accents
Last night bear_left called me to discuss our plans next week. At some point we got talking about border crossings, Customs officials, and during our conversation I noticed and remarked on his New York City accent.
It reminded of a trip I took, almost 5 years ago, to visit pagerbear, during which we spent a few days visiting NYC (and picked up a case of food poisoning from undercooked hamburgers at a pub right beside the WTC, although to this day my friend maintains that it wasn't food poisoning.)
Anyways, on the train ride back to Ontario, I was sitting beside a Brooklyn Italian woman who told me she had a boyfriend in Toronto. She was completely the stereotype and freely admitted that to me, and during the 9 hour trip I got to hear about everything from her most recent therapy session to the fact that she drinks 8 cups of coffee before work. She also went on a long invective against George W., predicting that he would start a war (this was 2 weeks before 9/11). All this time I got in about 10 words.
So when we got to the Canadian border, the customs agents boarded the train. One of them asked her to show Proof of Citizenship. She pulled out her license and baptismal certificate. The agent told her that these weren't Proof of citizenship, and that she couldn't enter Canada without that.
She glared at him and said harshly "listen to my accent, can't you tell I'm from Brooklyn?!"
He went silent for a moment and then relented. I think she scared him.
It reminded of a trip I took, almost 5 years ago, to visit pagerbear, during which we spent a few days visiting NYC (and picked up a case of food poisoning from undercooked hamburgers at a pub right beside the WTC, although to this day my friend maintains that it wasn't food poisoning.)
Anyways, on the train ride back to Ontario, I was sitting beside a Brooklyn Italian woman who told me she had a boyfriend in Toronto. She was completely the stereotype and freely admitted that to me, and during the 9 hour trip I got to hear about everything from her most recent therapy session to the fact that she drinks 8 cups of coffee before work. She also went on a long invective against George W., predicting that he would start a war (this was 2 weeks before 9/11). All this time I got in about 10 words.
So when we got to the Canadian border, the customs agents boarded the train. One of them asked her to show Proof of Citizenship. She pulled out her license and baptismal certificate. The agent told her that these weren't Proof of citizenship, and that she couldn't enter Canada without that.
She glared at him and said harshly "listen to my accent, can't you tell I'm from Brooklyn?!"
He went silent for a moment and then relented. I think she scared him.