Well I flew down to Toronto, just under five hours in the air. Slept poorly in a stuffy hotel room. Went through a fire drill in the middle of the night, just to keep me on my toes. But then, as is almost always the case, things looked a lot better in the morning.

First of all the sun was shining, which made Toronto look better. I could even make out Lake Ontario in the distance.

Then I had a long brunch with my brother Tom, whose birthday was the day before. Lots of laughs for sure.

Then at 12 noon, I met up with my fellow participants in the television program, Alexandre and Keith. Alexandre is a Quebecois who lives in Winnipeg, and Keith was also from Vancouver. We were driven to the “distillery district” where the studio was located,  comfortable looking, red brick, gentrified warehouse or factory district, with lost of people idling around, basking in the sun and eating lunch or sipping coffee.

In all we were five, two more, Axel and James, were from Toronto. We were all speakers of many languages, and we discussed language learning in front of the cameras for over two hours. I think five minutes will survive in the final program. I guess we agreed on many things, but I think I disagreed with everyone of our participants on at least something. Maybe it is just my nature.

After the program, it was another 5 hours back to Vancouver. The next day I played with my Old Timer’s hockey team and we won our tournament. That evening we celebrated my granddaughter’s birthday. A busy weekend.

The program will air on May 5 at 7 pm in Canada, across the country on Global Television’s 16 x 9 program.