SternSkipper
Posts: 7546
Joined: 3/7/2004 Status: offline
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quote:
Yes, actually - while I concentrated on the stereotypes in my post above, there were certainly some good memories, too. Specifically, Father Joe, a great Italian priest, had a German Shepherd by his side constantly. It was such a treat to see the dog drinking water from the fountains during the day. :) And we used to have the blessings of the animals once a year when we all brought in our pets to be blessed. And we had a kick-ass folk band. So, it wasn't all doom and gloom, by any means. It just was fairly stereotypical, for me, in a lot of ways. That's pretty neat. Having grown up on a horse farm with a bent toward animal medicine (I was the after school volunteer with both of the island's vets when In was younger), I was always being asked to bring stuff in. Mostly rabbits, cause they were easy to transport. But one year, my Dad and I brought a small carriage down to send off a priest going into retirement to ride off in. quote:
And to this day, I can still say the Hail Mary in French. I don't speak French at all otherwise, but the brothers did drill that one in to me fairly well. I had the weirdest experience about 10 years ago. I was sent to Montreal by IBM and they booked me a room near the account in Old Montreal. Much of the printed material is in french and the people will speak in french only if they think you can as well. While i was really rough around the edges, I survived about 4 days speaking no more than about a third english. I successfully communicated with restaurant people with no english at all and to the best of my knowledge was never fed a rat or anything.
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Looking forward to The Dead Singing The National Anthem At The World Series. Tinfoilers Swallow
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