End of Term Frolics

It has been a while! Sorry! Will update, but first Merry Christmas and I wish you all a marvellous New Year! Thank you for the thoughtful messages, via physical, cyberspace, and telepathic means: all were gratefully received! I hope everyone enjoyed the run up to the festivities, that nobody got trampled when Christmas shopping, and that fun with family and friends is being had by all. I also hope that everybody is catching up on sleep, home cooking, free heating, pet petting, and home friend gossip!
Christmas over here has been alot of fun. Of course I have missed everyone heaps, but Freya and I decided to distract ourselves with extreme Christmas crafts. I basically moved into the International House as soon as everyone else left, and we made a Christmas tree out of wrapping paper before settling down to painting, baking, film watching, festive musicking, sledging, cheese and bagel eating, Mike-the-eccentric-landlord avoiding and subsequent assertive-yet-cheeky sign making, and excessive talking and snort laughing. We took Freya's tradition of new matching pjamas for Christmas Eve, walked to a lovely eve carol service at minus 19 degrees celsius where our nostrils froze (not in our pjamas), and provided the cheese course at a Christmas dinner organised by some Aussie friends of Freya. We spent today at the Biodome (Montreal's nature ecosystem museum zoo) and are going snowshoeing at Mont Tremblant tomorrow. I'll let you know what it is when I understand it!

Since I last indulged in blog-writing, I have been to the big fat US of A! The first time was to explore the lights of New York, which just so happened to be hosting the 2011 Quidditch World Cup. (Ok, so my priorities were the other way around.) After an overnight coach trip, I spent 12 hours walking around the city with three lovlies who had also tagged along for the cheap trip and fun of it. We did Central Park, Ground Zero, China Town, Broadway, Time Square, Occupy Wall Street and probably misidentified various uber famous buildings inbetween eating pancakes, hotdogs, pretzels, pizza and cwaffee NY style. The next day we watched McGill play more fantastic games, retaining their position of 7th in the world. The final, played on the pitch where Usain Bolt broke the 100m sprint record in 2008, was won by Middlebury (as always) againt Florida (who McGill went out to), and saw a red card and two players stretchered off - oh the violence! As you can tell, I will never make a sports reporter, but it was a very exciting weekend all round. And yes I got the T-shirt.
The second time was for American Thanksgiving in Boston with a friend's family. The Thanksgiving dinner was incredible, we (I) pretty much ate my weight in pecan pie and a delicious sweet potato and cream concoction, yum. It was a day of familyness on a farm and frolicking in the orchard, followed by braving Macy's on Black Friday. Humungous sales start at midnight the day after Thanksgiving, causing a frenzy of frantic people to storm shopping malls across the country, all elbows and handbags to claw others out of the way of the best bargains. (One year a pregnant woman was trampled; who would step on a pregnant woman!?) Despite this, we neatly sidestepped the mania, grabbing some wafflemakers and winter boots before it got messy. We spent the next few days wandering around Boston city, with nice food, nice wine, and even nicer hilarious company. I was sad to leave, it was a great wee holiday, I hope I can show the same incredible open-armed hospitality when those legends come to visit me in England!
Our return to Montreal was a slap in the face, as the slight lull after midterms was well and truly over. I am very glad the semester is now done and dusted - 15 weeks without a break was a slog. Study days at Alanna's interrupted with microwave mug cakes and episodes of True Blood helped. My last exam was the day of 'frozen rain' - cold, wet, and ridiculously slippy - and I celebrated with eggnog, a karaoke machine and friends. Moving apartments the next day required alot of salt to de-ice the front steps and alot of suitcases. It is incredible how much I have acquired since arriving here...

I've moved! I have loved where I have lived this semester, but my priorities have now changed. I had been thinking about moving closer to campus but couldn't face looking, when a small apartment complete with a super comfortable armchair, desk, cookie jar and blender metaphorically fell into my lap. Not literally, that would have been awkward. I will miss the french speaking at home, being brought Irish coffees when revising, my flatmates, and the market, among many aspects of that apartment. My new place is much nearer campus which will be great for my increased contact time next semester, and also walking distance from friends' places so I will not be so isolated in the depths of winter.

