Well, we all knew it had to end sometime, right? And it did, most unfortunately, as I’m sure
you know if you’ve been watching my more-frequent-than-usual status updates on
Facebook. I am now sitting in my bedroom
in the apartment I share with Kat in Kirksville—we’ve been back since late
Saturday afternoon after spending the night at her place in Hannibal once she
and her mom picked me up from the airport.
(That was a very long sentence.)
But more on that later—now that Un air de famille has aired, I can
finally talk about what happened on Sunday when I attended the taping of the
episode . . . and elongate my memories of Québec just a little bit more.
As y’all know, Sunday the 23rd was my first full day in
Montréal, which I soon began to call Wonderland for reasons I shall explain in
a bit. I didn’t need to be at
Radio-Canada (which was conveniently down about five minutes away by foot from
my hostel) until around noon, so I had time to explore the city a tiny
bit. Also, le Bureau de Change had been
closed at the airport for some weird reason when I arrived at dear ol’
Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, so I still had no Canadian money other than what Lauren
and I had retained from our séjour in Québec last year, which was about
$25. It was enough to get me a pass for
the 747 shuttle to the Berri-UQÀM station, but not much else.
My favorite clerk-person at M Montréal, Thibault, told me
that I could find a Bureau de Change in the bus station, but at the time I had
forgotten that there were two—there was the metro station underground and the
local buses on the outside and then the gare d’autocars down the street (or
through an underground tunnel), which is where I would later take a bus to Québec
City and then Drummondville. He told me
that the bureau was in the gare d’autocars, but I guess I didn’t quite
understand, so at around 9 or 10 that morning I headed to the métro station.
Since it was a Sunday morning, the station before the
ticketing booth swipey things was virtually empty except for the few people who
mill around asking people for spare change.
I must have looked confused, because a man approached me and asked if I
was looking for the metro. I guess my stammered
response that I was looking for the Bureau de Change was too I-don’t-speak-French-well-ish,
because he immediately began speaking English.
He gave me directions to get to the gare d’autocars in the underground
way, and then said he would take me there.
I didn’t have much choice, since he already began walking, so I followed
him, albeit nervously and afraid I would get kidnapped.
On the way, he asked why I was in Montréal and where I was
from. He seemed pretty surprised when I
said Missouri, and said something like, “Oh, Missouri? From St. Louis?” I said something like “Kind
of,” since I didn’t want to get into explaining what exactly Kirksville
is. To my surprise, he replied with, “Well,
at least you’re not from Hannibal!” This
amused/surprised me, as my two best friends are from Hannibal and I myself stay
there with them often. So, just to see
what he’d say, I said, “Actually, I am from Hannibal.” That’s when he got really surprised. “Really,” he said. “From Hannibal. Wow.
Okay!” I have no idea why a) he
knew about Hannibal at all or b) why he thought it was so bad to live
there. But it was amusing.
The gare d’autocars was just a hop, skip, and a jump over
the river and through the woods, and the man took me right to the Bureau de
Change guichet. He started talking to
someone he knew, and, eventually a security guard. I overheard a bit of their conversation, and
it sounded like the guard was asking why the man was with me, which is a bit
sad, since I clearly hadn’t been kidnapped and the guy had been helping
me. He had said he needed money for
subway fare, I think, so I asked him
what he needed, and he said he only needed a toonie, which is a $2 coin. I gave it to him, thanked him profusely for
his help, and said goodbye. It was an
entirely nerve-wracking experience, but the guy had been truly kind in helping
me, and I wish I could have given him more.
So anyway. After that
I went to the gigantic Archambault right across the street from the station,
marveling at how absolutely huge it is, with multiple levels, each one
dedicated to different items. In the “New
Releases” section, I saw Bruno’s album, Musique et Cinéma, which made me happy,
as obviously I’m not going to see it anywhere else. I also saw the Jacques Brel tribute album he
appears on (of which Lauren also recently won a signed copy from most of the people
appearing on the album). Much to my
delight, the new Marie-Mai concert DVD was also there, which I immediately
snatched up because she’s wonderful. I
wandered around, grabbed the new Daniel Boucher CD and the Annie Villeneuve CD
I’ve been wanting for a while, and explored, drooling over an $85 Notre-Dame de
Paris music book containing the sheet music for every single song. Obviously I couldn’t justify in getting
it. (Plus, it probably wouldn’t have fit
in my luggage.)
After a bit more walking around, plus a smoothie at Presse
Café, I went back to the hostel to get ready.
I chatted with Heather a bit via IM about my immense worries, despite
the fact that deep down I knew everything would be okay. But hey, I would be seeing Bruno for the
first time in a year-and-a-half—of course I was nervous! I left at 11:40 and headed left down rue St.
André, where the hostel is, and then left on boulevard René-Lévesque. I could see the Radio-Canada building
immediately, so it’s not like I could get lost (for once). Once I arrived, I headed down a long,
tarp-covered tunnel that I imagine they use to protect the entrance from snow,
and walked into the brilliantly scarlet lobby.
