Montréal!!!

My goodness, three more days until I leave here. It's absolutely insane how the time has flown by! Two days ago (on Saturday), it would have been exactly one month since I left Saskatoon.. so if you think that this has been a long time, just remember that it's only 10% of the length of time I'm spending in France. Crazy! This weekend was the best weekend, as well as the last weekend. On Thursday night, my roommates and I did some research for the trip to Montréal and then at 12:30, we decided to order some food. I ended up getting a pita thing, but it wasn't very good so Chris and Carla ate it. We stayed up and talked, played poker and blackjack, and then went to bed at around 2.

The next morning, we had class and then I just relaxed for the afternoon. That night was Casino Night! We all got chips at the beginning and then we could play any games that we wanted. I played a couple games of Bingo at first, which was a waste cause I was never even close to winning. I then spent the rest of the night playing Blackjack. I did really well at first, and then slowly lost my money. I eventually got bored so I just went all in and ended up winning, so I kept playing. I ended up with $4600, which isn't that much compared to everyone else, but it was still a lot of fun. At the end of the casino night, there was an auction where we could get prizes using our money. All of my friends and I put our money together and ended up winning two prizes: a seahorse and a date with one of the Animateurs. Afterwards, we went to a party and then went back home. We ended up going to bed at around 3, only to get up the next morning at 7.

Saturday morning was the start of our trip to Montréal! The bus left at about 8:30 so when we got there, we were all ready to go for brunch. We spent at least an hour looking for a specific restaurant, and ended up finding it very close to the place that we started. I just ended up getting chicken fingers, which were really gross but whatever. After brunch, we went to our hostel to drop off all of our bags. Now, this hostel was probably the sketchiest thing I've ever been associated with. When we first got there, the woman made it very clear that there were no boys allowed in the female dorm (which we were totally fine with because we wanted our privacy anyway). However, when we got to the hostel (by walking through an alley), we walked into it and there are beds right there in the entrance. This was the female dorm. So, in order for everyone to get to their own dorm, they'd have to walk into ours anyway. There was absolutely no privacy at all, and the beds were just air mattresses on top of a bunkbed (the top bunk being too difficult to climb up.. you literally needed to get pushed up by someone else). The bathrooms were in the basement and they were co-ed, which were quite interesting. There were five stalls and five sinks, as well as five showers all in one big room (keep in mind that the hostel was fully booked, meaning there were 96 people). Our time spent at the hostel was short, and we all talked about how homesick we were. It's weird how I've only been homesick from Saskatoon during one day of my four weeks spent here and after being gone from my apartment for one day, I was already homesick. We all missed our beds, the kitchen, living room, our doors. It's good to be back again :)
As gross and creepy as the hostel was, I'm still glad I was able to experience it. It reminded me so much of summer camp, except at least at summer camp, you knew what the other people before you were doing in your bed (sleeping of course). My friends and I now know that even if a hotel would be ten dollars more, it's worth paying for. After dropping all of our stuff off at the hostel, we had to walk back to where the buses dropped us off so that we could go to our activities. The activity that I went to was the Biodome, which is basically a zoo. There were so many different kinds of animals and it was really cool to be able to be so close to them. Two and a half hours later, we all met up at the hostel before going our for supper at a restaurant called Deli 12. I ended up getting souvlaki with rice and salad, which was very good! Shereen and I then split a piece of strawberry cheesecake cause we thought we should treat ourselves, and it was so worth it! After the restaurant, we went back to the hostel so everyone could get ready for the night. Mariam and I left at around 10:30 and found a small festival that was going on so we looked around the little shops, and then went to Ben and Jerry's for ice cream. I got mint chocolate chip (best kind I've ever tasted, and it wasn't even green!) and Chunky Monkey, which was a banana-chocolate chip type ice cream, which was also really delicious. Mariam and I then walked to Rue Sainte-Catherine, and it was so nice there! There were so many people and we ended up finding a concert. The band's name was Zébulon and they were an awesome French band (I got their CD!). After the concert, we found out that there was another concert that was going on, so we got a map to try to figure out where we had to go. Two intoxicated guys came over to us and explained (in French) that they were tourists and asked us for directions but we told them that we were tourists as well and we found out that they were trying to go to the same concert as we were so we decided to walk with them since they seemed a lot safer to walk with than for us to walk by ourselves. They were really nice and we found out that they were from Paris so I got their numbers so that I could call them when I go to France (which I found out they lied about, since I found out their hometown is Montréal haha). They got sidetracked so easily so we ended up leaving them, and continuing by ourselves. The picture to the right is of Hervé (pronounced Harvey - "like the restaurant!") and Hugo in front of the car that they spent fifteen minutes looking at. Mariam and I continued walking down the street, and we probably walked for about 45 more minutes before stopping at the next Tim Horton's for an ice cap. We just sat down as soon as we got inside, and waited for the two guys in line to get their food so we could go up. These two guys were just talking at first, and then they started to get pretty friendly with each other. Mariam looked at the window, saw the rainbow flags, and realized that we were in the middle of the gay strip! We then went outside and there were guys everywhere. We just continued walking so that we could get to the end of it. I'm going to be honest in saying that this was the area that I felt the most safe in because I knew there wouldn't be any creepy men. When we got to the freeway, we came to the conclusion that the concert was too far to keep walking for and made our way back to the hostel. We got back to the hostel's area at about 2:30 and decided to go to the Tim Horton's close by but it was closed so we went to McDonald's instead and found Christine and Laura. We stayed and talked until 3:30, and then went back to the hostel. After getting ready for bed, I finally got to go to sleep at four. However, at that time Mariam came up to me and said that there was a man in her bed! Apparently she was going onto her bed to change (keep in mind it was pitch-dark), and she must have put all of her body weight onto the man's stomach and she woke him up. She shined her cell phone in his face asking why he was in her bed and he tried to explain that there was a double booking (in a girl's dormitory? I don't think so..). Chris ended up going to the front office to tell them, and at 4:30, all of the lights turned on and I heard "Excuse me, you're in the girl's dormitory" "Oh really? I'm sorry, I didn't realize. I must have gotten into the wrong bed.." "What's the number that you were assigned?" No answer. I'm guessing he snuck in with someone and found a bed that he thought was empty. After all of that commotion, I fell asleep.