In other news, as a very cool birthday present, I have had the crazy experience of a real live Canadian hockey match! I think I understood the crossing-the-line rule by the end. It was a very dramatic game, Montreal won hands down and there was a slight scuffle so I was happy. Thank you!
General news! It only snowed sufficiently enough to maintain a carpet a week ago - super unusual. I am in love with my coat (basically a sleeping bag) and my boots (not unlike how I imagine sheep hugging my feet to feel) and my hat. The nostril-freezing experience on Christmas Eve is yet to be repeated, but I think I am suitably prepared. I have learned to not change the song on my ipod or answer my phone when outside because frostbite may occur. My collar bone has been pronounced to be healing, relief! My osteoblasts finally came up trumps with the help of my wonderful physio, and I do not need surgery. There are more Canadian-English translations required than I thought. My favourite one being when I said I needed a wee, and Alanna said 'Errr...I have a game cube'.
I wish you all a fabulous end to 2011, health, happiness and peace for 2012, and recommend a frisbee as a sledge for any snowbased activities. Much love to all, from a much more chilled (in both senses of the word) lass than a month ago!
Thinking of y'all, bisous a tous.

A successful search for trees

Once upon a time there was a lady called Helen and a man called Nick and a lady called Elspeth and a man called Ewan. They lived in Montreal. They loved Montreal very much because it had bagels and poutine and frenchness. But it didn't have enough trees. So one day they went to find some more trees. They hired a blue car. Elspeth was happy because it was an automatic. It was like being in a video game.
They drove for a while. They asked for directions from a nice lady and a nice man in a car park. They had a minor detour along a windy lane with colourful pretty houses. They wondered what happened to the people living in them when it snowed.

After a pretty drive listening to nice music they found some trees. They were big trees. There were lots. They walked up a hill of trees to look at the trees.
Some trees wanted to be dinosaurs.They saw some chipmunks. And red squirrels. And deer. And a smiley moose. (Well they thought they did, but it might have been Nick pretending, so here is a picture of what they thought they might possibly potentially have seen. It probably was a moose.)
When they reached the top of the hill, they could see LOTS of trees. It was beautiful. Then they had a picnic. They ate lots and were happy.
Then they walked down the hill and saw a stream and a waterfall.
Nick said it was cold. Then he jumped in. Then Ewan jumped in. Then Helen jumped in. Then Elspeth jumped in. They all said it was cold. Then they jumped back out and ran down the hill to get warm again. At the bottom of the hill was a lake. It was beautiful. It was very quiet. Then they saw a bear. Elspeth threw a leftover chocolate brownie at it. Nick pretended to be a moose. Helen and Ewan did an interpretive dance at it so it went away.

Then they drove to Timmy Horton's for a hot chocolate and an apple and cinnamon loaf. Then they drove home. Well, they would have driven home if it was their car. Instead, they drove round and round the one way system after battling with a petrol pump, before finally managing to put the car back where they found it. It was a good day.

A red coat and green man

So midterms are over, hurrah, and I handed in a fat paper that I've been working on since the beginning, so I am feeling CHILL today. I should also say that the week that I wrote the last blog entry moaning about how I had no social life, I then proceeded to go out on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday night... I definitely do have a social life, and will endevour to not bang on about it anymore!

Halloween was an excellent excuse to dress up. I can't believe I thought that my wolf costume was not a necessary component of my Canadian wardrobe, rooky error. I thought I managed quite well with just some green paint though. For a pre-halloween party I was Princess Fiona from Shrek, and for an actual halloween (but technically still pre-halloween party) I was green giant sweetcorn man. I am still finding bits of leaf around my room, and my scarf definitely has a slight green tinge. Marie and her friend dressed as the black and white swans from the film complete with homemade tutus and red contact lenses, it was scary...

Unfortunately Marie has to return to France at the end of the month because Quebec has reached the limit of work permits that it gives out, so she is unable to get a job and is running out of money. This is officially pants. Of the english variety. There is a small possibility of studying here to stay here, but after spending days on hold and being redirected to more unhelpful embassies etc I think we may have to accept it. Pff.