I was immediately approached by a young woman in a red scarf, who said, “You’re
here for Un air de famille?” I oui’d and
after making sure I was there alone and not waiting for a group she told me
that first I needed to sign a form and then get in line. I signed said form but then got a bit
confused, as the last part of her instructions were a bit muddled, so I went
back to make sure what I needed to do and then proceeded to get in line.
After a few minutes, the line of people was led down a long
hallway to a table where people were taking names. I told her my name (in the French way—AshlLAY
aySTEP), and she gave me a red raffle ticket, a picture of the UADF logo, and
some other paper, and sent me on my way.
However, at this point I was confused, as the people I’d been falling
had disappeared. I went to the place
where you can hang your coat, and did so, and asked the guy where UADF was, and
he just replied “Radio-Canada,” which was extremely helpful. Finally I found another employee in a red
scarf, and she directed me to a large area with red cords snaking around against
the wall to form a line.
I wasn’t too far from the front of the line, which was
cool. The line slowly began filling up,
and mostly I just people-watched. A lot
of people had brought kids, a lot of people were alone, which made me feel a
bit better about being alone myself.
After a while, around 12:30, an employee came and announced to everyone
that we would be going into the studio soon.
She said that they would have to frisk all of us when we entered and
stamp the inside of our wrists (not the outside, the inside. The inside.
Got it? She was going to stamp
the inside. I think she made her point
quite vividly). After another ten
minutes or so, she came back and said, “Everyone from here,” cutting the line
off literally right behind me, “come with me.”
So I got to be in the first group!
We headed back down the hallway and to the studio doors, down a flight
of stairs, until, finally, there it was!
It was a bit surreal seeing the set in person when I’d seen
it on my computer screen every week for the past however many weeks. And there were so many lights. There was no ceiling—it was just lights upon
lights hanging down like spiders on their webs.
So many cameras and people. I saw
immediately that the people who were standing practically on the stage and who
would be on camera most of the time were all part of groups supporting the
families, rather than just the general public, so I would be sitting closer to
the back. There was a woman directing
everyone to seats and asking how many people were in each group so she could
keep them together. I was standing next
to the woman who had been in front of me in line, and the employee thought we
were together, so kept saying, “Deux?” to us, and finally after our repeated, “Non,
une,” she was like, “Oh. Well, you can
sit together anyway, right?” Which was,
of course, fine. So we sat down and were
soon joined by two parents and their two daughters in our row of six seats.
A little while later, the director of the émission came out
and had a bunch of fun telling us the hand signals he would be making to get us
to applaud, sit down, stand up, all that fun stuff. There was one little girl in the front he
felt wasn’t happy, so he called her onto the stage and got her to get us all to
applaud, and ended up giving her and her little sister a Garfield book. The two girls’ mother was eventually
interviewed on camera for the portion when they talk to the singing families’
family members, but it didn’t go to well, for some reason, which I noticed at
the time, and when I watched the episode last night, they cut the whole thing
out entirely, which is rare.
Eventually, one of the women who works with the coaches
during the coaching process (her first name is Édith . . . I cannot for the
life of me remember her surname) along with the choreographer came out to teach
the audience the corny-yet-sweet dance moves and the theme song, which we would
have to do along with everyone else. I
think we all rocked.
As we got closer to the time of the recording, all of a
sudden the host of the show, Patrice L’Ecuyer, came out and greeted the
audience. That was pretty weird, too,
having seen him on the show and now suddenly in person. He greeted everyone and thanked us all for
being there, and also gave a basic breakdown of what would happen, saying that
it all happened in chronological order as it would once it aired on TV. Then, all of a sudden, it was time to
start. It was impossible to hear Patrice
as he spoke and we were all clapping and cheering, but suddenly the coaches
were coming out on stage—first Jean-François Breau, then Bruno, and then
Johanne Blouin!
It took me a moment to register that it really was Bruno in
front of me. Like, holy crap, after a
year-and-a-half, it really was him. Even
though he was a good distance away and probably had no idea I was there, it was
awesome. I was slightly surprised by the
fact that, even when the cameras weren’t rolling, he and the two other coaches
stayed on set the whole time—I figured they’d go backstage when they had a
chance, but they stayed there, even when there were long stretches when they
didn’t have to do anything. At some
point, the director introduced the coaches to the audience, and Bruno was in
the middle of drinking, so he just kind of waved his water bottle in response
to the applause—it was amusing. Also
during the breaks, the director held raffles for different audience members to
win stuff, and he interacted with people, and kept us pretty entertained. All in all, it was a pretty fun day.
Because they had to get ready for the next taping that
evening, they had us all leave pretty quickly.
After that, it was time to meet my friend, François! It took us a while to actually find each
other, but when we did, we ended up hanging out until about eleven o’clock that
evening. He’s like the best person ever—not
only did we walk all over Montréal looking for bagels at ten o’clock at night,
but he also got me poutine gravy.
(Granted, he had promised a year-and-a-half ago to mail it to me, but we
won’t argue with the fine points.) He
doesn’t understand why I love Bruno so much, but hey, François is weird and he
likes Miley Cyrus. So there.
It really shouldn’t have taken me this long to post
this. Oh, well.
