Autumn!

We went for a walk up "the mountain" last Sunday and were rewarded for our efforts with this view. We were hoping to be rewarded with pizza but it wasn't to be.

I had another success last night with meeting strangers off the internet. I joined the Meetup group called "Cheap Ethnic Eatz" and was able to look past the z and go to a vietnamese restaurant with them last night. I had a really good time, and it wasn't all due to the absolutely amazing fried ice cream. Goddamn, it was good. Like a big giant icecream wonton, smothered in orange syrup. A wonton suzette. Unfortunately this restaurant is about a 5 minute walk from my apartment so I am hoping the fried icecream won't be calling to me in my vulnerable hours.

I also joined the Aussies in Montreal meetup group and will be enjoying a beverage (possibly Fosters, hopefully Coopers) with them next Saturday. Apparently the night will involve trivia and a raffle, so fingers crossed I can pick myself up a nice meat tray or a jar of Vegemite.

Anyway, speaking of Aussies, I had best document my weekend in Kingston over the Grand Final weekend (coincidentally it was also the Queens University homecoming weekend which apparently is the biggest busiest weekend of the year). It is already a bit of a blurry memory, which is everything to do with the 3 weeks that have passed and nothing to do with the amount of alcohol consumed. The grand final actually started around 12:30am or so Fri night/Sat morn and conveniently was shown on Jona's cable so we didn't have to squint at the little screen with no sound at the Irish pub we frequented before the game started. We tried to get the Festival of the Boot going online but JJJ decided for some reason not to play it live online this year and we were stuck with Bruce and Dennis.

Fosters was drunk, I will admit. Many many anzac biscuits were consumed however (we had a drinking game style thing going for a while where you had to eat a biscuit if your team got a goal but it was an unsustainable endeavour) which I think makes up for the Fosters embarrassment. The cans of Fosters are actually something like 750mL which is ridiculous, it's bad enough drinking 375mL from a can let alone a longneck's worth of beer.

Of course the next day got off to a bit of a seedy start but this was soon sorted out with a massively calorie dense fryup breakfast and a mad run through the city to get down to catch a boat which we missed by 10 minutes. Yes, nothing like a huge feast followed immediately by a crazed run to sort out a hangover. After checking out the nearby ChiliFest we managed to get on the next boat and had a glorious cold, wet journey through Lake Ontario, resisting the urge to get a hotdog just to see how bad they really were (plus we had coupons for a free postmix drink with any hotdog purchase!). Throughout the trip they played a recording telling you about the sights, which involved a woman telling you things and a Scottish man interjecting (he was apparently the ghost of some historically significant man, and judging from his voice was related to Sean Connery). Oh the witty repartee, it was all I could do to stop flinging myself over the rail, grabbing a hotdog on the way.

After the trip we walked through ChiliFest again, thinking it was some magical festival where you walk around getting free food. We lined up and were given some corn chips and asked for our cups, only to realise that you are given the cups for the chilli when you pay at the front gate. We showed them though - we didn't pay and we kept the free corn chips! Ate them all! It was actually a charity event though so the only people that suffered from our stinginess is the war orphans or whoever it was.

The hours to come involved drinking giant coffees, eating our weight in delicious Greek food, and then getting stuck into the crazy party night of Queens Homecoming Saturday night.

I'm quite fond of this photo, what with the "No man, seriously, I love you!" guy and the brainsucking hand of the guy to the right. Actually, both of these guys are dressed the same...maybe they are the same guy?!?!!!

In a nutshell, it was a mad mad night of thousands of drunk hooligans roaming the streets. I have never seen so many police in my life, it was nuts. My shoes were filthy by the end of the night, I'm not sure why though, possibly it was just the filth of youth. Fun was had into the wee hours, then sleep called as I was all too aware of the train trip home I had to make the next day.

So all in all it was a most enjoyable weekend and I am very grateful to my gracious host, thanks Jona, the boat trip wasn't all that bad ;)

I'm partying it up BIG TIME this weekend with Myriam's 2nd birthday party, man it's going to be wild! As many artificial colours as the eye can see, enough tea to knock you out. Actually I'm in charge of making the birthday cake and I'm quite looking forward to my first foray into cake decorating. If all goes according to plan I will be posting photos of an amazing cake and a very happy 2 year old in a few days. If not then there are lots of good boulangeries/pattiseries around these parts so I could always cheat (oh but you know I won't).

