Sunday, August 06, 2006

 

Jess & I are on a little road-trip vacation, 'clock-wise' around Lake Ontario. We started out West from Albany, went swimming in the lake, toured the summer-home mansion of the founder of Citibank, visited the site where Joseph Smith claimed to have unearthed the Book of Mormon, took an awesome Jet Boat tour on the Niagara River, went to Niagara Falls (Wow!), scooted up to Toronto for a visit with Dave & Julie (great city! great folks!), and just today drove all the way up to Montreal.

So:

Wow, is it weird to just be driving along, and then all of a sudden have everything not be in English! We're actually much closer to home (geographically) here than we were in Toronto, but it feels like we're on a different continent. While it may be true that Quebecois has a unique and different culture, above and beyond the language, you don't get any meaningful sense of it, crossing the border from Ontario; nonetheless, language is enough - when you don't speak the language, everything instantly becomes strange and mysterious and different. It's one thing when you expect it; when you book a flight, and fly to some far-away country. It's another when you stay in the same country, and you're only a 5-hour drive away from home. Honestly, it's kind of a world-shaking revelation, to realize that this essentially fully Francophone 'country' is about as close to Boston as Philadelphia is.

And . . . I feel like some kind of subversive, carrying around the copy of Infinite Jest that I'm reading.

posted by Miles 12:18 AM