It's funny how in the space of just a couple of weeks you can go from feeling uneasy to feeling infinitely more comfortable in your surroundings. Almost immediately after my weekend in Mont Tremblant, I felt like my confidence had risen tenfold in my knowledge of the language, my social circles and ability to navigate the city.
In fact, it suddenly struck me this week that I only have about two and a half months left in Montreal and it made me really sad! I've just started to grow attached to everything around me and it's almost time to leave! I have already identified several things that I am going to miss: the smell of the trees, the fall colours, hearing French everywhere, having misunderstandings everyday, the feeling of movement and not knowing what to expect next. Whilst I think two and a half months is going to fly by, it's still quite a bit of time to explore the city more!
So the week just gone has been another great week, mostly doing a couple of touristy things around Montreal.
Last Monday evening after a hard day of study, one of my roommates, a couple of friends from uni and I headed to the Jardin Botanique de Montréal - which was quite unlike any Botanical Gardens I'd ever seen before in Australia! The Botanical Gardens in Canberra I feel is really a natural exploration of the different flora you will find in parts of Australia. The Montreal Botanical Gardens by contrast had a lot more of an emphasis on the 'garden' concept - full of well-kept hedges, magnificent tree sculptures and fountains!
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| Gorgeous sculpture |
The gardens were absolutely enormous as well - I think we spent about three hours there and we only had time to explore one side of them! As night fell, the crowds filtered into the stunning Chinese Gardens exhibition, which lit up beautifully. It reminded me a lot of Floriade Nightfest in Canberra actually! (a world class attraction...just try and keep up Montreal!)
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| The Chinese Gardens lit up...pretty cool I guess |
I was pretty stoked as we also bumped into some friends we'd met at a party from the other side of Montreal at the gardens - it's always a good sign that you've lived in a city for a decent amount of time when you can bump into people you know at a random place around town!
The middle of my week was pretty quiet and spent mostly frantically trying to get an assignment and readings done by Friday! So I celebrated the end of the week with some friends Friday night by having drinks at a cute little indie bar called Drinkerie in Little Burgundy - where I finally found some cider! (It was incredible, in case you were wondering. The brand was called "Cidre Mystique"). They also played some great music (from the likes of Daft Punk, Miike Snow and Metronomy) and had a really cute, relaxed atmosphere.
On Saturday afternoon, I hijacked HEC Montreal's trip to an apple orchard just outside of Montreal with my roommate (who actually goes to HEC). The forecast had predicted rain, so I wasn't sure how the weather was going to pan out, but it ended up being lovely! We had a wonderful time roadtrippin' along in our yellow bus and frolicking in the fields of apple trees, taking lots of silly photos! (see below)
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| Enjoying the...fruits...of our labor! |
There is nothing like just taking an apple off a tree and eating it like that. I found it so cool! There were about ten different types of apples and they all had different tastes and purposes. My favourites were the Empire apples - crunchy on the outside, sweet and juicy on the inside...
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| So cute! |
I also managed to meet another Australian on the trip - from my university back home no less! I always get so excited to meet Australians over here, and can thus detect an Australian accent from a mile away. For example, a couple of days ago I even met a girl at UdeM waiting for the elevator by recognising her Australian-French accent when she spoke English - turns out she had lived in Canberra for 8 years and went to Telopea/Bundah!
Saturday night, I had a Canadian-themed night with my friend from Vancouver which was awesome fun! We started off at Schwartz's, a famous smoked meat destination in Montreal, where we both had a smoked meat sandwich, pickle and black cherry soda.
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| Now we're talkin' |
It was a fantastic joint! The workers there didn't even bother talking in French, they made fun of each other and had their jobs down to a fine art. Within 60 seconds of ordering, our meals were delivered to us with an apologetic "Two smoked meat sandwiches, pickles and sodas. Sorry for the slow service." I found myself laughing at the dialogue that was going on around me every couple of minutes!
I really liked the decor of the place too - it really reminded me of New York in a sense, but also felt like Montreal at the same time.
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| Packed to the rafters! |
After eating, we headed to an English pub down the road to catch the end of the Montreal Canadiens game (we won! Go Habs!) and the start of the Vancouver Canucks game. I figured the pub was probably a good place to start to learn the rules before I saw a live game of hockey... (I may have indulged in another glass of cider as well)
Then we headed to my favourite chocolate café so far in Montreal - Juliette et chocolat. It reminds me slightly of Koko Black in Canberra actually, except they have to wear funny red hats! (As my friend told me, he was going to apply for a job there, but this was a deal-breaker for him)
I noticed on my way home that the weather here is starting to get quite chilly at night - I fear what is coming weather-wise in winter...I really do. Speaking of which, went coat shopping on Sunday - it really gives you a headache here, there's so much choice! But I'm looking forward to getting all rugged up in my coat, gloves and tuque in a sense....at least for now whilst it's still relatively warm I can dream!
Last week was also the start of my comic strip classes for the fall trimester - we've got to write a 3-10 page comic on a story of our choice. The teacher has an absolutely incredible knowledge of comic strip/graphic novel artists and recommended artists to each of us according to our tastes. This week I gave Michel Rabagliati a go - he's a Québécois author - and guess what I came across!
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| I recognise this place... |
That's right - Schwartz's! It was in his graphic novel Paul en appartement, which I found was a beautiful little story, a really nice representation of life in Montreal, and just plain relatable in general. I loved learning more Québécismes along the way too as I was reading! I'm also in the middle of reading Louis Riel by Chester Brown, another Canadian author, which I am finding a lot more detached as a story but heavily influenced by the style of The Adventures of Tintin (and thus awesome)!
Well, that's about it for this week. I am expecting a weekend of hard study this weekend as I have my mid-semester exams next week! After then, I've planned a trip to Boston - can't wait!
Erin x
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