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