Oh, and one last thing, Australia was in the news here today as there was such a pissweak turnout in the federal election here on Tuesday that there are talks of bringing in compulsory voting. John Howard was in the news lately too as apparently Harper (the PM here) ripped off some of one of his speeches, nice taste there Harper. Anyway Harper is still the PM but I'm glad the election is finally over so I'm not constantly having to avoid eye-height cable ties holding election signs to poles. Some of the graffiti on the signs was funny though. Oh, speaking of graffiti, here's a nice picture to bid you adieu

Comments

Just to let you know I've changed the settings so anyone can post comments as I need to store them up for the cold winter ahead. Hopefully this won't attract unsavoury types (actually, that's an odd saying...surely an unsavoury person is sweet?)

Cor blimey it's cold!

Right then, autumn is here. And it's colder than a Perth winter. Not all that surprising really, but still a bit of a shock to the system. I am conscious of keeping warm whilst not being too ridiculously rugged up in comparison to everyone else. I don't think I'm embarrassing myself too much. I haven't had to bring out the big guns, my thermal pants, I'm trying to keep them in reserve for when the actual real proper winter comes.

As someone who for the past few years has consistently gotten sick multiple times every autumn I am super happy to have two autumns and no spring this year! Of course being aware of this phenomenon I have stocked up on vitamins and minerals and echinacea and all the good stuff but keep forgetting to take them. Actually, excuse me while I go squirt some echinacea under my tongue...

Things seem to be on the up now though, and today I finally felt well enough to go join a gym. There is one just around the corner from my apartment, so I went and signed up and had my first proper training session for MONTHS. It is going to take a bit of work to get myself back to where I was before I left Perth! The machines are a little bit confusing because I am used to working with kilometres, not miles, so I fired up the treadmill to what I would normally run in km/hr but I quickly realised that it was miles/hr.

So yes, my new apartment, I'm finally here! I moved last Wednesday, and was lucky enough to scam a lift so I didn't have to traverse the plateau with my suitcases in the rain. The guy whose room I am in actually left me all his bedding and manchester stuff so I don't have to borrow/buy any of that stuff which is great. Also left all his books in his bookcase and CDs on his shelf, but while he has a decent taste in music he is also well and truly a francophone so the books aren't all that useful. Other strange things in the room include an old typewriter, a light table (good if I need to bring some plankton home for counting?), an old school sewing machine, a scary mask and some precision electronic scales. So it seems I am living in the bedroom of an author with a penchant for photography who moonlights as a masked drug dealer (complete with home made costume).

So far I am really enjoying living here, and getting on really well with my new housemate. He even made me soup the other night in my sickened state, so that has to be a good sign. The place is a bit cold and old but with all the busted arse rental houses I've lived in over the years I will certainly manage. The area is just so good. In less than a minute I can be at my local dépanneur (like a corner store/deli, but it sells alcohol too), and in five minutes walk I can pretty much buy anything, including very famous smoked meat.

I fought through my manky cold the other night and went to see Hot Chip at Metropolis, which is a pretty cool venue in a slighty dodgy part of town. Even in the slightly dodgy parts of town though you still feel safe as there always seems to be enough not-so-dodgy looking people around to counteract the dodgy vibe. It was actually my very first time at going to a gig solo, as a miscommunication between myself and the friend I was meant to be going with meant she ended up in Quebec City that night (just to clarify, the miscommunication didn't involve me telling her to meet me in Quebec City). I had already bought my ticket and really wanted to see them so I went on my lonesome and it was actually still a good night. Going to a gig alone means that you don't have to worry about where anyone else wants to stand, and it's much easier to find room to dance down the front amongst the crowds when you only have to find enough room for one person.


