have become that much more powerful, because they are so very rare (I remember the last one; it was me that offered it, and it was at least 6 months ago…maybe even a year). So when, during a particularly rough day, a good friend and colleague came around offering free hugs, you can not imagine the relief that I felt. I feel so lucky to have friends willing to go well out of cultural boundaries, see past the “falseness” that is perceived in a North American hug, and make everything better, if just for a few seconds.

Chapter 18 – Ca caille!!!

October 21, 2003
I’ve discovered the art to getting rid of milk skin. You know, the skin that develops when you heat up milk, and later surprises you rather unpleasantly while you’re quietly enjoying your hot chocolate? Well…I had already found one way, but it resulted in a bigger pain; I found that by tilting the pot at just the right angle, the hot milk would just slide out from under the skin, leaving it behind…stuck to the pot. That made for an irritatingly messy cleanup, but minus the unpleasant surprise while consuming that critical beverage that keeps me warm in my freezing apartment (I turn on the heat as infrequently as possible, since my door is STILL not sealed…my landlord was supposed to call yesterday…). Anyway; the effective way. Contrary to my previous belief, once removed, the skin will not redevelop in the cooling process (but I imagine that you have to remove it only right before/as you are taking the pot off the burner). The importance of this knowledge is simple: as long as you remove it at the right time; you win! And I just keep winning. As a recently addition to the substance abuse community (My name is Heather, and I’m addicted to hot chocolate and herbal tea) this is important…so the trick: really not a real trick, and I’m sure many of you were far ahead of me on this one…or else heating the milk up directly in the mug, and perhaps this could be useful…right, the trick; a fork or spoon, gently catching a bit will take all the rest with it, and can be dropped in the garbage. Unfortunately the result is something resembling, well, skin, hanging off your spoon/fork for the few precious moments between the pot and the garbage…and it doesn’t look to pretty in the garbage either. Of course, with herbal tea, the problem is avoided (unless there’s someone out there that prefers to make their tea with milk…). Anyway, an amusing to spinoff to this whole bizarre train of thought; when it’s really cold, one commonly used French expression is; “ça caille!” which was explained to me as referring to the forming of the skin on the top of cold milk as it’s heated from the bottom…although I just checked the internet for spelling, where I discovered that cailler means to curdle, so now I’m confused. Ah well…you figure it out.

In case you’re wondering, it’s cold in my room tonight. I’ve given in (yet again) and put the heat on, so I don’t freeze and die as I get out of the shower. There is also the handy addition of a radiator in the bathroom…facing the toilet. You’ll know how key this is if you’ve ever sat on a cold, ceramic toilet. Of course, the only time I turn it on is when I don’t want to freeze and die as I leave the shower, but once my door is sealed properly, I can take better advantage of that handy feature.

Cold. Cold, cold, cold. I must say, I have taken great pleasure in pointing out that recently it has been warmer in Canada than it has been here. I do enjoy dispelling myths, and not unlike in the US, the image of Canada here is simple: cold. It amuses me, while being somewhat worrying, that people know so little about Canada. I never realized just how insignificant the country seems to be to so many people. The real slap in the face came in my first week of classes, when I discussed stereotypes of English-speaking countries with each of my classes. Of those I heard from my students about Canada, the hardest ‘stereotype’ to swallow was something to the effect of; completely unimportant at the international level. What was the word they used…I wish I could remember, since I think what they used was even more insulting (at least to me). But unimportant? invisible? That came as a bit of a shock. I had no idea. Of course, it is my personal mission to put Canada on the map…I suggest we take a big piece of the map…how about somewhere on top of the US? Anyway, now I’m just procrastinating. My students (and I) were informed this week that they would have a test in English tomorrow…good thing I’m in the loop! So I have to come up with a test, and a lesson, for my 4-hour class tomorrow afternoon. Fun, fun, fun.