Winter is coming, it was really trying to snow today although it doesn't quite seem cold enough yet. I found a brand new fat coat on craigslist for half the retail price, so am super looking forward to wearing it, check out the hood! Apparently this is the way to wear a coat over here, furry ET style. Just need boots and I'm good to go. People continue to tell me horror stories, like that there is still snow in April. I hope they are joking.The friendliness and openness of people continues to amaze me. I am still pleasantly surprised when people instantly respond to an 'excuse me...' with a smile before anything else. I may well be selectively exaggerating this slightly (I have now witnessed road rage, apparently this is universal) but I am sure that the average genuinely-pleased-to-help-you attitude level is higher here than in England. Even more than this are the invites from people I've met once to their flatmates sisters babysitters boyfriends birthday party, and I really am genuinely welcome. Well maybe I'm exaggerating this too, in which case I have forced my company on many kind-hearted/pitying people, but I like to think it's the former! The city really is a mash up of so many different people, but after talking to a Canadian friend about this apparently this is the 'Montreal bubble' and doesn't reflect the rest of Canada.

I am gradually learning the basic politics behind the country, where each province seems to be divided into people who want to separate from the rest of Canada and those who want to stay as one country. The establishment of whether you are a 'separatist' or not can lead to an animated discussion... I like to think that these always end in a hug though. C'mon, it's Canada. Mind you, the strike of the McGill support staff which has been going on since September 1st continues, which I find so sad. Alot of my labs have been disorganised, not worked and half of the length that they should be because our lab technician is on strike, so the lecturers are trying to set everything up (even though they don't know how) as well as do their own jobs. There is alot of support for the staff from students and lecturers, and alot of anger and frustration directed at the administration. There is the general feeling that the university is being run as a company to make money, especially for the few topdogs, rather than for education and research for the sake of improving lives. I have the impression that people have been unhappy for a long time about the few at the top getting all the money and renown, while taking away benefits from the people at the bottom who really keep the university ticking along. Sound familiar!? This hasn't been helped by various injunctions against the strikers forcing them to move further away from the uni gates and quieten down. After over two months of striking, I really hope it gets sorted soon, especially before they are forced to continue in the snow.

Even public toilets are a soul-boosting experience, with the grafitti telling you that you are a beautiful and wonderful person. I tried to end one of my crap stories with the classic '...and then I found twenty quid', but I forgot to say 'bucks' instead and noone knew what a quid was. They thought I said 'squid', giving a slightly different mental picture. The french for 'booty call' is literally 'ass project'. A 'jumper' is someone who jumps, rather than a sweater, again giving an odd mental picture when you say you are going to put one on. Canadians do not put kisses on texts, meaning I have been pretty full on with everyone for the last 2 months. I definitely have to fight to maintain my english accent when talking to certain people, and enjoy practising saying 'ey' in the right context - I still don't think I've quite got it.

Huge love out there, I think of you all often :)

I would like a social life please

Not lots to report since the last time...autumn is looking beautiful, the workload is bordering on ridiculous, McGill is insane. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my storming motivation in favour of regaining my naming 185-out-of-195-countries-of-the-world status on sporcle.com. Nightmare. I have 2 more exam-paper-labreport-essayful weeks and then it should slow down a wee bit before finals...humph.

Collar bone is getting better: after a four and a half hour hospital check up they decided to do leave it to do it's own thang. The fact that the long experience ending in a nothing could potentially have cost me over $200 but didn't, did make me feel a bit better. Alas, without the sling I am no longer given a seat on the metro, but I can now wear T-shirts and wash my hair using both arms; a win overall I feel.

Despite the insane amount of work, McGill isn't as cut-throat as some people had made out to be, which is a massive relief. Someone from my genetics class started a study group to prepare for our midterm on Thursday, and I was pretty scared that it was going to be horrific and everyone would know twice more than me but pretend not to and just give me scathing looks everytime I opened my english mouth to say something simple...but actually it's great! A really lovely bunch of people, all helping each other out and having a laugh at the same time, jolly hockey sticks. The Keen Team (what else would we call ourselves, really) has been a lush way to meet more people too. I now don't know why I was so apprehensive as absolutely everyone I've met so far has been a nice bean... I guess it's just the classic misjudgement of a group, and as soon as you look at the group as individuals you realise you're all in the same boat :) or same gene pool! No. Ok.

