Almost over!

Things I will do today:

• study for my last exam tomorrow
• use a lot of post-it notes to do so
• go to a cafe to do so
• drink a lot of coffee to do so
• eat a lot of bacon.  This probably will not be conducive to studying but it's a separate plan.

Things I will not do today:

• lie on the grass in the sun being lazy
• watch music videos for hours

At least, this is what I'm aiming for.  Tomorrow at 2 p.m. I have a Jesus of Nazareth exam.  It shouldn't be too hard, but there's a lot of history to learn as well as biblical analysis along the lines of "did Jesus actually do this?"

Ice dream

I went ice cream shopping with my dad.  We went to one shop where they had a lot of fancy kitchenware that wasn't at all to do with ice cream, and there was one freezer with three flavours.  One was called Frozen Chilli Romance, I forget the other two.  So we went to Baskin and Robbins instead.  The shop was beige and completely empty.  Right in front of us there was a man sitting behind a panel of glass, and to the right of us there was a couch area and a huge tv screen.  The idea was to scroll through the ads for ice cream, and tell the number to the man behind the panel who would go get you a scoop from the warehouse.  (When I explained the system to Dad I called it a cupboard, and the man corrected me.)  I sat down to watch the ads.  They were all like perfume ads, or haute couture ads, in that they had nothing to do with ice cream.  All the actors were young beautiful people with very creative makeup, they all seemed to be directed by Tom Ford or Sophia Coppola (circa Marie Antoinette) or Alexander McQueen.  I chose one pineapple-flavoured one after a commercial with lots of tall girls sitting on swings cuddling baby chimps, and I was about to choose a flavour from an ad with younger girls exercising to Valerie by The Zutons.



Then I woke up.

Back home

I've been away a while because I didn't have internet in Toronto.
Toronto was great! I didn't do much, I studied a bit, and ate a lot of pie (lemon meringue), and played the piano.

(only the score I had for it was in F Major)
I visited my godparents for dinner on Monday, after buying a very nice red raincoat at Value Village.  On Tuesday we went for a delicious French dinner and I had scallops in Pernod.  I don't usually like Pernod but this was a good use of it.  And we went to see Barney's Version, which I highly recommend.  On Wednesday I met up with my friend and Culture mentor Amelia at her house - she moved to Toronto for an internship - and she made risotto and a tomato-bread-parmesan-yummy-things bake, and then we baked cookies.  On Thursday I came home, and for some reason the bus ride took from 2:30 til 10 p.m., despite the scheduled arrival being 9:20 even before they took out the rest stop in Kingston (we idled in the station there for easily as long as the rest stop usually is, only this time we weren't allowed to get off and walk around and get coffee and things), and there was no traffic or roadworks or anything, I didn't understand it.
Anyway, Michael met me at the bus stop.  And now I'm back, studying for my exam on Tuesday and eating bacon and cuddling with Eglantine and watching Little Dorrit.  The weather is not very nice, but it's supposed to improve by next week.  Happy Easter!

I found this

Here is a post I found languishing in my drafts. It's an account of most of what I did in New York. I'm not really sure what happened after this post finishes, but I know my last hours in Brooklyn were spent in the back of a convenience store eating fries from the mini diner counter and waiting for the 5 a.m. hot-off-the-press New York Times to arrive. It arrived quite late.

____


I woke up at 6:30 on Tuesday morning, made sandwiches (egg salad and tuna salad) and went over to Emilio's. We had coffee, and got a taxi because it was a special occasion. We got to the station really early for the train, picked up our tickets, and went to the newsagent's. I ate a peanut butter and pear sandwich for breakfast. Gavin and Sheehan arrived, and we got on the train. The journey was soooo long! I...

