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O Canadians take over small Italian restaurant

July 1st, 2009 · 8 Comments

All of you will be thrilled to know that an out-of-the-way Italian restaurant in a manufacturing town near Bologna was the scene today of a sentimental rendition of O Canada by 20 Canadians who are here studying co-operatives and economics. (And one of us is studying the studiers.)

After a hearty meal of mortadella, cheese, tortellini in cream and fried sage, tagliatelle with mushrooms, and coffee granitas, the former American in the crowd (and the only one who knew the French words) led us in singing the national anthem. We even stood up.

As the song ended, someone added the traditional ending: Drop the puck.

It was a lovely Canada Day here.

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  • West End Bob

    And here, too, fabula.

    Hurry home . . . .

  • spartikus

    Once had a memorable Canada Day in New Orleans, where some inebriated Canucks and some Australian allies got a whole bar to sing O Canada. Good fun.

  • A. G. Tsakumis

    Ma, che cosa meravigliosa.

    Ciao bella!

  • Frothingham

    if it was in Italy then the traditional ending is: Drop the puck, lift your skirts… at least if Silvio was there 😉 Mille grazie Signora Bula. Write more of your italian trip…. saluti

  • Rolf Auer

    Glad you’re having fun!

  • Frothingham

    Frances; you are no doubt much too involved in “la bella vita” in and around Bologna and I am sure will not find much time to access what little wifi is available to be up on the latest coming out of Vancouver: A new pedestrian/bike bridge has been proposed … not unlike those found in london copenhagen and other world class cities. But this is Anton take on it.
    “Coun. Suzanne Anton says drivers are already firing off angry emails to council about the changes on the Burrard Bridge. She says the new bridge proposal is the mayor’s way of diverting attention from the controversial bike lane trial.”

    Anton is a neantherdsl and a dim-wit. she just can’t see the future… time for her to retire.

  • Fred

    Anton is 100% correct. The dimwit in this little story is Gregor, who knows his bridge idea is dead before birth – he has no money, the province has no money and the Feds have no money for the bicycle mafia.

    It is a channel changer to take the HEAT off his last brilliant foray into public policy making by good intentions.

    Look at the pictures for that bridge . . . triples or even quadruples the distance people or bikes have to travel to get across False Creek.

    Now that’s gonna be a winner.

  • michael geller

    So Frances, this is what happens…you want to talk about the joys of being proud Canadians, but some of your readers want to snipe at civic politicians. Since Canada Day has come and gone, I too would like to offer a couple of thoughts on Gregory Henriquez’s bridge proposal.

    I too have been intrigued by the idea of a pedestrian/cycling bridge as another crossing of False Creek. Indeed, I mused that a separate bridge crossing might be a longer term solution during the last election campaign at the Think City Debate at the Public Library. I even presented images of similar bridges in Melbourne and Dublin as part of a presentation at the St. James Community Hall. (12 Great Ideas for Vancouver from Around the World).

    Gregory’s design is very elegant and seductive. However, based on the information that I received, I have to say that the cost will be significantly more than the $45 million suggested by Henriquez and Robertson. In fact, I’m told that the city engineering department did look at a separate bridge crossing as one of its many options, but concluded that the cost would be so much more than the $33 million estimated to widen Burrard Bridge (on top of the $30 required to repair the disintegrating concrete elements.

    I wonder whether the mayor asked his engineers to comment on the proposal before going public. Somehow, I don’t think so. This was foolish of him.

    Now, as any Winnipeger or Bratislava resident will know, one could try to offset the capital cost of the bridge by creating a site for a restaurants at the end(s) of the bridge, or on the top. This was done in those two cities. But the financial benefits would be modest.

    Secondly, I too was told that most commuter cyclists would find the proposed crossing too circuitous to be attractive. This doesn’t mean that the idea shouldn’t be implemented. But not everyone would want to use it. Many cyclists and pedestrians would continue to use the existing bridge.

    So before some of us become too attached to this idea, we should appreciate that the cost estimate is likely to be significantly more…Anton’s suggestion that it could be double (or more) may not be far off…and we should hear from more commuter cyclists in terms of whether it is likely to be too circuitous to be functional.

    But over the longer term, I agree this could be a nice alternative for our city. We just can’t afford it now or in the near future.

    I for one look forward to the results of the July 13 trial. I’ll bet Peter Ladner will also be watching. Frankly, I hope it will work, but I don’t know enough about traffic engineering to say whether it will or not. We’ll see.

    Now, the best Canada Day I ever experienced was in Canada House in London in 1968…..