The odd glimpses of a social life have been delightful. Canadian thanksgiving weekend involved learning differentiation on the mountain by a lake in the sun with a picnic and nice people, as well as a proper bo thanksgiving dinner. Thanks to the wonderful Freya and Jenny, we had a full roast dinner including home-made cranberry sauce, cauliflower cheese, roast veggies and yorkshire pudding (we wanted to show the non-englishes a bit of Yorksire action, they were very well received), followed by brownies, apple and raspberry crumble, custard, cream and Rachel's incredible pumpkin pie. Nom indeed.
I also accidently had a social life the night of Max's birthday party...we still have paint on the walls.

Humungous love to all you beautiful people, keep sending me your news, I miss you.

An ex-clavicle

The general response to quidditch as a sport has been laughter, dismay, and sometimes a slightly pitying look at my obvious lack of coolness, before I try to steer the conversation back to something more mutual, like love for bagels. This has been enhanced since I have been sporting a sling due to a quidditch based incident. The first credit (house point!?) goes to Nick for his quick-witted comment 'Bad luck Madame Pomfrey wasn't there'. Other points for 'Did you fall off your broom?', 'Rogue bludger ey', 'Good job Lockhart wasn't there' and 'Say hi to the Longbottoms when you're at St Mungo's'...brilliant. I have tried to come up with other explanations involving ninjas, sharks, free running etc, but it generally comes back the even less believable story, especially for non-HP fans.

It started when an opposing beater and I were both sprinting after a bludger, and he simply shouldered me out of the way (I found it very refreshing that he wasn't afraid to do that to a girl). Needless to say I went absolutely flying, off my broom, and he got the bludger. Just before the next practice I was asking the same lad how I could avoid this situation in the future, and he was kind enough to teach me how to rugby tackle him. After the fifth or so time of merrily running at each other and a few head-thigh collisions, I succeeded in taking out this 6ft guy, score. Unfortunately I didn't know about the whole turning away so the other person doesn't land on your shoulder part, and he landed on my shoulder. I didn't want to look like a wimp so when practice started a few minutes later I joined in with running around the field and stretching, before deciding actually it really did hurt. I went to the English House for a cry, some paracetamol and some frozen peas which I accidently spilt all over the floor. I eventually went home to shower, which required some quite aggressive pep talks from myself to get my tshirt off, followed by a less-than-ideal sleep.

Friday was then the lowest point since being here, starting with a 3 hour computer lab involving alot of ugly algebra. It was the first time I'd been bored since being here, but I told myself that it was high time I had a bad day, and it would be over within about 20 hours. Later on the doctor took one look at me and told me my collar bone was for sure broken, before asking me how on earth quidditch worked. Once we'd got that straight I hiked up to casaulty where a nice girl taught me the greek alphabet, I called security to stop a creepy guy from creeping, and a nice lady later gave me a much needed one-armed hug. My left clavicle is snapped in two, with a nice big gap between the two parts, which occasionally grate against each other. That night I was bouncing off the walls on painkillers, it was amazing. Walls were moving, manic laughing, my dreams had gold faces.

I'm not sure how I feel about the medication; feeling high is great, albeit possibly annoying for other people, but it's slightly worrying how I think of them as happy pills already. Except actually I've been on a bit of a rollercoaster, from chatting incessantly and possibly slightly too loudly, to being a bit verbally aggressive, to just crying for no reason. Earlier I picked up Jenny's physics paper on the limit of intelligence and just welled up when I got to the summary. I'm pretty sure this wasn't reflecting Jenny's writing abilities, or the content; neurons as a subject don't generally make me emotional.

Anyway, I can't fault their effectiveness, as yesterday afternoon I finally made it to Piknic Electronik! It was freaking amazebeans. It's on one of the islands of Montreal, in a park next to the river. A picnic in the sun, attempting to skim stones, watching the sunset over the Montreal skyline on the other side of the water, dancing with the masses under a huge sculpture, all to sweet tunes of a mint DJ with some lovely lovely people...just fantastic. I was very much looked after, and the lovelies protected me from being bashed by wild dancing wonderfully. Great times.
The two dollar coin is called a Toony and the one dollar coin is called a Loony, so if you hand over five bucks in change, you can say you gave 'Two toonies and a loony'; I find this hilarious. Casualty is a person, not 'the emergency room'. Canadians are pretty hot on recycling, there are water fountains everywhere and several places to fill up water bottles on campus. Public toilets flush automatically which I find slightly disconcerting. Everyone asks so many questions in lectures (compared to next to none at Sheffield). We were given the option of leaving labs early last week and NO-ONE MOVED.