* slept
* ate crackers, sandwiches, cookies
* read The Lover by Margaret Dumas, which is beautiful
* watched about 15 minutes of Amelie but it didn't really hold my attention
* chatted and did crosswords with the others

we got to New York about 9:30pm. It was raining outside, the subway had puddles all over. By the time we got to Aaron's apartment and dumped all our stuff it was about 11. But I didn't realise it was so late, so consented to go downtown to find dinner. Emilio refused to go to Times Square on principle, so we ended up somewhere else, not sure where exactly, but nothing was open and we were very hungry and the weather was horrible. We met up with Kady, who's the other layout editor at the Daily, and eventually found a Greek place and got souvlaki. It was delicious, and there was a great, odd assortment of people there. Well, it was about 2am. Gavin and I went home, and Sheehan and Emilio took Kady back to her hotel. I woke up at 6am when Sheehan and Emilio banged on the window of Aaron's apartment, let them in, and fell asleep straight away. When we all eventually got up at about 9 or 10, they said they'd come back at around 3 but didn't want to wake anyone up, so they'd wandered around trying to find all-night pharmacies or diners to hang out in. The weather on Wednesday was much nicer, not rainy and not too cold. Gavin and I went with Aaron and some of his friends to a diner for breakfast and I had waffles, then we wandered around. We were at Union Square station, which is on a part of Broadway near the NYU campus, and the Strand bookstore. We found a vintage store with some amazing stuff, but I didn't buy anything. I almost bought a tooled-leather handbag that said 'Jesus is Lord' but it was $30. Then we went to the Met! I met Mayumi there. I only had time for about one wing, but it was all beautiful. All the paintings they have are amazing, it makes me realise how limited Montreal is! The quality of stuff at the Musee des Beaux-Arts just doesn't live up. I got a hot dog from a street vendor. Then I sort of forget what happened. Maybe it's better if I make a list of things that happened.
-- One night we got sushi, it was sort of expensive, but good (although the platter we got was sort of dull)
-- On Thursday it snowed snowed snowed, almost a foot. Sheehan and I wandered around Smith Street, where there were lots of great little independent stores. I got some fur-lined wellies and my feet were very happy. We stopped at a Cuban restaurant for lunch, and I got a delicious crab sandwich. Then we went home, then went back out to this discount store Filene's Basement. I found a beautiful alpaca coat ($70 instead of $500). Then we walked to the Strand bookstore, and met Emilio, and I got some good cheap books. We walked up Broadway and did some more shopping, especially at Uniqlo because I went to Muji but it was closed.
-- Thursday evening I sort of forget. I suppose I must have eaten, but I don't remember it.
-- Friday I woke up early, and went for a wander around Chinatown because it was the bit I got to know best while I was there. I had coffee and a bagel for breakfast, and went to Topshop and Muji. I got home around 12, and it was good timing because people were just waking up. I went with Emilio to P.S.1, part of MoMA in Queens. There was a great exhibit based around 1969, and the building itself was really neat (an old school). We went to the subway, but it was the wrong one, so we tried to go to the other one but we weren't allowed in because we had to wait 20 minutes to use our card again. So we wandered around Queens finding the next stop on the line, and took it to Chelsea. We went to a really overpriced diner, decided to leave, told the waitress we were finding an ATM and would be back soon, and ran away. There was another diner with tv on in Spanish and burgers for $3.75, and it was incredibly good. Nearby was a street full of independent galleries, so we went to a few and they were great. Then we went on to the MoMA, and I looked around the 1880-1940 wing.

_____

Here are some photos I found of the trip.

On my way

On the bus to Toronto.  Stopped in Kingston and it's the same cigarette-voiced lady on the till, but I bought bottled water this time instead of chocolate milk.  Three-and-a-half-more-hours-to-go.

I'm going to eat my sandwich.

I've been thinking about birds and colours a lot recently

Apologies to Edward Lear.

