Thursday, April 8, 2010

Small Town, Big City

Sometimes Toronto is like a small town. I'm home sick with a really ugly case of strep throat today. I've had to go out several times though to the doctors and pharmacy.
This morning while at the Doctor, I was answering work emails on my blackberry. A guy beside me leaned over and started asking a bunch of questions about it, so we talked for about 5 minutes.
At the corner store, I was purchasing a pathetic gossip magazine to entertain my poor fevered brain. The headline was "Sandra fights back". The asian new owner of the store was trying to sound out the headline but was having trouble. He asked me for help wiht his pronunciation. So I found myself in the corner store repetitively saying Sandra fights back. Which led to a very confusing discussion of what it meant. "Cheated" as in "cheated on his wife" doesn't translate at all well to the very literal chinese.
On the way home a guy was walking towards me in the rain with two bikes, one on each side of him. He crossed below me on the sidewalk, on the left hand side of the walk for him, nearest the street. He stopped to tell me that he'd done so because it was chivalrous and made it so I wouldn't be splashed by the water on the street. I thanked him.
All of these encounters are things that I would have said don't happen in Toronto when I moved here fifteen years ago. But they do happen all of the time. Toronto is like a small town, except that you don't know anyone. Strange, huh?

1 comment:

kristen said...

Also, it probably feels like home to you and your wee one now, so you are more receptive to strangers. That means more smiles because you make eye contact and are at ease.