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
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