Being an immigrant

Well, being an immigrant isn't easy. Having said that, I have spent a large part of my life (thus far) living in a country other than my native kingdom.
Being a European in Europe isn't that bad at all, especially when you speak the language of your adoptive country well enough to pass for a native.
Some of you might be surprised to learn that we are labelled (if you can call it that) 'immigrants', here in Canada. So, now that the shoe is on the other proverbial foot, what does it feel like?

Hmmm. Well, people we have met so far have been friendly, helpful and interested in the fact that we come from Europe.

Let me give you a couple of examples: Jérémie was telling his colleagues that with my BMW we could do almost 1000km (that's 621 miles) with a tank of fuel. They were flabbergasted because this is a concept that just doesn't exist here - not diesel, just the fact that cars are economical (and yes, my BMW was a 3 litre engine - it's just that BMW are very very good at making powerful cars go a long way on one tank!).

Another example, again Jérémie's work colleagues. He was telling one with whom he has struck up a good friendship that we have a house in France still and if we like it here we plan to sell it one day and buy over here. Said colleague asked, purely out of interest how much our house was worth (not that much by our standards as we would hope to get around €300,000 for it on a good day) and he nearly fainted when Jérémie told him, saying that the equivalent amount in CAD$ would buy us a castle here.

Ok then!!


So in one respect we seem to come from a country which people are really curious to learn about.

The downside - oh, yes, there is always one of those - is things like:

• xenophobic remarks that Jérémie has had to put up with at work. Well, we are immigrants, so some people are bound to hate us, just out of principle

• Sometimes Indiana interacts with other children, say in the supermarket or in the park, and parents are all smiley and talk to her, but as soon as I address Indiana in English, the parents seem to move off, and lose interest. And no, I'm not imagining it - Jérémie has noticed it too. This could be due to Quebec's Independence movement and the fact that the Québecois  are not exactly big fans of the British. Hmmm.... Wonder why....... 

• Today we had lunch at Tim Horton's (http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/index.html if you're interested!) and they are collecting food and sundries for the deprived people in the area. I asked an employee how long we could donate parcels for and she looked at me and ran off into the kitchen and closed the door and about 20 seconds later, peeked out to see if I was still there and saw that I was patiently awaiting a response and so closed the door again. What on earth that was all about I don't know! You'd have thought I was speaking to her in Russian or something (no offence to the Russians, of course!).

However, these are just a few random and rare encouters we have had so far and have by no means put us off being here. Let's face it, Canada is a big place so there are plenty of places we can go if Victoriaville doesn't float our boat!