Like watching paint dry

I'm waiting for water to boil.  It doesn't actually take as long as paint takes to dry.  I'm making sweet potato soup.  It was going to be sweet potato and roasted red pepper soup but I opened the jar of roasted red peppers and there was a hiss and a pop and a substantial wisp of gas floated out, but no genie.  I don't know what to call it because it obviously wasn't smoke or steam, peppers don't generate either of those.  Unless they're on fire.  Anyway I threw the peppers away, and now it'll be sweet potato curry soup I suppose, because I put garam masala in.  I am currently wondering whether adding desiccated coconut before I puree it would be a good idea or a bad one.

Earlier today I was exhausted because the final Daily meeting forever (for me) took four hours and was very cramped.  There was too much food for everybody and I consequently did not eat lunch because I wasn't hungry after eating an egg tart then a slice of salami then an orange then a scone with nutella then some grapes and chai tea.

Waiting for music to download though, that does take as long as paint takes to dry.



Michael describes this as "shoegaze symphonies for sad french teenagers."

I've been thinking about goats a lot recently

Restart

Over a year since I've posted. Given impetus this morning by brand-new laptop and a chiding from my granny.
Today is cold and stepping outside was like when you climb stairs and think there's one more step but there isn't and your foot collapses and your stomach falls. It shouldn't be this cold.

Yesterday I saw a friend who I haven't seen in a long time and we drank tea in her high-ceilinged apartment and got Lebanese sandwiches and I got a grease stain on my trousers. Then I went to Michael's apartment and set up my laptop and made weird squeaking noises because it was exciting. We found people and ate pho.

This is pho.



And we watched a piano concert. The ceiling was even higher than in Ellie's apartment. Modern classical music jars in my ears.

No Sleep Til Brooklyn

I got some weird weird spam/bug thing through facebook and now my internet doesn't work at home, because I can't open my browser (google chrome). So I'm in the library, which is about the stupidest thing in the world because it's Sunday of Reading Week and I really should be doing better things. It's such a beautiful mild day today, bbc says it's 1 degree but I bet it's warmer. This morning I've been packing because Tuesday morning I'm going to New York!! The weather will be 'orrible, apparently, but not cold, and I have a pretty umbrella, and the museums will be great shelter.

Work continues to be pretty amazing, yesterday was busy but not crazy, and I learned lots more. The other sushi chef Sam (Sam on Saturdays, Edward on Thursdays) invented some sushi for me when he found out I love scallops; it was grilled scallops, lettuce, mango and strawberry. Good grief. It was incredible. I'm having a sushi dinner in two weeks to practice/show off to everyone, and I can't wait to invent things. The menu at work is apparently not very good, and some of the combinations are just bizarre - 'La Bella Quebecoise' is cream cheese, smoked salmon, and shallots, and the one named after the restaurant has goat's cheese and sundried tomatoes. ...yes.

California

I have been officially hired as a sushi chef at Restaurant Vargas. It's awesome. I had my second shift today, which was very very crazy because of Valentine's Day, and we ran out of heart-shaped sushi pizza bases. Sushi pizza is actually very good. There were three of us today to cope with the rush - Edward, who I worked with on my first shift on Thursday, and Sammy who I hadn't met before. He makes me feel more legitimate working there, since he's also 19 and had a solo shift on Saturdays before I was hired. On Thursday I felt a bit out of place, with a middle-aged Chinese guy and a load of older Bajan grill cooks. It was a friendlier atmosphere on Thursday - at least, more jocular - because it was much more relaxed, but I loved the fast pace. And the end of the shift is the best, when you get to eat stuff :) I made so much shrimp tempura (it's my thing now, because it's hard to get wrong), and so many sushi pizzas (also my thing: a tempura rice base topped with a mix of salmon, fish roe, shallots, fake crab meat, mayo and tempura crumbs) and learned more about rolling maki - I still haven't got the hang of spreading the rice on the seaweed, apparently. I work two shifts a week, Thursdays and Saturdays, which is 12 hours. But it's so flexible, and the pay is $13/hr, which is incredible. Sammy says he's been there for almost a year, and told me never to switch to another job because it's hard to find anything better, and he's never had a complaint. So all in all, I'm so happy. All set for the summer!

