We're far away from ceremonies at home, but we are pausing to remember today at 11 a.m. of 11/11/11 the sacrifices of brave Canadians in horrible wars. Our hearts are our poppies...
We're smack dab in the middle of a huge student district. There are 4 universities clustered together with about 100,000 to 125,000 students roaming the zone and streets around it. It's really energizing and familiar to be on a campus. The red-brick buildings even remind me of schools in New England or parts of Ontario. Yesterday was warm enough to relax on the lawns or put up silly signs like students do everywhere.
But on her way to class yesterday, Pat was rushed by 4 extremely excited girls. They had found a real, live English-speaker! It was Panda-monium On The Plaza! Crazed, happy, insistent! They pleaded with us to go to "English Corner", their weekly get-together to practice English. It was overwhelming street love, they wouldn't let go lest the magic disappear.
We had expected this, but we had always imagined a shy group standing around a park bench saying 'Hello, how are you?" or something like that. BUT the reality was way different and absolutely fantastic. At 6:30 in the evening we were paraded into "English Corner", actually a hallway crammed with about 200 screaming joyful wild-eyed college students.
For the next hour we felt like Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber (or Madonna and Mick Jagger?). Jostled, begged to come closer, posed/photographed and videoed a thousand times, laughed at and with. Oh, and we even spoke English, but the roar of the crowds made it hard to tell. Pat led her group in their favourite English song "You Are My Sunshine", and I tried to explain our lives---- try that sometime!
You had to be there, and we will be back next Thursday, like addicts to paparazzi. Our voices were shot, our senses are overloaded, but our grins just won't quit.
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