Every Friday night Roy and I go to French class which is coincidentally run by our landlady. Tonight she took us to an art exhibition that was being held in Saint-Maurice so we could get out of the classroom and integrate into society a little more. While perusing the paintings of typical Swiss landscapes and architecture a man approached us and started speaking English to us. It was a bit surprising since there aren't too many English speakers in town. He asked us if we were Australian which surprised us but he told us that our teacher had told him we were. It turns out that he was born in Switzerland but had lived in Canberra for many years but returned to Switzerland after his wife passed away. He introduced us to his "fair dinkum Aussie" daughter and we were soon talking about the giant island we call home.
He had a question session with our class about his paintings and was telling us (in French) about how he also plays the accordion of which he gave us a demonstration of after he had finished telling us about his paintings. After a few nice folk-type songs he looked over at Roy and I and started playing non other than "Waltzing Matilda". Roy and I shared a nice moment as he played a familiar tune just for us. I'm not all that patriotic but after hearing Waltzing Matilda somewhere I wasn't expecting to hear it, it made me somewhat proud to be an Australian.
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