Sleep All Day

I'm so tired! Crazy week. I've been preparing like mad for the in-class essay, East Asian Religion test, and World Religions midterm, all tomorrow. Yesterday I went to the Daily and spent a few hours there editing articles - I'm going to apply to be Culture Editor so I have to get experience!

Tonight is going to be really exciting: I start working! I saw an ad for a sushi chef, and didn't think much would come of replying, but I did. I went along on Tuesday and the chef showed me what's what, and I have a shift tonight and Saturday and by then he said he'd know whether to keep me or not. So I need to be really good and work really hard. It's such a great job - to start on $12/hr, without references and without real experience. And it's a fancy restaurant, in the banking district, but close to where I live also. Hopefully I'll be able to stick with it through the summer, which makes everything a lot simpler because now I can arrange sub-letting and getting another apartment and lots of craziness. I'm so excited to stay in the city for the summer, a lot of my friends are, and it's going to be so much fun. But I'll go back to England for a couple of weeks too - a real holiday this time!

So tomorrow will be crrraaaazzzzzy, but when it's over it'll be such a relief. I have another midterm on Tuesday in Legal Anth and I'm really not prepared, I've got a lot of reading to do. After that, a few days of nothing nothing nothing (...except classes...) and then a friend's birthday on Friday, which I'm looking forward to because no one's had a birthday in months. I have an article to write for the Daily as well as one coming out in Monday's issue, so keep an eye on the website:



The one on Monday is about recycling industrial buildings for commercial use, in a special issue on energy. The one due next Tuesday is about the nuns of Montreal, which is unusual and really interesting.

AND THEN after all of that, I'm going to NEW YORK!! I'm so excited. We have a week's holiday for Reading Week, which is supposed to help us prepare for our midterms, but I don't have any after the holiday. A friend of ours, Aaron, has an apartment in Brooklyn that will be completely empty, so we're all going to stay on his floor (me, Sheehan, Gavin, Emilio, Aaron and his 12 roommates, and probably more...). I'm hoping I'll have enough money to go to all the museums and do a little shopping (like in The Strand, with 18 miles of books...) We're leaving the 22nd and coming back the 27th, on the train, which takes a reeeeeeeally long time (11 hours is optimistic, Emilio says) but I'll be in good company :) I can't say how excited I am. It's Gavin's first time visiting as well. I have so many plans, I've started thinking about packing already... wow. This is one of those amazing experiences that only happens at university - we only started thinking about going a week or so ago, and I love spontaneity! We booked the tickets yesterday.

I thought this post would only be a few lines because I have nothing much to say, but it sort of ballooned. I'm going to buckle down and do some serious reading now. After I eat breakfast.

Home Sweet Home

What an epically terrible evening. Laughably so. At 4pm I got the bus to Verdun, way out south-west, to a McGill hospital. I had signed up to take part in a 'psychosocial challenge test'. The bus ride was very very long, about 40 minutes... But I got there in plenty of time. I had to fill out lots of online personality tests, which I usually enjoy in a sort of well-it's-kind-of-dull way. I had to chew on cotton swabs for them to get saliva samples to measure my cortisol levels, to see if it was affected by stress. Then they put me in a fake MRI machine and I had to answer mental maths questions with buttons. It was designed to make you stressed and frustrated - every time you got one right, they got harder. And there was a line turning from red to yellow to green, and it showed where the average was and where you were, in terms of how many you were getting right. The test organiser said, try to stay as close as possible to the average. But the average was always way above the marker showing my position. They repeated the test twice, and at the end of the first time they said 'below average, try to do better next time,' and at the end of the second time they said 'you're too below average, we'll have to do it again so we can get proper data from your results, you'll have to step it up a notch.' And I'm not big on mental maths at the best of times! I twigged part way through the second run that something odd was up. But I got stressed anyway! Physical reactions vs mental rationality I suppose.