My mum's delivery of english teabags arrived, perfect.

Huge love, that I would give you even if I wasn't floating right now... xxx

One month anniversary

I've been here for one month today! It has gone uber quickly...

I have finally done some touristy things, including passing by the 'tam tams' at Parc du Mont-Royal. Every Sunday people go with djembes, bongo drums, rubbish bins, drum kits, and anything else vaguely resembling a drum, and just dance around all afternoon to some homemade beatz. I then decided to go for a walk in the forest, which ended up being a scramble to the top of the mountain wearing a dress and flipflops. The view of the park, the city and the port was stunning. I stayed chatting with the guys who had made a perch up there for a while. After reaching the conclusion that the best power a pet could have would be mind-reading, the scramble down was also interesting; one of the guys managed to get all the way down while playing guitar and singing at the same time. Nice.

The international student soceity had a free barbeque on top of the mountain, thanks very much, and I finally tried out the bike rent system to get there. It was so nice to be back on a bike, despite the numerous potholes that go unnoticed as a pedestrian, and despite having only 3 gears. I would love to buy a bike, but with only a month left before it gets too cold and snowy, I think I would rather put my money towards buying the fattest coat I can find. I have been hearing very mixed stories about the winter here. I have noticed that the people who tell me that 'it isn't too bad' generally end up coming from colder parts of Canada though...

After going to the uni activities fair, I am now a real live convert to Quidditch. I know I'm going to have threats of friend disownment (in fact I more or less already have), but it literally is the most fun sport I have ever played. Apart from mini-olympics at Beauchamp maybe. But seriously! You have to keep a broomstick between your legs at all times, even in the warmup laps around the field that we share with the football team. Yes there are always people watching and laughing but there's at least 40 of us so I only felt silly for the first ten minutes or so. If you 'dismount' your broom it's like you have fallen off, and you are obliged to run around your goal hoops as a time penalty. I'm a beater, which means I spent 2 hours on Thursday and Saturday running around on a broomstick, scooping up a 'bludger' (a big squashy ball) out of the wet mud and throwing at members of the other team, while avoiding getting hit myself. It's a full contact sport, so it can end up in a half-violent scuffle on the floor over a ball, while avoiding falling off your broom of course. The snitch is a long distance cross country runner wearing all yellow with a tail, which the seekers have to find and grab. The snitch is allowed all over campus; Saturday's snitch grabbed somebody's bike and cycled off. After Thursday's practice I got in the shower in my trainers I was so muddy. It's hilarious and brilliant and I'm getting the T-shirt tomorrow; I hope you will all still be my friends!

I am the official 11th housemate of Rue Hutchinson! I have been given an actual key to the actual front door, so I can now wander in to the English House (as I've started calling it, despite the very much international presence) at my leisure. I haven't quite put a spare toothbrush in their bathroom, but it could definitely happen. They haven't changed the locks yet, even after they made me demonstrate how to run with a broomstick. Oh dear, I love it but I may well keep this new found interest on the dl when meeting new people! Particularly when they make the association that I'm British, and apparently quidditch is British...I am quick to inform them that it is not at all common in England, and that just because a British person came up with the idea it is actually a fictional sport. OR IS IT?!

I made my first cake this side of the Atlantic Ocean, with Max throwing in anything he found in the cupboard. It ended up being a pretty good banana, peanut, coconut, sunflower seed and chocolate chip cake, although I have to say I was pretty doubtful at first. The french phrase for fainting is to say 'I fell in the apples'. A fire hydrant on the main street of McGill campus burst, creating an impressive flood for 24 hours. I tried the Montreal version of a kebab called poutine - fried potatoes and cheese curds in gravy. The first time I had it was in a proper restaurant where the dish was called La crise cardiaque - a heart attack. Beer is sold from a refridgerated room at the back of a dépanneur (like a Select and Save). When you take the empty bottles back to be recycled you are reimbursed some dollar.

Finally putting some photos up. My flatmates Marie, Max, Firmin and I.

