I was recently on a surprise trip to France, which had me abroad for Canada Day. It was a little disappointing because it’s one of my favorite holidays of the year. It was especially tough because I had to work when everyone at home was off and their was no public display of Canadian spirit anywhere on the streets. However despite having little to no notice about my trip (found out at noon was on a plane by 10pm) I did manage to throw some small “made in Canada” stickers as well as a role of Canadian flag masking tape into my suitcase.
After work on Canada day, I met up with some people from the local BEST (Board of European Students of Technology) group because the Canadian equivalent, CFES (Canadian Federation of Engineering Students) considers BEST as an official partner, and I figured I would meet up with some European engineering students. We met up at a bar where it was happy hour for two hours and drinks were half price. It didn’t take long for my stickers and tape to make an appearance and let’s just say Canada Day was a huge hit in the bar. Before long the entire bar was covered in “made in Canada” stickers and Canadian flag tape. A fellow Canadian who had been on exchange in Grenoble introduced herself and went on to tell me she was from Ottawa and was attending the University of Guelph. She was wearing a white dress and red shoes for the occasion but was super excited to see a fellow Canadian to celebrate with.
While the stickers were being spread across the bar the BESTies were explaining to me that nobody does this type of patriotism during the French equivalent of Canada Day and if you did you would be seen as fascist. We soon moved to another bar where there was a fresh bunch of French residents to convert. It started off fairly slowly since they wouldn’t let me bring in my stickers but I eventually snuck them in and started passing them around. It was really funny because every 10 minutes or so the bartender would make a noise and then scream “Happy Canada Day!” which was funny and pretty cool. I met some people at the bar who got pretty into the Canada Day thing and everyone was very excited to share in the celebration.
I started off the evening being a little disappointed that I was missing Canada Day, but with a few props and some liquid courage the evening turned into a resounding success. I met some French friends and spread Canadian spirit to a small section of France. The best part was when a coworker mentioned that he saw a girl riding her bike in the morning with Canada stickers (the same ones I had been passing out) all over the place which makes me smile and proud to be Canadian.
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