The following night my friend who ended up in Quebec City took me out for tapas and flamenco (watching, not doing) at a really nice little tapas place. This place has flamenco on Thursday nights, unlike the Spanish Club down the road which has it on Wednesdays, so they don't compete against each other. We dined on rich chorizo, huge baked sardines, and fried goats cheese balls served with honey and caramelised onions, yummm. The flamenco and band were great, and by the end of the night I had convinced myself I was going to take up flamenco dancing. It seems like something I could do, or at least have fun getting dressed up for. When we got back to my friend's car there was a smallish rubbish bag sitting on the windscreen. We gingerly picked it off and threw it on the footpath, but curiosity got the better of us and we spent the next five minutes trying to open it without really touching it, and giggling. Could it be cash? A human hand? After finally busting through the bag, we could spy the contents.... another rubbish bag. After playing this rubbish pass the parcel for another layer we were very disappointed to discover the next bag held some old newspaper.

Walking home from the gym tonight I realised that I am now living very close to a big sports bar (the one I was going to watch the footy GF if I didn't end up going to Kingston) so I will have to go suss out the cricket watching possibilities at some stage. Ah yes, Kingston, I have yet to discuss this weekend of boozing and cops and thousands of drunk hooligans and Greek food and snoring and chilifest and stupid girls on trains and of course the footy. Perhaps I will elaborate next time..

Meh it was bound to happen..

Yep, all of a sudden it was Autumn. And just as suddenly I found myself sick with a cold. Coincidence? Perhaps. Actually I think I know the moment when the cold infiltrated my cell walls. I was on a late night walk around the streets of Montreal last Wednesday, and it was quite a cold night. We walked into a jazz bar to check it out (it was really cool, I think I've found my local jazz hangout of choice) and it was about 20 degrees warmer inside. The sudden change of temperature coupled with the distraction of the music tricked my immune system just long enough to let the virus inside, and the next morning all was confirmed.

Luckily I didn't have to go through the same experience here as I did when I first got sick in Sweden, and had to ride my bike through the icy autumn wind to the hospital as it had the only pharmacy open on a Sunday, only to find that their arsenal of cold & flu medication consisted of some lame herbal tablets. Getting the good stuff is easy here and I was soon filled with pseudoephedrine and painkillers and some echinacea for good measure.

I have started ausifying everyone at uni by making anzac biccies (with macadamia nuts) for them last week. Finding golden syrup in the supermarket took me a while - it wasn't in the same place as the honey, it was in the syrup section! I'm glad I at least figured that out eventually without having to ask someone. I've also sussed out the ingredients for vanilla slice so I'll be busting some of those out soon too. I didn't go poking through the cupboards of my soon-to-be-apartment when I checked it out, so I'm curious (and a little apprehensive) about the kitchen supplies. I did at least notice that it had an oven and fridge so that's a start I guess.

Oh I forgot to talk about the Tam Tams last time. They are held in the Parc du Mont-Royal (at the mountain that gives Montreal it's name) every Sunday during summer, and beyond, if the weather is good. It's not actually organised by anyone in particular, everyone just rocks up and has a good time. Tam-tams is the word for hand drums like djembes, and basically it's just lots of people playing drums and dancing and relaxing. We need something like this in Perth.

Wanted: Star proposal writer

Actually instead of getting someone to write my proposal for me, which would actually be completely useless, I really just want that ability that Kim Basinger's character had in "My Stepmother is an Alien" and be able to read things super fast.

I've found an apartment! It wasn't the one that I had pinned my hopes on in my last post, but I think it's actually better than that one. I'll be subletting it from a guy who is going to Vancouver for a few months, and he'll be leaving all his furniture for me to use. The timing works out almost perfectly, and the fact that it is fully furnished saves me a lot of messing around with getting dodgy secondhand stuff. The room is gigantic, plus I get an office. The place has a few typical rental property weird things going on with it, for instance there is no basin in the bathroom. Very strange. But it's on "Avenue de l'Hotel-de-Ville". That's way cooler than Osborne Street.

I forgot to mention in my previous posts that I have driven on the wrong side of the road!! I did quite a lot of driving in Ontario actually. It took a bit of getting used to, particularly as I was driving a massive van, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Always had to keep alert though, not like at home when I find myself suddenly at work or at home with no real recollection of having driven there.