Peace

starting school

hokay, so...
Last sunday we had the tail end of Irene, it was just really windy and bucketed down for 24 hours...pretty much an english summer! Max and I ran to an all-you-can-eat sushi place to eat large amounts of blooming good sushi complete with intermittent dramatic powercuts, before rolling home to watch almost an entire series of How I met Your Mother with Marie - very Canadian I know. The weather is just extreme England - hotter with bluer skies for a few days, followed by greyer and rainier for a few days.

Orientation on Monday was horrific: 9.30 am on a sunny Monday morning, the ominous gates of McGill's football stadium eventually opened to the tune of Katy Perry's 'Firework' at club-level of noise, and our 'frosh masters' in matching t-shirts expected us to dance around. Now that is a tune, but I am never going to be able to listen to it again without reliving that terrible feeling of awkwardness. Eurgh. This went on for about an hour, us froshers just standing clumped in the middle of an enormous football stadium, in the sun, on a Monday morning, unable to talk to anyone because the music was so loud, every now and again a 'frosh master' would just run up and yell in your face, with nothing to start off a conversation with other than the classic 'What's your name where are you from what are you studying'. Maybe I should have tried 'So do you believe in God?' I went for the classic 'Well this is awkward'...

Eventually we were made to sit on the floor to listen to some supposedly inspiring speeches from various chairs and presidents. Absolute cringe. One of them actually said 'You! Are going! To change! The world!' while pumping the air with her fist, before everyone cheered. I resisted putting my head in my hands until another hour later, when we, all 4500 of us, were supposed to be playing various getting-to-know-each-other games. Now I'm always up for silly games, but what is the point of trying to learn the NAMES of 4499 people? I went along with it for a while of course, I didn't want to be the grumpy one in the corner, and besides you never know what can happen...nothing. Other than me beginning to feel sick with uncomfortable-ness. We play similar sorts of games at Beauchamp with the kids, but I dearly hope we don't make it that bad. I like to think that we recognise that not everyone has the confidence/wants to just go and jump around with random people while wearing a backpack.

Well eventually, 3 hours later of going up down the bleachers (tiered seats) because noone knew what we were supposed to be doing, we were free to go...and play more getting-to-know-you games with a group of 50-odd science faculty froshers and frosh masters (frosh masters? really!?). I stuck around for the 'campus tour' - we just walked back to campus - before running away to open a bank account with a swiss guy I'd been chatting to. All in all, I spoke to a lot of nice people, none of whom I have spoken to since. Freaking love freshers. We all know how I feel about Sheffield freshers, and I think this was worse. I spent the afternoon with 2 people I met when wandering back from the bank, and we have been out together since. THAT's the way I like it, meeting people while doing things I like doing. Like walking away from banks.

Rant over! I went home and ranted away to the others, was given a delicious canadian beer, and calmed down. Phew. Classes started on Thursday but my courses were still all up in the air. Registration is just ridiculously complicated, but, as always, the advisors I have spoken to have all been uber nice and helpful. I should officially get on to my final class tonight; I'm taking insect biology and control, human genetics applied, methods in biology of organisms, ecological dynamics and medical anthropology (well I find them all interesting!). They all have various mid-terms, papers, reports, presentations, write ups and conferences, but as long as I keep my head down I should still have hair on my head by Christmas...I hope. The general atmosphere here seems alot more competitive and workaholic than Shefshef, as explained to me by my very lovely 'buddy' who I met through the international welcoming scheme. Tara is in her second year at McGill and is going to take me shopping for winter boots and be my library friend, woop!

I also have my supportive fellow english buddies on Rue Hutchinson! I am pretty much the 11th housemate of Nick's house, it's amazebeans. I love where I live for many reasons, but I also love going to Nick's for a bit of englishness and more people :) There are 6 english, 2 french, 1 german and 1 colombian, all students, all nice, all (currently) putting up with me just knocking on their door, or even just walking straight on in when their crazy landlord lets me in.