I woke up at 8:30 the next morning. Yes, I was supertired, but I didn't feel comfortable sleeping. I spent the next two hours getting ready and researching places to go on the computer, and then everyone else woke up at 10:30. At about 11:30, Christine, Laura, and I went to Tim Horton's for lunch. The weird thing about the Tim Hortons in Quebec is that they don't have any garbages and instead have shelves to put your trays on (see the picture at right). After eating, everyone else joined us so we waited for them to eat and then at one, we all split up and Christine, Laura, Mariam, Nicole, and I went shopping. We went to many stores and when all the stores closed at five, we went to the Hard Rock Café for supper. I ended up getting wild Alaskan salmon, and it was so delicious! We had a lot of fun and just enjoyed ourselves throughout the entire day. After supper, we walked to a concert and got there just in time. We got to see one song before Chris called and asked where the concert was. For some reason, it was too difficult for them to walk over so we had to walk to the bar to get them and bring them back to the concert ourselves, which took up an hour of our time (and put our feet in even more pain). We got back in time to see the very last song, and then had to walk all the way back to farther than where they first were to get to the bus station. My feet were absolutely killing me so it was nice to sit through the two hour bus ride. I got back to my apartment at 12:30, and we stayed up talking and eating until three. I ended up getting to bed at four, yay!

This morning, I woke up at 7:30 and went to class. I could hardly keep my eyes open considering I've only gotten about 15 hours of sleep in the past four days. After class, I got lunch and ate it in my room, and now I'm here! I have to go to my last computer lab workshop in 10 minutes, and I'm looking forward to it being done! I hope everyone had a GREAT weekend!!!! I definitely did!! Sorry for this entry being so long!! Four more days until I'm home!! xoxo