Falling in Love: The Golden Years

Autumn has come and long since faded into distant memories, but what a time it was. All the leaves turned yellow then fell on the ground before a street sweeper collected them and took them to the dump. It was beautiful.

Concordia University had a photo competition and I decided that I would give it a shot. I had a look through my pictures to see if I had anything that might fit the bill of an image that represents campus life at Concordia. Thankfully no one was around when I accidentally found an old folder full of private photos before the computer froze, leaving them stuck on the screen. I decided not to use any of those pictures though, because I didn't quite think cross-dressing represented the entire school.

I settled on one from the Laurentian Mountains, which are only a couple of hours away, and got to work on the caption (not knowing there would be someone from catering on the judging panel). This is what I came up with:

This photo represents the eternal struggle of a university student reaching for an unattainable goal, like getting a good lunch from the school cafe.
(there was a bit more, but I forgot it).

 I'm not delusional so I wasn't hoping to win or anything, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think I had a great chance at the $1000 prize. So it came as a bit of a shock when I received a page long email informing me that my entry had been rejected. Always a trooper, I decided to try again. Fighting back the tears, I searched through my albums once more in search of a suitable photo, and within hours I was uploading a second entry along with a new caption about the football team (called the stingers).

I tried to go to a Stingers game on the weekend. It turned out I had the wrong location.

I wasn't too upset when they turned the second one down, in fact I was kind of proud of them for disallowing such a lame joke.

I'm still not entirely comfortable with the tipping here, and have often found myself forgetting altogether, or sometimes way too much. So on Thursday after eating a slice at Pizza Bella, I left my whole wallet on the table. About 4 hours later, after a study session in the library, I met up with Lunji who told me that might have been too much. I panicked and ran around the city looking for my wallet full of all sorts of cards and a few bucks, thankfully they still had it and gave it back. I wasn't sure whether I should have tipped them for helping me out.

I took a trip down beyond the border into the home of the brave and the land of the free to see a Steven Wright show in Atlantic City on the night of the 3^rd of November. I left at 10.30 PM on Thursday night and arrived in Atlantic City at around 10 AM after changing buses in New York. I was tired, exhausted, and even a little bit sleepy after problems getting some rest on the bus, but I was excited to go exploring. I knew Atlantic City's main drawcard was the casinos, but they also have a boardwalk, so I was spoilt for choice. I walked through town to the boardwalk, passing by the huge casinos, then after several hours of trying my hardest to enjoy the place, I went to my accommodation and slept.

 

A few hours passed before I woke up, and caught the bus to the Borgata Casino. Once I arrived I bought a sandwich, and sat around for an hour after finding where the gates were. The doors opened at 7, and I was in by 7.00:15PM . I had a few seconds less than an hour before the show would start, so I just sat there daydreaming for a while, before I looked up at the stage again and saw Steven checking the placement of the chairs and microphones. He looked out at the hall and saw me sitting there, then gave me the thumbs up!

The show was awesome, and was well worth the 24 hours of traveling I had committed to. I would have been happy to go home again straight after the show, but the Big Apple beckoned. The next morning, still laughing to myself at the jokes from last night, I walked to the bus station and arrived an hour and a half early, meaning I got to catch an earlier bus which had some great entertainers on board.

I found a seat and we were soon off to New York City. I started to hear a dripping sound and after trying to work out where it was coming from, I looked up the bus and saw an old man a few seats ahead of me. He was fast asleep, but holding a bottle of opened water down by his side, which he had nearly emptied into the aisle.

A small river started flowing back down the bus and as I grabbed my bags off the ground, giggling like a schoolgirl, I watched the man wake up and lift the bottle to take a drink. He was shocked to see it was empty and started looking around the bus as if someone has siphoned the water from his bottle and drank it themselves. He fell back to sleep within moments and dropped the bottle of the floor to end his comedy show.

Within a couple of hours, I was in the hustle and bustle of New York City. Whoa man, if you ever want to feel smaller than an earthworm in a chicken farm, this is your city. I had only one day to check it all out, so I quickly set to work. First stop was a long elevator ride to the 'Top of the Rock' (the viewing platform at the top of the Rockefeller Center) which had a great view. I could see everything from up there. I saw the silver ball down at Times Square, the softball fields in the park, and Celine Dion shopping on Madison Avenue.

