Comparing Neighbourhoods

Mommy: Hey Shawn, I found some videos of our neighbourhood in France, and our street here at home before we left Canada.  I thought it would be fun to watch them and talk about the similarities and differences...

 

SHAWN: The sidewalks are smaller and there's no boulevard. The garbage cans are different.  The mailboxes are on a post instead of on the house.  The fire hydrants are red and they're taller.  I like the sidewalks [in Canada] because they're flatter so I won't trip and fall.

Shawn says he was never allowed to run down the street in Dijon because it was too close to the road, and there is no grass in front of the sidewalk.  He likes the grass in case we fall: "We'll fall on the grass instead of the road."

In Dijon, says Shawn, some houses have back yards and some have front yards that are not sticking out in front of the house, so we can't see them the way we see everyone's yard in the video of our street in Canada.

"There are no cracks in Windsor houses, and cracks in all of France-houses," he adds.

"The ambulance is different than ones in Canada.  It was always on our street," we think, "because the ambulance driver lives at that house." 

We see walls all around in France, but never in Canada, he notices.

Shawn recalls a story: There was a not-so careful grandma with two little girls, and they were walking too close to the road.  One girl went too far into the middle of the road, and she was walking with her eyes not too open, and a bus was coming straight towards her.  And the bus driver slammed  on the brakes, and her grandmother came running to the child.  And the grandmother screamed at her!