I got $30, which was nice, and got out in perfect time to get the bus. But. I got the wrong bus stop, and didn't realise until I saw my bus pulling away from a different stop. I'd seen it, but it said 'hors de service' (out of service) and didn't turn on its light saying the route number until it was too late. I ran and ran to catch it but couldn't. So I was sort of wet from running over a roundabout covered in snow, and out of breath, and completely in shock, because what on earth was I going to do when stuck in the middle of nowhere with no bus for another 40 minutes? A taxi came along straight away, amazingly, considering where I was. So I hailed it and got a lift to the nearest metro. The driver was really friendly, and we chatted away in French, which was great. He said my French was good, and we commiserated over the bus, and talked about both being immigrants (he was Arab, and came here 10 years ago on Halloween). So I paid $8 for a taxi, and then a further $2.75 for the metro, when I should have just paid $2.75 for the bus. With travel included, that means I only got $15 for spending three hours being manipulated to feel frustrated and worthless.

I got the metro. Verdun is on the green line. So is McGill, my closest station. For some reason, I thought this meant I had to change to the orange line. So I got off at Lionel-Groulx, and got on the orange line. I realised how stupid I was. I got off one stop later at Georges Vanier. I spent a long 10 minutes waiting for a train to get back to Lionel-Groulx. I got on the green line again. I went three stops. As we were approaching the fourth, the speakers said 'next stop: Verdun'. I had got on the train going west instead of east. So there I was, back in Verdun, half an hour after leaving it. I bought a Caramilk chocolate bar and waited for an east-bound train. I got on the train and ate my Caramilk and tried not to laugh. I got off at McGill. Now I am home, five hours after leaving. No lie. This evening is going in the record books.

Manic Monday

I had a test this morning in Traditional Whaling Societies, and I think it went pretty well. But it's worth 25% of my final grade, which is a looot, so I'm a little worried all the same because every mark is worth so much. But I got 95% in my Religions of East Asia class! Which is the highest grade I've got here so far. I'm sort of annoyed now it's only worth 10% of my grade for that class :P And that's school...

I've just come back from doing a test on resistance training and pain stuff. I had to lift several weights in different ways, lots of lowering things slowly while counting to ten. It was really hard! Everything was in repetitions of five, and the first and second weren't so bad but the fourth and fifth were really uncomfortable, every time. I think I'll be stiff for a few days... I have to go back tomorrow, and they'll put electrodes on me and film it. But I said I didn't want them using the film for teaching purposes. I was too red in the face to allow that. But I get $40, so that's neat. Now I'm at home, eating Swedish Berries candy I won for coming 2nd place in our house trivia contest yesterday evening. We made peanut butter cookie ice cream sandwiches and watched Aladdin. I've discovered how to work the keyboard in the basement, and I found some sheet music I love, so I'm going to start playing the piano again and I'm really excited about that!

Don't expect blog posts every day :P but I'll try, if interesting things keep happening!

Let It Snow

First snowfall! That deserves a blog post. Technically it was yesterday. I woke up, and everything was white! Only a little though, there was about an inch over everything.

--

So, I've promised to update more often with a few lines, and I found this draft I hadn't published from two months ago which is crazy! Since then there's been a lot more than an inch of snow, we had a few feet before Christmas but while I was away in England it calmed down a bit, and recently there's hardly been any. But we had another dump a couple days ago. Right now it's very very very cold, Friday was -9 and with windchill it felt like -33. Yesterday wasn't so windy.

I was hanging around outside the library by the washrooms, trying to get skype to work, and a girl asked me to watch the door to the loo because it wouldn't lock. I said sure, and she said, 'are you from England?' Turned out she's on a transfer from Manchester university, here for a term. She introduced me to her friend Helen, who's from Oxford as well! She went to Cherwell, across the road from OHS, and her dad lives around the corner from mum. Small world :) we went to a party last night, and she's great fun. The party was for the Daily, because they'd got a lot of free beer. I talked to the Culture editors about applying to be editor at the end of this term, and one of them said they were all hoping I would run, and a news editor said I should be on edboard, so all in all I'm pretty excited about it. I'll start doing more work in the office, editing articles, writing more, finding my own pitches, generally being resourceful... I have an article to write at the moment about nuns in Montreal, should be really interesting.

