Starbucks

After a few days of eating Poutine and other French faire in Quebec restaurants and listening to Québécois talk in French, or trying to decipher what they are saying in English with their heavy French Canadian accents, it is nice to see a famliar icon of American culture and lifestyle that is Starbucks.
Just before you make the long trek out to the international gates at Montréal’s Peirre Elliott Trudeau Airport, but well after customs and the duty free shops, is this Starbucks.
Not only can you order your favorite caffeinated beverage, you can delightfully listen to 3 women talk to each other sans les accents Quebecoise… oops excuse me, here I go writing French, but that translates to is «without Quebec accents»!
Turns out one is from Ghana, another Bahamian, and and another raised in Montréal but whose parents were from Haiti!
And when I said none of them have a Quebec accent, the girl whose parents were from Haiti said, «Please don’t tell me I have a Quebec accent!». Merte et Sacre Bleu!
(She didn’t use those last 2 terms, I added them for dramatic effect!)
I repeated that I thought they DIDN“T have a Quebec accent! To which she smiled and thanked me.
I was happy too, just a plane ride back into the US of A. Not that I didn’t like Quebec, because I like Quebec. And I wouldn’t go as far as the Republicans in the last election wanting to rename Pomme de Terre Frittes to «Freedom Fries» instead of French Fries. Sacre Bleu! (I know that was in response to France, not Quebec, but, well, you know, those Frenchies are all alike. or at least that is what those conservatives keep telling me!)
But next time I will brush up on my French before returning! And eat a lot of tofu to counteract the Poutine in my veins!