When I was a kid we did a driving vacation from Indianapolis, across Niagara and up the St. Lawrence, going up and over the Gaspe to Halifax and then across the Bay of Fundy on the ferry to Maine and back to Indy.
We stayed at a couple of B&Bs that were literally nothing more than people renting out spare bedrooms. They spoke French but little English, however, they were very accommodating and made an effort to communicate. One of the stops was at a "resort" at St. Jean-Port Joli Quebec. The place was huge, located right on the shores of the St. Lawrence, but it was cold as heck (August?) I recall how the asshat servers in the restaurant pretended not to understand English, yet you could hear them speaking both English and French in the kitchen. They made fun of my Dad trying to order a beer - we heard them. Dad, who is mightly pissed by now, walks back into the kitchen and tells the"frogs" they better get him his f-ing beer before he walks out and refuses to pay the bill. They weren't pleasant after that but I did recall there was no problem with our ordering in English. Dan On Jan 24, 2014, at 6:21 PM, Dwight Giles wrote: > On my first visit to Montreal in the 80's the conference organizers > recommended we have an American flag in our lapel so they didn't think we > were english canadians. > On Jan 24, 2014 6:08 PM, "Scott Ritchey" <ritche...@nc.rr.com> wrote: > >> >> On a business trip to Canada (well east of Montreal, probably about 1968) I >> couldn't find anyone who would speak with me until I mentioned I was from >> the US. It seems it was unforgivable if a Canadian didn't speak French but >> much less was expected from an ignorant foreigner. In fact, the fellow was >> delighted for an opportunity to practice his English but he would not >> consider such a conversation with a non-French-speaking Canadian. >> >> Scott >> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of Gary >>> Hurst >>> Sent: Friday, January 24, 2014 3:12 PM >>> To: Mercedes Discussion List >>> Subject: Re: [MBZ] cold >>> >>> it's always hard to tell when someone really does not speak the language >>> or >>> they just want you to think they don't speak. hungarian is my native >>> language but i have a habit of letting people speak freely and not let on >>> that i understand anything they are saying >>> >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
