Current mood:	cheerful
Entry tags:	montreal

Montreal!
Okay, I've waited this long to post about Montreal, and I honestly don't know if I really have that much to say. I mean, yes, it was awesome, but I was only there for three days. I'll do my best.

If nothing else I should thank neevil07, waldoindiesel, pretentiousgit, polocrunch and jes_sic_a for all your suggestions. Without them I probably would have spent a lot of time wandering around aimelessly, wondering where the hell I was. As it was I did a lot of wandering, but it wasn't entirely aimless. Anyway, thanks.

I ended up staying with my sister the whole time. I don't know if she was all that happy about it - she'd just moved in, so her social life wasn't quite as exciting as it had been. I hope I wasn't keeping her from socializing with the other froshies. She seems to be doing a decent job of it now that I'm gone, anyway.

I guess I could have stayed in a hostel, but I saved myself $20 a night. Which, on my salary, is quite a lot.

I didn't do the whole bar thing much. Or at all. Just didn't have the energy, really, and didn't have anyone to go with. I guess I could have gone on my own (and probably will, next time I'm there), but honestly I mostly felt like drinking coffee and reading.

I managed not to do any shopping, mostly due to the fact that I only brought my purse, so I wouldn't have had anywhere to carry the stuff I'd bought, if I'd bought stuff. Most of my money went on food and coffee, basically. On Steph's reccommendation (thanks Steph!) I went to Juliette et Chocolat, in the Latin Quarter (and honestly, I know they want to be all European and stuff, but I seriously doubt that the students at the Université de Montreal have ever spoken Latin). It was beyond amazing, pretty much. I had this fondant au chocolat thing, which made me feel pretty sick afterwards but was so completely beyond worth it. AND they had French cider, for $12 a 750ml bottle, which isn't much more than you'd pay at the liquor store. Conclusion: win. So much win.

While I was there I found myself switching back and forth between French and English pretty much at random. It mostly worked out pretty well, except when I found myself speaking English to someone whose English was clearly not as good as my French. Only happened a couple of times, but it made me feel kind of ridiculous. I'm a bit awkward with the whole language thing because my French is so bad, but I don't want anyone to know that I'm an Anglophone, so I end up saying as little as possible to anyone. If I ever do end up moving to Montreal, I'm sure I'll get over that within a week anyway. It made me strangely happy every time I saw something like "drinks sans alcool" on a menu. Franglais is my native language, after all, and it also seems to be the official language in Montreal.

Anyway. I walked up and down St. Laurent about a thousand times and drank some really good lattes.Awesome. Went to see Stardust, also awesome. I wasn't too impressed by the book when I read it, but the movie was great. The trailer for The Golden Compass may still have been the best part, though. Partly because I was rereading the book at the time, after seven years, and it is just as awesome as it was when I was 13 (if not more so). Even if the movie sucks it's going to be awesome. There's just no way around it.

I finished reading Northern Lights/The Golden Compass while sitting in the Parc Mont-Royal on Tuesday morning. It was a bit of a hike to get there, though for some reason didn't take me that long to get back. I don't know why. Must have been the route I took. I also spent a lot of time (especially on Sunday, after getting in at 6AM on the overnight bus) hanging around the McGill campus and library (which I thought was adequate, but not terribly impressive). Again, sitting around reading. That's something I haven't done enough of in the past couple of years. I've forgotten how much fun it is.

There were these three kids on campus selling t-shirts that said Harvard: America's McGill. As much as it annoys me how smug these McGill kids are, those were pretty awesome. If I ever go to Harvard I'll get one of those, just to be obnoxious.

Anyway, I would have stayed longer, but I ran out of money and felt I'd kind of worn out my welcome in Claire's residence. May have been all the comments I made about how shitty it was - I mean, seriously, my res in first year was awesome, and hers is this tiny soulless cement-block room. She could get, like, a three-bedroom apartment all to herself for what she's paying. It's just not right.

Anyway. Overall, worth the obscene amount of money I spent on a bus ticket. I didn't realize just how much I needed to get out of Toronto until I finally did get out. I was kind of emo some of the time - you know, alone in a strange city, blah blah blah - but even then it was absolutely worthwhile. It was also the first chance I got to see Montreal on my own terms, and from what I can tell it would be a pretty awesome place to live. Not to mention that there are SO MANY apartments for rent. Can you imagine, if you decide you want to live in a certain neighbourhood, you actually can. Madness!

And tomorrow, I'm headed to Stratford with my dad. Just for a couple of days, but we're trying to fit in as much theatre as we possibly can. Yeah, I pretty much forgot to have fun this summer, so I've been trying to fit in as much as I can before school starts. So far, it's worked out pretty well.