runlindsayrun

Update from Montreal

Well, it’s been a busy couple of days… I’ll have lots of little stories and pictures to share in the next couple of weeks, I’m sure. For now – a quick update.

We’ve been rather energetically making our way through Montreal including Jazz Festival, shopping, Biodome, Insectarium, Botanical Gardens, and a bunch of quirky little local stops – compliments of Christine. We’ve spent three evenings at the Jazz Festival and have deliberately seen The Cat Empire, Accoules Sax, Susy Hyldgaard, and No Jazz. We’ve caught pieces of tons of other performers as well. The Biodome was particularly cool… They’ve set up these little ecosystems – in the South American Rainforest area, it was hot and they were piping in mist to make it muggy and humid. We walked along this wooden pathway and were surrounded my trees that had monkeys and parrots and all kinds of animals, with real rainforest plants. Very cool. I’d been secretly hoping it would suddenly drop to minus one million degrees when we got to the Antarctic ecosystem, but it was behind glass (boo). Still, I got to see penguins (and touch penguin feathers and arctic fox fur) and I took so many videos of penguins I’ll put Kyle’s dolphin video collection to shame :)

Today, we’re heading to Christine’s cabin in the Laurentian mountains for the night – without running water, so please pray for me. She’s appeasing me by promising a stop at La Senza. Sounds like a pretty fair trade, actually. Tomorrow’s my birthday and my tattoo appointment.

I'm over being scared about the big 2-5, and I'm actually kind of excited. It feels like a new chapter - a new quarter-century. And this one will be awesome because I have the distinct advantage of having discovered a heck of a lot about who I am by now.

No surprise here, but I totally love Montreal. It's surprising to me how much French I'm reading and understanding. It’s a good thing I love my job, because if I was unhappy at all, I’d be apartment shopping here. I know I could do the big city, small apartment, no car, $500 shoes thing. I think it's the Canadian city I've discovered that seems to fit me best so far. I don’t want to be one of those people who says bad things about Winnipeg because I really do like it at home, but Winnipeg just doesn’t have this kind of culture - and I love the constant traffic and flow of people.

Millions of stories – and even more pictures – but they can wait. I’ll write more soon. Hope you’re all having an amazing week!

L



Emily has a higher tolerance for history than I do, so I sat outside for a while during her (lengthly) exploration of Mary Queen of the World Cathedral. Awesome name. Anyway. Outside, they were taking down a Canada Day children's carnival, and when they started to deflate the Batman bouncer thing, our hero fell backwards pretty dramatically. I laughed way more than it probably warranted.


In Christine's backyard (and her famous [infamous?] canoe)


Linds & Em at the Jazz Festival (during The Cat Empire)


The Cat Empire


Lindsay NOT getting into trouble at the Jazz Festival

posted by Lindsay @ 10:46 AM