ciroccoj | Random brain blips from the last couple of days of our trip (Reply)

People sure are funny.

The last morning, the boys were wearing the Canada shirts that Chris had made them - their names, Canadian flags, peace symbols, and maple leafs. At breakfast, they told one of our fellow guests (Grumpy Old Man) that they'd just had their birthdays; he apparently grunted "Hm." When I got to our table, they were still trying to engage Grumpy Old Man in conversation, and he was clearly not amused. I heard him say something like, "Colonel. I bet you don't even know what that means."

"That means somebody very high up in the military," Chris told the boys. They were impressed.

"I mean I am a Colonel," Grumpy Old Man - sorry, Grumpy Old Colonel - said.

"Oh, cool!" said Chris.

"'Cool'?" said the GOC, still clearly not amused. "You think it's 'cool'?" Then he called across the room at his spouse, said something like, "Are we leaving now, or what?"

And he hadn't even taken a look at my own Canada shirt, with the "Canada: a nation of pot-smoking, homo-loving peaceniks" on it.
But somebody else did, at Disneyland. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a woman looking at it with raised eyebrows - then she suddenly smiled and said to somebody behind her, "No - she is Canadian." She saw me looking at her and chuckled, "Heh - good for you!"
It was amusing having so many people tell us nice things about Canadians. Namely, that we're all so polite. One guy even said, "You know, I've never met a rude Canadian."

I refrained from responding with a smart-aleck "I could introduce you to a few" ;)

It was particularly amusing hearing this when, except for the GOC, almost every single person we met during our trip was unfailingly friendly and polite, whether staff or fellow guest/visitor. Far more so than most Ottawans.
I learned English at an American school when I was a kid (no, this is not a complete non-sequitur). My German cousins kept asking me to say "Frankfurt" in my American accent - the contrast between their German 'Frahnkforrt' and my 'Frainkfurt' was hilarious to them.

Now I know how they felt. Every time airport or hotel staff said "Aaddawuh," I wanted to giggle.
At breakfast one day, Daniel struck up a conversation with a family from Arizona. They were complaining about the cold and he said something like "It was -35 in Ottawa when we came here!"

They were rather aghast, even after I'd approximated it in Fahrenheit. They asked us curiously, "How can you live there?"

"We stay indoors a lot," I answered.

"Why do you like living there?" asked the mom.

"'Cause Canada's really big!" Daniel replied promptly. "And we have socialized medicine."

They thought this was very cute. I was so proud of him :)

Also, rather relieved that my stern little "We are guests in this country and we will not say rude things about America or its president while we are here" speech had done some good. I had cringed a little, expecting him to say something like "Because our Prime Minister is not a crazy idiot!"
Weird visiting another country right after doing Critical Race Theory. Really, really weird. Among the ethnic-based observations I can remember:
1. Total # of hijabs spotted in LA: 6. Ottawa? Somewhat more than that in any given half an hour.
2. Total # of yarmulkes: can't count that high. Ottawa? Um... I'm sure I must have seen somebody in a yarmulke this year. No, wait - that was on TV.
3. I have never seen so many people look totally Southeast Asian and be totally Latin American in my life. Quite startling the first few times.
4. Total # of East Indian-looking people seen in the first five minutes at Ottawa Airport: at least 3. That's when I realized I'd hardly seen any in California.
5. It's odd, noting various colour-based social structures in LA - who does what, who lives where, who serves, who is served, etc. I don't see it in Ottawa. And it's odd knowing that visitors to Ottawa could probably spot a whole bunch of race-based stuff that's totally invisible to me, because of its very familiarity.
Like I said, really weird.
Wonderful surprise when I went to pick up the kids at 5:00pm today: light!! As in, the sun hadn't quite set yet. I'm so used to going to get them in the dead of night. But in the week we were gone, sunset moved. Yay!!