Other than starting on the paper (essay) I have already been set, I haven't really done anything crazy. Firmin took us to a bar with a gorgeous terrace outside, all lit up and full of trees. I queued for an hour to buy one expensive textbook, then for 2 hours to buy my travel card. Since I've been here I have eaten, for the first time, shrimp, eel, acorn squash, bison, and smoked veal. Max and I found an amazing second hand clothes shop where they give you a free shot, you can buy samosas, and it has an actual swimming pool of clothes, where you dive in and anything is $1. I am now the proud owner of some purple jeans. Vegetable shopping is fun; I live near a huge farmer's market where you can taste the fruit, and there are yellow and purple cauliflowers and white aubergines and unidentifiable veggies. Jay-walking is only jay-walking if you get caught. People don't understand if I say 'half eight'; it has to be 'eight thirty'. I live right near a restaurant that does The Best breakfast ever - think of a fry up, make it pretty, add more meat, exotic fruit, a crepe, weird-but-nice pate stuff and unlimited coffee, and boom, $10. I took the lightly named 'french toast with fresh fruit'; I couldn't see the wonderful french toast underneath the astoundingly constructed tower of strawbs, papaya, mango, blueberries etc and an artfully placed banana. Amazebeans.

Please send tea bags. And newsie gossip.

Lots of love

a whole other level of welcoming

It's been one jam packed week since I moved in with some absolutely fab people; they and their friends have been so welcoming. There's Max the half canadian half french personal trainer finishing a masters in sports studies; Marie the french girl waiting for her papers so she can return to her job in advertising; and Firmin (pronounced abit like Fear Man) the Rwandan drama student. Max blagged me into the super posh gym he works at for a 'trial period' (hello using as much of the free shampoo etc as poss) so I've spent abit of time running around the indoor running track (it was quite fun until about the 3rd time round when I got bored of seeing the same things), going to the free classes and reading by the pool, lovely. I've been taken along to housewarmings, birthdays, just hanging out trying various canadian beers... I can't help but think how very different this first week has been compared to my first week in Paris, ie. I have laughed a LOT, I feel very at home here already. Absolutely everyone I have met has been just ridiculously friendly, smiley, and fun, it's wonderful.

In between the gloriously busy social life I've managed to drop myself into (score), I've also spent some time lugging various furniture, coat hangers, duvets and other bits and bobs needed for my room around Montreal. I managed to blag stuff fairly cheaply from McGill classifieds, and met some more nice people selling things to me as a double whammy. I am pretty proud of the photo collage I made on my chest of drawers and my hammering-in-straight skillz - photos to follow!

Home is a 4 bedroom apartment with a big open plan kitchen and living room with a balcony on both sides, lovely for breakfast, reading, chilling in the evenings. It's near Jean-Talon in the north east of the city, a bit of a trek from McGill but close to the metro. The city has the same sort of deal as Boris' Bikes, so I'm looking forward to cycling in while it's still warm. Nick managed to find an apartment really quickly, right next to McGill in the student ghetto as it is officially called. He has a huge house with potentially 10 students living there - we definitely had different priorities with regards to living arrangements! Will probably end up sleeping on his floor when I can't be bothered to go home in the depths of the winter freeze though!

I'm enjoying being frenchy again - I find the Quebec accent quite tough to understand but I hope to get used to it soon. Apparently I don't have an uber strong accent when I speak french, people just can't quite work out where I'm from. I take this as a massive compliment but it does cause a few problems/laughs when I start a conversation in french and then they use words I don't understand or I can't get across what I'm trying to say...I think they then just think I'm stupid rather than just english! Apparently I'm also quite amusing because I use Parisian phrases and gestures, but then once again the effect is lost when I fail to follow the rest of the conversation...it's quite nice though because it really is two ways, in that sometimes they don't know english phrases either, so basically I don't feel stupid for very long, which is rather nice! We speak a mixture of french and english at home because Marie wants to improve her english, and Max wants to speak with an english accent...I've almost put him right with tomatoes and potatoes.

Observations... pedestrians have right of way everywhere, and on top of this drivers don't seem to get impatient when they have to wait for people to cross the road. And despite the vast numbers of cars on the streets, I haven't seen any road rage - it's very quiet for a city. The streets are so straight it really is alarming ha! There are several roads which completely cross the city, so when someone says they live on Rue Saint Hubert and you are already on Rue Saint Hubert, that is potentially a 2 hour walk down the same street until you get to the right house. I'm still trying to get used to blocks instead of streets, and the very logical but also very confusing numbering system here (something about north to south goes up, and east to west does something else, so technically if someone says a number you can work out where abouts it is....or something).

