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INSTAGRAM STAR

We were hosting clients from Central Asia for a visit and took them to the usual tourist hotspots in and around Toronto.

When we stopped outside the CN Tower, the clients all wanted to take a lot of photos with the Canada sign. It was a delegation of about 10 people including the customer’s technical team, leadership team and Russian-speaking media. One of the Russian-speaking media team was a travel blogger (with quite a large following in Central Asia) and decided to go on Instagram Live from outside the CN tower. I thought it would be a quick “Greetings from Toronto” video, but I was wrong as usual!

He spoke for a solid 5 minutes, when he started decided to pull me and the rest of the delegation into the livestream as well for what I thought would be a quick “Hello from Canada”, but alas, I was wrong again. We all stood in a line with our arms around each other’s shoulders, while the travel blogger continued his monologue in Russian before starting to interview the rest of the team. All the while, I’m standing there understanding none of what is being said with a camera smile plastered on my face. 

Things got unimaginably more awkward when 15 minutes into the livestream, the travel blogger switches to English and I just knew it would soon my time to shine. He decides to interview me in broken English. “You are Canadian, yes? Canada nice country.” Although my face was sore from my 15-minute perma-smile, I cobbled together my best Canada endorsement to keep more questions at bay. After a few more questions, my moment in the spotlight was over and finally the ambush Instagram Live came to an end.

I started that morning thinking I would be going along my usual business, taking a few photos at the CN Tower and Niagara Falls, when instead I ended up being featured on a livestream for a popular Central Asian travel blogger (who I later found out had tens of thousands of followers). I guess you never know how your day is going to go!