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