Jin! Jiiiiiiiiiin! Bwawston. Bwawston. Bwaaaaawston... Schouwa... schouwa...
To fully appreciate this hilarity, you have to follow this story.
Rachel, her brother Pat, and I took a weekend trip to Boston (that inadvertently led me to a week-long trip away from Quebec City). Since I had never taken a real trip to the states, I thought it would give me a good opportunity to experience the Real American Way of Life and discover why people seem to characterise americans the way they do.
The roads are absolutely wonderful. Our pathetic rented PT Cruiser experienced nothing but potholes and rocky stretches of Quebec bacon-for-roads. We spent half an hour waiting at the border going to the states, and then suddenly all the asphalt smoothed itself out like a bedsheet after a restless night.
Our drive through Vermont was quaint and picturesque. It seems that the highway cuts through the sides of green hills overlooking lush valleys dotted with farms and cows. New Hampshire was pretty much the same, and it was a hop and a skip to Massachusetts. (I don't think I've learned so much american geography over the years as I did in the last two days, but I suppose that's what happens when you travel.)
Boston is a very nondescript place if you're not looking for it. The distinct New England style houses and buildings don't make it stand out so much, as much as if a certain someone would stop and actually let me get out and look at them.... The massive underground highway project aptly named the Big Dig doesn't stick out from the skyline (not that it should anyway). The most exciting eye candy of the city is a large white bridge leading into it, composed of thick wires and probably kryptonite as far as I know, glowing eerily into the night. Actually, I didn't get to see much of Boston, having only spent half a day sightseeing at the Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.
Jin told us that the Bwawstonians don't pronounce Faneuil as we French-literate would (fan-oeil') but like some twisted, half-blind anglos would (fan'-iel... rhyming with Daniel).
On Saturday, we were treated to a breakfast at the IHOP, not at all because Jin doesn't have food at her home since I had arrived with two dozen St-Viateur bagels... but rather because she doesn't eat at home regularly. Considering that she doesn't really know how to cook (ok, not at all), we went out for every single meal.
The waitress was a very portly but charming woman, who would respond to each of our requests with a very Bwawstonian "Schouwa!"
"Can I have the whole wheat pancakes?" I asked.
"Schouwa! What can I get for you to drink?"
"Uh, some water please?"
"Schouwa!"
So to sum up the dining experiences in Boston, the portions are grotesquely and ridiculously enormous. The IHOP pancakes came in a stack of FOUR, and they are just as large as the pancakes I make, and probably 50% thicker. Rachel and I could only finish about 2 of our 4 pancakes each, and we were ready to explode. Every single other food place we visited gave us about 50% to 100% more than a normal serving size here. We had split a two-person meal at a portugese restaurant that could have easily fed a family of four. Nonetheless, the food is excellent and reasonably priced, but it's a pity that the american way of thinking of "value for money" trumps "giving reasonably sized portions without excess."
Jin also mentioned that her parents thought she had gained ten pounds since she arrived in Boston (which she had). Though she's as thin as a beanpole so ten pounds doesn't show at all.
A lot of our time was spent shopping. (Jin. 'nuff said.) The sales tax is 5% but doesn't apply to purchases of clothing or food below $175 I belive. So to sum up, it would have been advantageous to buy things in Massachusetts if not for the rate of exchange and all the other costs that we accumulated just to get to a place to shop. (We would have broke even, but I don't really like shopping anyway.) We went to a massive outlet mall on Sunday that was crawling with SUVs and other large vehicles, in the middle of nowhere. Rachel bought two watches, one for Pat. I bought a watch for Jorgh. Jin bought a metric ton of stuff including six or seven similar shirts and other things that I've forgotten already because we spent 7 hours at the place and my brain cells were just as fried as both my knees and feet.
But the highlight of that Sunday was the visit to Cracker Barrel. We had yet another breakfast/lunch at this place, where we were exposed to the peculiar homestyle favourite "Dumplins," composed of flour and probably goo. The young waitress had a habit of peppering her waitressing with "awesome"s. But the real gem of the experience was the gift shop.
Since there's usually a long wait time between tables, the ingenious management incorporated "old style item gift shop" concept in the same building. They sold various crafts and gadgets, candies, decorations, and toys. One particular toy was an electronic toucan that twice repeated whatever was said towards it in a higher pitch. So when Rachel saw this, she told me to fetch Jin and she would speak into the toy and let Jin listen to it.
"Jin! Jin! Hi, Jin!" it squaked. Jin started laughing. "We're in Bwawston. Bwawston... Bwawston..." and it went on.
Then Rachel went a bit further and the bird then squacked the infamous line:
"JIN! JIIIIN! JIII-IIIN!!! Bwawston. Bwawston. Schouwa. Schouwaaa... Faniel! Faniel!"
The best part was that the rest of the day, we would tease her with more gems like "But Jin, why couldn't you convince them otherwise? We thought you were a loyah!" Bwawston loyah. Yeah.
Finally, that evening we had supper at another restaurant but Jin wanted to pay for all our meals. We insisted on us paying our own parts, but she didn't want our money. So I said, "Jin, if you don't then we'll just have to make you take it!"
So Rachel, Pat and I squaked JIIINs, Bwawstons, Schouwas and other terribly accented things for another 15 minutes until Jin squealed out that she gave up. By that point, I was laughing so hard that I was tearing up and couldn't breathe properly, rolling around on the table. The other restaurant patrons were giving us weird looks as we were leaving but I couldn't help myself.
To sum up my trip, I learned that the culture of excess reputation is not at all unwarranted, and it was great fun to bug Jin all weekend.
Tomorrow I will be heading to Waterloo with Jorghnassen for his talk, and we'll be returning home (myself to Quebec City) on Friday afternoon.
