EH??? (Say What???)

Eh? (Huh?)

When we tried to ascertain the amount of alcohol allowed across the border into Canada, we found the answer rather confusing. Is the “1.5 liters of wine, 1.14 liters of liquor, a 24-pack of beer or ale, or 1.14 liters of wine and liquor together” per person or per vehicle?  So, rather than risk being accused of smuggling, we decided to enter our northern neighbor dry. Hence, once safely into Quebec, we needed to stock up.

As we drove east on Route 20, we were unable to figure out where the food stores might be. The International road signs we encountered were of no help (although some gave us quite a good laugh).

If you ride a bike, please wear headphones?

Names like ProVigo, Super C, IGA, and Loblaw could just as likely be farm supply warehouses as food stores. But when we thought about it, Acme, Genuardis, Safeway and Giant don’t exactly sound like purveyors of food either. Smart boy that he is, Manny suggested that we look for shopping cart corrals.

Bad Dog!

And that’s how we found Metro Plus, a huge food store chain filled with an expansive selection of wine. Unfortunately, most of their wines were unfamiliar to us. So we reached into our minds’ archives and dusted off our high school French. We turned to the man stocking the shelves and queried, “We prefer a hearty red wine. Which do you recommend?” The good news is that he understood us perfectly. The bad news is that we didn’t have a clue what he answered. All we heard was, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, robuste.” Finally—a word we understood. Then his co-worker chimed in. Oui, Oui, blah, blah, blah, blah, pas leger.  (Yeah, two other words we understood—not light.)

Manny and I looked at each other and smiled as we placed the bottles in our cart.  Who knows—or cares— if the wine will be good.This is the Europeanesque experience we had hoped for.