We had both had a pretty busy week, and so spending a couple of hours in the car on a road trip seemed like an ideal way to spend the *lovely* day. We hadn't been North of the city since our trip to Quebec at the beginning of December, but had ventured in the other directions of the compass at various points this year so far, so North it would be.
Sunday morning was grey and foggy; definitely not the bright sunny summer morning we had been hoping for. We are coming to the conclusion all those people who told us the Montreal summer makes up for the winter were spinning a long yarn - it has mostly rained so far. Granted, it has been warmer than in the UK, but still, the summer so far has been made up of rain.
We had both had a pretty busy week, and so spending a couple of hours in the car on a road trip seemed like an ideal way to spend the *lovely* day. We hadn't been North of the city since our trip to Quebec at the beginning of December, but had ventured in the other directions of the compass at various points this year so far, so North it would be. I was researching for another post idea and got slightly sidetracked in the process – as seems to be far too easy with the internet – and felt I had to share the story I uncovered with you.
Moving abroad is nothing new, although the whole process is far easier as a whole than centuries ago: from getting to your new country, to keeping in touch with friends and family. Maybe the difference between now and a few hundred years ago is that it can be for a single job duration, a few years; it isn't such a final decision it appears to have been for those hardy travellers a couple of hundreds years ago. For our wedding anniversary T gave me a pair of beautiful diamond stud earrings. We unwrapped our presents over breakfast, and as tempted as I was to put them on straight away, I forced myself to put them to one side to wear out to dinner that evening. Make up and hair done, and dress on, all that was left to put on were the earrings - they would finish off my outfit perfectly! I carefully took one of the studs out of the box, but couldn’t pull the back off it. As I tugged and peered, and yanked (cautiously) and stared at the stud; T eventually divulged they were in fact screw backs. I had never heard of screw earrings before, but it would explain why the backs wouldn’t succumb to my pulling! Sure enough, unscrewing them proved much more successful. As T and I chatted, I put the earring in my ear…but it wouldn’t go.
I woke up on Saturday morning feeling sick, and with a sore stomach and head – my busy week was clearly starting to catch up with me. I would have loved to have stayed in bed, but we had: a) visitors, and b) tickets to the Canadian Grand Prix. The Grand Prix has been held in Montreal, on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve - named after the Quebec-born driver Gilles Villeneuve - on Île Notre-Dame since 1978.
The island is also home to a casino, a park... and a large number of groundhogs. These little critters have been known to walk on the track and disrupt the race, and every year a large number are rehomed before the event. A week before the race, workers paint the lower walls and barriers with liquid cayenne pepper to try and keep the remaining ones who have escaped capture off the track. Still loving the novelty of being able to drive to America in under an hour, we thought it would be fun to take mum and C across the border. After last time's mistakes, we now knew the route to the real Lake Placid, and having seen how stunning the area was we thought it would be a great place to show them a snapshot of America: Rural-New-York-State-style.
Mum and C flew back to England on Sunday. Time went far too quickly and the ten days they were out here sped by, but we seemed to fit a fair amount in; from pottering around the neighbourhood, to heading downtown, and then driving outside of the city.
Their first day was spent mostly recovering from the journey out here, sat outside in the sunshine (I did march them around the hilly neighbourhood showing them the humungous houses of Outremont in 30-plus degree heat - not sure if they were too grateful for this). The next day, with them slightly less jaded and T home with the car, we drove out to Lachine, a borough of Montreal sat on the southwest of the island, lined by the shore of Lac Saint-Louis and the Saint Lawrence river. It was where we cycled a few weeks ago and we thought they would appreciate the water view and to see another side to the city. We have our first visitors! Well, our first visitors who have a return ticket...
It is always great showing close family and friends around where we live – letting them see all the places we have talked about on the phone or email, showing them the quirks and characteristics of the country, introducing them to tastes of the nation. Not only is it lovely to show them and share with them all these things, but I think it also helps when they can visualize where we live, and then when we are talking about what we have been doing they can picture it in their mind rather than there being a blank space. So wether T or I are talking about the walk to the metro stop when it's minus 20 outside which they walked when it was plus 20 degrees; finding some exotic vegetable in the local market they visited; or treating ourselves to a slice of that morish cake from the bakery around the corner they have sampled, it brings us closer to them in a way I think. Skype, email and other communication apps are great for providing snapshots, but as of yet they can’t transport the smells and the feeling of a place. So as pleased as I am to see mum and her friend, I am glad to have her out here in Canada for the above reason as well. |
SubscribeWeatherArchives
December 2015
|