I really feel like I've been on holiday this past week, although Friday was a bit of a slap in the face for reminding me why I'm actually here ha! I had a minor panic yesterday when I popped into McGill to talk to an advisor about my courses, and remembered what courses I had registered for in May. This semester should be fine as long as I am let in to the module on primate behaviour and ecology (wow!) by turning up on Thursday and pleading. Orientation starts on Monday, classes start on Thursday...argh!

We still don't have internet in the flat, hopefully it will be sorted this week. Until then, I have this cute cafe down the road and the uni (which everyone here calls school) wifi. Tonight I am staying in recovering from a hilarious night last night (BBQ with an old skool ghetto blaster complete with built in disco lights, followed by free entry to a classy underground club because Marie's friend's brother owns it, schweeeet!), and tomorrow we are going to something advertised as an electric picnic...please book tickets to come visit me, I want to share this with you all!

Big love

24 hours after landing...

Hokay, so, I wrote that at about 4pm this afternoon while sitting in a park, but great events have since occurred! I HAVE A FLAT! Boom :)

A potential I rang this morning rang me back asking me to come see the flat tout de suite, so off I went. A man riding a beribboned bike stopped when he heard me getting directions and he cycled next to me to the nearest metro station to show me where it was - how lovely! The flat has 2 balconies and 3 lovely flatmates living there already, and I move in tomorrow! Nick is coming to sleep on my floor until he finds a place, which means we both get out of the hostel 2 nights early, and we managed to get our money back, bingo.

Tired now, crazy busy day, my legs feel like they will fall off. Found a cute cobbled street with fairylights, chocablock with people eating outside, very european.

Snogs

Arrival in Montreal

I’m in Montreal! I thought I might attempt to keep a blog while I’m out here, just to let my wonderful friends and fam know what I’m up to. I hope I will be slightly more motivated than the french one haha! I can’t promise that I’m a literary genius, but I promise that I will endeavour to get there their and they’re, and your and you’re, in the correct places. Also I’m not too hot on apostrophes, but even if they’re not exactly where they should be, I’m sure there will be a sufficient number in total for you to mentally move them to the right place. Thanks lads.

Well I arrived in one sweaty tired piece! The flight was fine, it looked so like the plane in Bridesmaids that I contemplated taking sleeping pills and whiskey to see what would actually happen…I didn’t, though I did interrupt Nick’s film watching every now and again to make dramatic arm gestures out of the window. It was a bit odd that we left at 6pm local time, and at midnight in London it was still bright blue sky up in the air where we were. We landed at 8.30pm local time after the 7 hour flight, slight issue with the bags in that I thought one of my bags wasn’t there and then it was (and then I found £20). There were uber helpful people at the airport doing a grand job of meeting international students, who gave us maps and a leaflet on ‘The common values of Québec society’. This was also the first outburst of ‘Ah I love your accent, it’s so cute, you’re adorable’ (this last one aimed at Nick).

One smuggled-sandwich-eating taxi ride later and we are outside the hostel with a very steep flight of stairs, and once we’d checked in we were then directed back down the stairs and along the road a bit to the actual hostel – I’ve stayed in skanky hostels before, and this is one of them. Fine, but I’d like to find a place to live soon please! My first impressions of Montreal reminded me of Dakar, with the big criss-crossing motorways and huge adverts on the sides of the roads in French. Also the roads are SO straight; it’s freaking me out a bit. Met a nice Canadian girl, before venturing into the shower and then bed.

This morning Nick and I went to the university to sort out our student IDs and health insurance cards, before going phone hunting. The girl who sold me my sim card (no I still do not have a new phone) explained the Québec pricing system to us, in that 13% of the price on the item is added on at the till, including the monthly contract price. She also explained that the Quebecois really don’t mind speaking in English, but that it’s illegal for them to greet a customer with ‘Bonjour hi!’; they have to speak in French until the person speaks in English.

We had some lunchipoos while poring over craigslist and ringing some potentials. I’ve just finished viewing 2 apartments - the first was ok and the second one was great, here’s hoping! I have another viewing tomorrow and Tuesday, so hopefully I’ll be sorted fairly pronto :) Nick’s gone to the uni housing people for more possibles.

It’s really hot but manageable hot, I went abit off the wall crazy and bought some SPF45 for my pasty pasty skin. The people here have all been stupendously friendly and helpful, it’s very quiet and fairly green for a city, the cars only have number plates on the back, and the dollar coin is potentially cooler than our 50p piece.

Bisous