I've applied for a few jobs: an upmarket stationary store, a baker at Tim Horton's (really hoping for that one, if they need people!), layout on a student science paper, and a 'marketing' position which I'm finding out more about tomorrow. I don't think I'll do it though, it's going door-to-door selling paint jobs, and you get paid on commission and apparently it works out to roughly $10 an hour. Which is silly, because it would cost me $5 on the subway to get there, and spend an hour wandering around houses in the cold, and I'm not sure how good I'd be at it. But maybe I could do it a couple hours a week to supplement something else...

One Day Like This

Auntie Sarah came with Zoe on Friday! It was so great. I bumped into Emma right before they arrived at the Student Union building, so they met, which was lovely. We went for lunch at this Italian place (we just decided on a whim to go in). It was so yummy, but there was a mistake in the bill (charging $17 for a half portion of a $20 meal) so we made a stink about the bill and saw the manager and got a reduction and then tipped the waitress extravagantly.  Then we went looking for the really fancy department store Holt Renfrew.  We found it eventually, and it was bizarre being in a shop like that where sweaters cost as much as two months' worth of my budget... There were hilarious Christmas window displays, of swans in tuxedos.

The next morning I went for breakfast with them and the friends they were staying with - Sarah's friend, her daughter who's Zoe's age and her newborn son. It was delicious, I had blueberry pancakes, sausages and an apple pie smoothie which was insanely good. The restaurant was decorated like a 50s diner with the perfect amount of kitsch, I loved it. Then we said goodbye... and I really did nothing all Saturday. Saturday night was just regular, watching bad tv and walking for hours with Emilio, Emma and Mayumi looking for a bar. We got all the way into Mile End, before coming back to the Plateau. We ended up in a place called Barfly with a really amazing piano player, I haven't enjoyed live music so much for a while, and I'd forgotten how much I love ragtime.

Mowgli's Road

So I fully intended to study on Saturday. I got all my books together and went to the cafe attached to a funeral home, but it was all full up, so I wandered around looking for an empty place. But I couldn't find one, and ended up walking and walking and taking pictures, and I got as lost as it is possible to get in the Plateau (all the streets are on a grid, so you can always find a road you know and walk down it until you recognise where you are) and ended up at Parc LaFontaine, where Emilio and Blair and I picnicked back on Labour Day. The pond was empty, the trees were almost bare, the ground was orange...

The Circus

Yesterday evening I studied in the library from 4-8, which drove me sort of insane. I chatted to Peter via facebook though, that was fun. He told me some very offensive jokes. I went home and ate more lentil/rice patties, then went over to Blair's house and we made smores under the broiler, and I met a couple new people from different residences which was great. We watched this movie:
and then I went to bed. It's 9:40am now and I've had a very productive morning reading a whole novella I have to be familiar with for a test on Monday. It's sort of grey outside, but I'm going to go get some milk and syrup because I feel like pancakes.

Sweets for my sweet

Yesterday was Guy Fawkes, of course, so I brought the celebrations across the ocean :) I couldn't get hold of any fireworks. But Emma, Emilio and a girl called Kathleen with whom we've been hanging out more gathered in Emilio's kitchen and made toffee apples. It was quite an undertaking, hot melted sugar everywhere! My feet got really really warm because my aunt Marina sent me amazing sheepskin-lined boots, which are too cosy to take off, so I'm all set for the snow that isn't here yet.

Today I went to work in the Midnight Kitchen again, as per. These new people were in making Kenyan food, which was amazing, and I helped start a lemon and poppyseed cake that was not very good at all. We haven't made good cake in a while. It's hard without eggs or butter.