After taking in the views for a while, I decided to pound the pavement. I soon found myself wandering around in the park before I headed to my hostel to drop off some of my gear, passing by a few little landmarks on the way.

On my to do list Tom's Restaurant was sitting way up in the number one position, so I caught a crosstown bus and was on my merry way to the Seinfeld hangout. I accidentally got off about 12 stops to early, but I was going to Tom's Restaurant so I didn't care. All I had to do was cross Morningside Park, walk past Columbia University and I was there, it seemed easy enough. The only problem was the path I had to walk up had two thugs sitting up ahead on some steps. Always thinking of my safety, I decided to confront them. When I was within three or four metres of them, one of the guys pulled a knife. My brain was in a curious mood I guess, and decided it would like to know what being stabbed felt like, so I kept walking toward them. They stood up and blocked the path, before the guy without the knife said (in a taunting, unfriendly way) “how's it doing?” (or something like that). My heart was pounding so fast that my shirt had started vibrating, but I played it cool and said “it's alright”. “No it's not alright” he replied, as the guy with a knife put his hand on my shoulder and said something that I don't remember. I said “sorry” brushing them aside, “get your hand off my shoulder you dopey thug”. I walked away feeling quite proud of how I handled the situation, but a little worried about the knife stuck in my stomach.

Tom's Restaurant, or Monk's Dinner in the show, was a highlight of my life that surpassed the comedy show the night before, learning to ride a bike as a kid, and even being born. But I couldn't spend the rest of my time in NYC sitting in a booth, so I continued my tour to Times Square. Times Square is a great place. You could go there in the middle of winter and get a tan from the billboards. As tempted as I was to spend the rest of the evening watching Coca Cola ads on a 2mile wide screen, I knew Relatively Speaking was playing as an off-Broadway show. The ticket booth told me they had just one front row seat left, but I decided to pay a little extra and splurge on standing room. I had about 2 hours to kill before that started and planned to go for a preemptive podiatry appointment, but I couldn't get a booking. Down by the water seemed to be a decent fall back and I got to see the sun setting behind a funny statue of a lady with the Olympic torch or something. I walked up to Wall Street and saw the occupiers then went back to the theatre, watched the show, laughed a lot, went home, slept, woke up, went to the station and caught a train back to Montreal.

 

I returned to a tonne of homework (thankfully not mine) and a quickly got back in the groove of Concordia classes. Puppet animation took the place of eating, socialising and sleeping for the next couple of weeks. Leighenne and I had our first snow taste of snow at 3AM on the 23^rd, the last assignment was handed in on the 8^th and after sleeping in until the 21^st, I visited Quebec City on a bus tour.

The driver and guide on the Quebec trip managed to talk non-stop the entire time and laughed at their own jokes (which were very frequent and extremely bad), before repeating them in French and laughing again. The city was really nice and has an interesting history (I don't know what it is, I couldn't stand listening to the driver).

In a few days I will leave Montreal by bus on my journey westward (read about it in next episode: "Eastbound and Energetic – A Plane Ride to Paradise"). It doesn't feel like I have spent nearly long enough in Montreal, but it's time to move on. I didn't make as many friends as I could have, or as many good ones as I should have. I didn't master French, I didn't join any clubs and I didn't even play a single game of ice hockey, but I learnt a lot, met some wonderful people, and even shoveled the footpath like a true Canadian. It wasn't always easy, it wasn't always fun and sometimes it was downright difficult, but it was a fantastic time and I'm glad I did it. Exchange was a wild ride, but there's still a whole amusement park to explore. I love you Montreal, but now I've got to get out there and meet some new cities okay?

In the next edition of Mounties and Mooses Kyan visits some old friends in Toronto, finds a job as a stable hand, and accidentally orders fish. Read all about it in: “Chapter XI – The Lost Necklace”.

Photos My Camera Took: A Pictorium Spectactular

“The photograph is not merely a physical vessel for the human memory, nor a fragile gateway to the past, it has far greater meaning and serves a much nobler purpose: providing a platform for corny jokes and bad puns” - unknown author.

This special photography edition of 'Mounties and Mooses' will take you through the kit lens of Kyan Woodpower to a wonderful world of sidewalks and jive talks, city streets and drum beats, wild animals and even wilder parties.

