Oh Canada – Je ne comprends pas

After a day of sightseeing around the city, walking for miles and miles, taking in the Basilica and having a very nice lunch the evening was set for a big night out with more of his nibs friends. Now in Quebec it’s the norm for people to be bi-lingual, it’s law in fact for all signs, notices menus etc to be written in French and you even have to ‘Frenchize’ your business name, i.e. it must sound French so ‘Flannigan’s Irish Bar’ would need to be called ‘Le bar Irlandais de Flannigan’. I’m all for protecting the culture of the region I think it’s a great idea, but you can go a bit too far. There is a point I promise I’m getting to it. You know I don’t speak French as does his nibs, his mates soon realised this when they greeted Alain in French and he introduced me in English, for the first time in my life I was truly embarrassed at speaking only my mother tongue. As the night wore on and more alcohol was consumed the conversation slipped inevitably into French, I grew quieter and quieter as I couldn’t join in. As you can imagine for an insatiable chatterbox like me this was torture, made worse by the fact that I really wanted Alain’s friends to like me. Pretty hard to get to know someone when she sits in a corner like a wallflower!

His nibs has a great bunch of friends and I know they didn’t mean to exclude me, but there were 10 of us around the table and with so many conversations going on they didn’t even realise I wasn’t involved. Just as the evening was drawing to a close I was rescued by the waitress of all people. She happened to be the reason we were in this particular restaurant (though she didn’t know it), one of the blokes fancied her you see, and I can understand why. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen; of Moroccan decent she spoke fluent English, French and a passable amount of Arabic. She sat next to me and was asking about life in Dubai, when others joined in the conversation speaking French, she chastised them and reminded them I couldn’t understand. Not only was she beautiful she was smart and considerate to boot! During the walk back to Sebastiens I explained my predicament to his nibs, he was of course gutted and very apologetic. We both learned from the evening though, he to make sure when the conversation switched to French to always reply in English, amazingly most Quebecois do this all the time, and for me, to make bloody sure I learn to speak French!