Now I'm off to study - a test on Monday and another one on Wednesday! It doesn't stop. But no big plans for the weekend.

This is Halloween

My first North American halloween! It was a big deal. Saturday morning we went for a walk - a miserable walk, it was so rainy - and so many houses were full-out decked in cobwebs and pumpkins and stuff. We went to a great cafe about a mile away called Cagibi, because we had wanted to go to this jumble sale where you buy a bag for $3 and fill it up with anything you can find, but it wasn't on. Then I went to a second-hand store (called 'friperies' here) which had a special rental section open for costumes, because two friends needed them. One was the Picture of Dorian Gray, the other was Margot Tenenbaum. I went home via the grocery store and bought a squash because they were out of pumpkin :( but someone in my house had a pumpkin and gave it to me, so I made my mum's pumpkin pangrato recipe really nicely. It's such a comfort food.

1kg pumpkin or butternut squash
3 cloves of garlic
5 tablespoons of olive oil
a mild red chilli
1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary leaves
the zest of half an orange
a handful of roughly chopped parsley leaves
4 handfuls of fresh white bread crumbs
40 g butter and a tad more olive oil

set the oven at 180 C/gas mark 4
Peel the squash discarding the seeds and fibres.
Cut the flesh into large bite-size bits and steam for 15-20 mins till tender (nb it never takes that long in the steamer)
Finely chop the garlic and put it in a shallow pan with the olive oil over a moderate heat (nb son’t leave the oil to long to heat up or it will be too hot and the garlic will burn on contact!)
Thinly slice the chilli and add to the pan with the rosemary and orange zest.
Tip in the parsley and breadcrumbs and stir while they colour lightly – no darker than a pale biscuit.
Put the pumpkin in a shallow baking dish or roasting tin, salt and pepper it, then add the butter in small knobs.
Tip the breadcrumbs over and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 35-40 mins until the crumbs are deep gold and the pumpkin meltingly tender.

(originally from here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/nov/25/foodanddrink.recipes) everyone in my house was really surprised I was making a savoury pumpkin dish, it's really more of a dessert thing here.

I got dressed up in my costume! I was Charmander the pokemon:


because Mayumi and I had found pokemon costumes at a halloween warehouse next door to a cinema when we turned up really early for the Keats biopic, Bright Star.

This is what we looked like:



We all gathered at Rue Clark and hung out for a while, eating incredible pumpkin cheesecake that Sheehan had made. Then we went out to a loft party but it was kind of dull, so I left and Emilio came with me but then he moaned for a bit about wanting to go back. I said he could but I wouldn't, and unintentional reverse-psychology seemed to work because he came with me. It was only 1am and we wanted to do something, so we climbed the mountain. Or rather, scaled, because we didn't use the path but hauled ourselves up a steep incline by grabbing on to trees and rocks. But we got all the way to the cross at the top, the first time I have, and we were the two highest people in Montreal because no building is allowed to be built higher than the summit of the mountain. The view was incredible. Here's me and the cross.



We came down after a while, and the hour had gone back (a week later than in England, yes) so we went to Second Cup for hot chocolate. Then we were tired, and went to bed.

The next day I set out for a walk because it was so beautiful outside. I really wished I had a camera. I walked to a second hand clothing store that was highly recommended, and bought a cardigan. There was a really nice tam-o-shanter, but it was $25 and I could knit it myself. When I mentioned this, the owner of the shop got really excited and started drawing up a business plan for how I'm going to make tons of them and sell them on campus. Whizzer. I sat in a square entirely carpeted with yellow leaves and read three chapters of my environment and culture textbook, and felt very virtuous. On my way back, almost right outside the friperie, I ran into Emilio and Emma. So we joined forces and went to a second-hand French bookstore and a really really yummy vegetarian restaurant where you fill up a plate at the buffet and they charge you by weight. After that, we hit up the army surplus stores. Lots and lots of funny hats.