感受加拿大

峰梓

The first time I drove long distance on an interprovincial Canadian highway occurred on the Christmas Eve 2004, nine months after I came to this country. It was an impulse to see my friend and his family in Montreal, Québec. My car, a 1998 Suzuki Swift that cost me less than CN$3,000, was the smallest kind I could find running in Toronto streets. For a family of three, it was really too small and the reason I bought it was simple, save gas. It had nothing for human comforts, no radio, no air conditioning, and the sun ray through the hatchback scorched those sitting in the back. After the initial fervor vanished, neither my wife nor my son had any desire to cram in it. It was not just uncomfortable but also kind of losing face when running parallel with those sleek larger ones. The swift starting on traffic light turning green frequently embarrassed my wife in that she believed those in nicer cars left behind must be watching us. For me, the only flaw was that when passing larger vehicles, especially, trucks, either head on or side by side, it swerved, which made me feel somewhat like sitting in a snow sleigh. But it did have something to mention. Once I gave a guy and his son, who played violin in the same orchestra with my son, a ride, he was surprised at how fast my car climbed a hill. I had driven my family north to Sudbury, south to Niagara Falls, and east to Montréal and Quebec City, a distance of about 1200 kilometers from Toronto, it never failed us.（to be continued)