Another girl from UWA is in Montreal at the moment, working in the same lab as me at the university, and it's been great having her here and imparting all my knowledge about Montreal, ho ho. I think in the 4 days she's been here she's seen twice as much of the place as I have. I must make sure I get off my arse and do the tourist things before I suddenly have no time left. Plus I haven't managed to hunt down a cheesy tourist shop to get some postcards, so forgive me if you've been eagerly waiting for a RCMP postcard from me, it may well be coming some time in the next 4 months..

I've started turning my thoughts to Halloween. Yes, already. It's not my fault, they've been selling Halloween crap in the shops for ages now! I just can't decide on who to dress up as though, it's a tough decision! And quite important. I mean, who knows how many more years I'll have to wait to celebrate it properly again? I've narrowed my choice down to either Carmen Sandiego, Birdgirl from Harvey Birdman or Superted. Do I want to wear a hat, a mask or a cape?

I registered for the Lake Louise conference and bought my flights for it yesterday. Over $1000 later (with accommodation still to be paid) and I'm set to go. I also signed up for the "Clean Lakes Classic 5km Run/Walk/Snowshoe Shuffle" which is held during the conference, but think my esteemed SESE colleagues may not be joining me on this. Wimps. Though I am slightly concerned about running a route that can also be snowshoed. Perhaps I will need some cleats. Or chains.

Things I'm learning about Canada

Entrees here are called appetisers ("appies", if you will, ugh) or starters, and mains are called entrees. The first menu I looked at caused me great confusion... where were the mains?

The 10 cent piece is smaller than the 5 cent piece. This is just silly.

Sultanas are called raisins. Sultana is a brand of raisin here apparently.

You can turn right when you have a red light, except when you are in the city of Montreal.

A biscuit is a cookie and scone is a biscuit.

If you say "seeya later" here apparently people take you literally.

Before you get too excited about the price of food on any menu, add on tax and a tip.

They are behind us with the Doctor! Sucked in Canada.

There is lots of awesome food here, much to my joy and dismay. Self control, where are you?

You can't escape Aussies anywhere. They have spread the length and breadth of the globe.

Three weeks of madness

My field work in Ontario is over and I am now beginning to feel human and awake again after a few days of recovery back in Montreal. It was a crazy few weeks, consisting primarily of either preparing for, doing, or recovering from the field. It all came to a head during the 24 hour sampling period, which began at 8:15am last Wednesday, and finished at 8:00am Thursday. We were lucky enough to have quite mild weather for the whole period, but I still managed to wear 7 layers of clothing at night (singlet, two shirts, three jackets and a rain coat). I wasn't cold :)

To give you an idea of what we were doing, here's a movie showing what needed to be done every 15 minutes (actually it's just a bit of what needed to be done, but a movie showing the whole process would be even less exciting):


The mosquitoes were out in force for a couple of hours in the evening but amazingly I didn't get bitten. I suspect it was due to the thick layer of sunscreen and dirt covering my exposed skin. Bats also made an appearance later in the night, but I only managed to catch a glimpse of one. I also managed to catch a glimpse of this strange monster (I have to mention this was at something like hour 20 of 24).

We were well looked after in the food department, with a huge cooler bag of sandwiches/fruit/cookies/muesli bars etc packed by yours truly. The highlight however was getting pizza and a thermos of hot coffee delivered by Jen during the night. The thermos was new, and has a little compartment where you can put milk in case one person wants milk and the other doesn't. The compartment seemed a bit dodgy however, and the milk spilt out a little if you weren't careful at keeping the thermos upright (hard to do in a a crowded boat). I eventually got sick of this so decided to just drink some coffee and use up the milk, but when I opened up the compartment there was no milk left, it had all spilt out. Typical.

So now the field work is over and I am back in Montreal, searching for somewhere to live and trying to finish writing my proposal. I'm not sure which is the more difficult or annoying task. Have looked at a few apartments now. The first one was really nice but too expensive, the second was a bit of a dive and the guy kept talking to my chest, the third was a dump but in a cool area (and Leonard Cohen would be my neighbour!!) but the fourth actually was great and the people seem really nice and I'm crossing my fingers and hoping to hear from them.