YoloS!

[beneath1984]

YoloS, an artsy french teen with a girly taste in fashion...

his photostream...
www.facebook.com/pages/YoloS-Page-Officielle/204421286332341?sk=photos_stream

[Betty]

Love the tights. Yep, he looks sooo very French. Not that I've ever been there though. The closest I ever got to France was Frankfurt Germany decades ago to visit an old friend. Back in the days when I worked for a few pipe organ companies, for a couple years one of my employers was born & raised in France. He used to regularly send me to Montreal & Quebec city to work a lot. Quebec is probably the closest thing to France on the continent. Their winters are not much harsher ours, & in recent years, just about the same. In the summer it does get warm & beautiful. It's almost like visiting Europe.

I got so used to going to Quebec, staying up there weeks at a time for work, it got to be like a home away from home. Long after I didn't have to work there, I used to try to get up there for a visit whenever I had a chance. Never did learn to speak French well. Just enough to ask for street directions, order something from a Pub or restaurant, & ask where the bathroom is. At the time, having so many people try to speak to me in German, Polish, Russian, Spanish, French, or S.E. Asian, it was just too many languages thrown at me all at once for me to learn any of them good enough.

Fortunatately almost everybody up there I met in Quebec & Montreal also knew a little English. At the time, they would really get annoyed if you don't know French well, & will even fake it that they don't know any English to have a good joke on you. But as soon as they found out I was from Buffalo to work up there, & not a Canadian or tourist they got much more friendly & helpful... esp. in Quebec.

Interestingly, they thought my boss talked funny because most of them never met a person born & raised in France. The French they speak in Canada is not exactly the French they speak in France... but don't tell them that because it'll piss them off & they'll just deny it. There's differences & an accent.

It's like comparing somebody from Alabama & someone from the UK speaking. They're both speaking English but would have a hard time understanding each other. I'm sure they both would feel the other is talking "funny". Most people on this continent don't even realize that people in the UK are speaking the original English, & we here are the ones with an accent colored with American or Canadian slang.

LOL, most people in my town can't even tell the difference between Australian & British English even though they sound quite different from each other to me.

I miss Quebec. I don't travel well anymore because of my health so it's been years since I've been up there. What little French I knew is getting worse since I never have to use it. Living walking distance to the Canadian border, I can tune in French Canadian stations. There was a time that if I listened carefully, I could pick up enough words to figure out what they were talking about. These days when I tune in those stations, I can only pick up on a word here & there once in a while.

However, living or working in or near downtown, the west side, & Allentown in Buffalo a long time, my Spanish has improved. If I can pick up enough Spanish to get by just by listening to Hispanics in the neighborhood & at work, how come so many of them haven't figured out English yet after living here most or all of their lives?

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty, the last time I was in Montreal I asked a sales clerk (in English) about an item I wanted and she started speaking French. I said please excuse me but my French is not that good and I don't want to insult you. She said I'm sorry but we have Language Police here and if I don't speak French first I can get a heavy fine. I was totally blown away but in Quebec they insist on French language and signs everywhere and to hell with the English speaking population. Needless to say I don't go there too often anymore even when I am traveling to the East coast of Canada I go through the U.S. to avoid Quebec.

[Betty]

Oh yeah. They have their strict language & thought police to protect their heritage & language. Fortunately by the time they started all that weirdness, I already knew plenty of people in both cities, so they were helpful.

But even back then. I remember getting ready for my first trip ever to work up there & asking my boss if it would be better the change my American money to Canadian at a bank here or up there. I remember in Toronto every establishment had their own varying rip-off exchange rate, so I would change my money before I got there. He said not to exchange it at all so I'm not mistaken as a Canadian who can't speak French. He said as soon as they see American dollars, they'll be real friendly, & then some will even speak English.

Apparently they feel every Canadian visiting a predominantly French area should know & speak French. But those cities, esp. Quebec city, are tourist towns. Their economy depends on it a lot. So they're overly friendly & welcoming to Europeans & Americans but many of them will treat their own countrymen like crap just because they're not fluent in French. I was also lucky because I was working on the organ in a Cathedral that was also an national icon, & continental icon. It turns out the organ company & the work we were going to do up there was in their local paper weeks before we got there.

A couple weeks after I got up there our company was on their local news about it again. But I was on my way back home so missed it. They interviewed my boss. I didn't know the company, & even me was mentioned on the news until my next trip up. He kind of exaggerated about me, the rest of the crew, & even himself to make the company look good. He touched on the truth but made us sound much better & bigger than we actually were.

He made me sound like his star worker & some kind of genius. He said to the news I was the son of Polish immigrants, & a student in music, science, electronics, & that everyone in my family was a musician. Yeah, my brothers, sister, & myself could play an instrument, but it wasn't paying the bills so we all had day jobs. I took music, piano, & even clarinet lessons, but was not a music student. My father was from Poland, but was already a USA citizen who fought in WWII in the USA army, long before he met my mom. My mom was Irish/German. Her & her parents were born here.

So when I got back up to Quebec, suddenly I was this amazing Polish musician, scientist kid, & electronics wizard (in my early 20s) working on the Cathedral for this cool French company & artist! Wow was that guy a good bullshitter.

I was basically just a young laborer stuck in a strange town where I knew nobody, & couldn't speak the language burping beer on my day off in a Pub because of lack of anything better to do. When I go back 2 weeks later, I'm this mysterious European music, science, & electronics genius burping beer on my day off in a Pub.

[Angela M...]

Hey Betty, I was in Montreal in the 70"s working in the Lowe's hotel repairing all the A/C units the hotel workers screwed up while installing them. Mostly it was jammed fans with plaster inside from doing the walls etc. but sometimes there would be tools inside the fan housing they forgot about. Of course when they turned on the unit it would jam or destroy the fans and sometimes the evap. coils also. We were there just over a week working 12 to 14 hour days so we didn't do much drinking at night. Just supper and a good nights sleep to start all over again the next day. Never saw much of Montreal on that visit but went back again with friends for a weekend later on.

[Betty]

Oh, I didn't get much chance to get out on a workday up there either. I got a Saturday or Sunday off but it was too far to drive back home on a day off. So I was stuck up there for weeks in a row.

Worst yet, he was too cheap to put us up in a hotel, so we stayed in room in housing owned by the church set up for the clergy, monks, & nuns. No TV, radio, stereo, & of course you couldn't make any noise.

So yes, in my early 20s, I'm getting outta there on my day off, or if I didn't have to get up early the next day. On more than a few occasions, I ran into some of the clergy having a few beers too.