Half Way Home
Firstly, je suis désolé pour mon absence. I know I haven't imparted my "wordly" wisdom and reflection for 2 weeks. I know you are all going through serious withdrawal. Hopefully, this action packed episode will cure a few of you!
OK, I have 2 excuses.
1. The Olympics: every 2 years Lynda becomes a "TV Widow", as I melt the PVR recording and watching people I have never met do things I cannot comprehend.
While most will probably remember Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir's gold medal performance for its artistic rendering of Moulin Rouge, I will remember their lifts.. both for their athletic impossibleness, and their fantastic inappropriateness. You can kinda tell they now are coached in Montreal. They actually had to tone down the routine... to be "family friendly". You think THIS is PG?
If you want to see what that looks like in real time.. here it is. But please appreciate the skill involved in skating backwards and spinning with a woman's legs wrapped around your face! #goldmedalworthy
Add to this the RDS (French TSN) colour commentary and everyone needed a cigarette after the show!
Really though, there is one sport than never fails to have me asking, "exactly HOW frozen was someone's brain to come up with #DoubleLuge?!"
The entertainment provided by the Twitterverse was priceless.
2. The second reason I was un-bloggable: We have been out of town not once, but TWICE, in this time. First to Quebec City, then to Ottawa.
Proof we got on trains!
Fellow relocated Westcoasters were visited, spas were attended, and ice was slid on (far less gracefully than the people in red and white battling in South Korea for a shiny piece of metal).
First we went to Quebec City, and marvelled at ferries cracking through the icy "Fleuve". It's kinda hypnotic if you watch it on loop.
Then we found a few houses from the 1700's, owned by Lynda's 8x Great someones.....
We spa'ed it up in a boreal forest, and I had the BEST hot chocolate ever from Érico .. Seriously, better than France.
I'm wrecked for life.
I took a tonne of photos that I will add to the main website if you should care to peruse them there!
Then, last weekend we popped up over to Ottawa so Lynda could "dance her butt off" {direct quote}. Butt seemed intact to me the next morning, however her head was slightly sore.
We also got to participate in the "sidewalk shuffle" while in Ottawa.
On Friday, much of this corridor was hit by "ice rain".
Sounds innocuous enough.
It's actually terrifying.
It transformed sidewalks into a pebbled rink that the ice-makers at the Gangneung Curling Centre in Pyeong Chang would have been proud of. Anything stationary for more than a minute, like cars at traffic lights, or people at bus stops, were coated in a fine sheet of crystal clear ice. Bodies were flying left and right. It took us 5 mins to "walk" 25 meters. I wasn't a fan. At least Ottawa was flat. Given that the curve of the sidewalk down to the road was enough to bring seasoned Ottawans unstuck, thank Christ we weren't in QC City. That place has hills on its hills. Sliding with your buddy on that tea tray would have been the best way to get around!
So, I'm sorry I haven't been around, but there's only so much you can manage to do AND allow enough time to poke the donut!
Now we are back, the TV is having a holiday and I can get back to my blog. I also have 2 weeks worth of New York Times to read... it's a good thing I'm on "Spring Break" from school.
Speaking of Spring, while the wind might be whistling at 40km/h today, it has lost it's Arctic nip of previous weeks. Dare I say (I know I know, it will probably come back!), it feels positively Spring like today. Birds are chirping! 4'C, Blue Skies & sun is shining! No thermal underwear or toques required.
Then it occurred to me, March 1st marks the beginning of the second half of my 8 month Montreal sabbatical.
Yes, I have not only lived through the 4 months I was most worried about... I kinda enjoyed it!
November to the apparently dreaded February.
Maybe it's like childbirth: you just don't remember how truly horrendous is was. Weather people keep telling us it is the worst winter ever. The coldest. The longest. The most snow. The "Ice Bomb"! We went through it all. I am telling the "honest truth" (my personal fave most annoying statement.. I mean, if it's not honest it's not the truth, if it's not the truth, how can it be honest?!), when I say it hasn't been that bad!
Maybe it was all so different to what we were used to. It is a novelty, something to be experienced, not endured. Plus, once you have lived through a few West Coast winters, with its endless rain (which I actually love, but whatev's) and approx 2 hrs of sun a day if you are lucky, being in blazing sunshine, even if your eyeballs are freezing, is kinda nice!
So, after four months here, what have I learned?
Here are my top 5 so far:
1. In Winter, always walk on the East side of the street. In the Plateau at least, both the roads and sidewalks get cleared first, and have the sun on them all morning. Meaning less ice, and a walk in the rays!
2. Don't wear headphones or be otherwise distracted while walking on said icy sidewalks, lest you be taken out by this guy...
They go like the clappers, and stop for no-one!
3. Best place to buy rice crackers and crushed tomatoes is the Dollarama ($1 each), bananas ($0.49c/lb) and avocados (3 for $2.50) the Fruiterie Mile End, sultanas and red kidney beans the Supermarche PA ($0.99/lb and $0.89 /can respectively).
4. I'm better at art than French, and I don't give a toss if an inanimate object has a gender.
5. As much as I like doing nothing, I like having somewhere to go.
March sees Lynda with her third to last "weekend" of school.
Year One is nearly done!
Then we will have 3 sets of visitors, back to back to back. Kinda sounds like triple luge (without the lycra).
Degree of difficulty in washing sheets rapidly and restocking the fridge: 9.3.
Hopefully we will have no icy bends to negotiate, and everyone will love whatever weather we get. Maybe at the end we can hand out the medals for best poutine, cinq a sept and maple syrup, as voted on by fellow stary eyed Westcoasters like me, soaking in the Quebecoise charm!
For now, voici le soleil.