From the 22^nd of August to the 24^th of September, I took around 4000 photos on my camera. Thankfully it wasn't too hard to pick the good ones out, but I wasn't sure if 3 photos was enough for a picture special so I included some other ones as well.

Whether you are a keen photographer, friend or family of the author, or simply a stranger who enjoys reading travel diaries, you will probably not enjoy this issue. Next week will return to the familiar formula writing of previous editions though.

So find a comfortable seat, grab a really strong coffee and make sure you keep some aspirin nearby, because this could take a while.

LOS ANGELES

Living the American dream (no, you're not missing a joke. Not all the captions will be funny, in fact only a few will).

Santa Monica Blvd, we love it! For those of you who don't understand the cultural significance of this road, join the club.

And just in case you were under the impression that every photo will have a caption, I thought I should let you know they won't.

The heart of Hollywood... if you can say it has one.

I wish I was big...

Mickey actually thought he was hanging out with Pocahontas.

That's me with the Golden Globe. If I work really, really hard, hopefully I wont have to touch that thing again.

Home of the Oscars. You could still smell the cheap alcohol and stale perfume from last time.

 If you think doctors are the unsung heroes of society, spare a thought for these hard working individuals.

 

They used to use these cameras to make films in Hollywood.

The observatory in the hills. By far the nicest 20 minutes I spent in L.A.

Rydell High!

John Trovalta only had to walk a block and a half after Grease wrapped to get here.

I don't know whether the lights at night made things look more tacky or not.

Taken from the Universal Studios tour trolley car...

which we had to get out of later and walk instead.

The ship from King Kong (that's not a joke, they shot this part with miniatures!).

This isn't funny, but it looks kind of cool.

The set of a very bad TV show.

That's a genuine Academy Award. If you have enough money, you can buy one from the academy and they give it to you at a nice little presentation that they call the oscars or something.

Some of the puppets and props from Coraline.

 Universal Studios.

There's nothing more satisfying or rewarding than seeing the actual home of someone with questionable talent and excessive botox.

 

Am I trying to say something by ending the Los Angeles segment with this photo? Well I don't want to be too obvious, so I'll leave it at that.

MONTREAL

The Old Port.

Montreal's metro has the second highest volume of daily passengers of any metro in the world, after only New York City.

My pal Tom, at the Mount Royal lookout. Tom is studying how to build airplanes, but one day hopes to be the spokesperson for a microwavable crêpe company.

The city offers some absolutely beautiful hotel rooms with sweeping views of Montreal, but also provides great options for the budget minded.

This guy is inspiration. Not because he is living his dream, or enjoying life for all it's worth, but because he is living proof that you can survive beyond 40 years of age with severe obesity.

What a great animal!

Easing racial tension with a black versus white basketball game.

My housemate Leighenne.

I guess people in Canada have a lot of free time, they were actually broadcasting the football match I went to.

Snow cones are actually a lot like Canadian football. They're bright and colourful, they look great, and are both pretty good for a few minutes, but if you have too much quickly your brain begins to hurt.

I think this guy managed to touch the ball, maybe even catch it. They carried him off the field in a throne afterwards.

Grave robbers are a bit of a problem here.

He missed that shot. Liverpool made him a contract offer moments later.

This lovely piece of artwork is in my bedroom. It lights up and makes water and bird sounds.

I don't mean to be sexist, but we all know birds can't drive.

My friend Niamh, a Montreal local. It's sometimes really hard to understand the accent, but I can safely assume she's talking about beavers or maple syrup or something.

 

Notice the dead pigeon in the background.

CISA orientation. I could watch people stuffing their mouths full of marshmallows for hours, so I was glad they organised that as entertainment.

Leighenne making a dress out of paper for Liam from the UK. The activities had stopped by this stage, so I'm not quite sure why they're doing it.

The guy from the boat again.

I'm glad he got whatever the joke was.

Melvin from Mauritius. Around 4 foot tall, plays electric flute, and hasn't seen snow before.

 

The day of the big race, and a really tough day to rent a BIXI.

All at the the Tam Tams picnic.

CISA sports day.

What an ugly dog, but he looks so happy. Kind of a repeat of the fat man on boat photo, but I wanted to include it anyway.

Loyola Campus. Way out of town, but pretty cool.

The point of this photo is partly to show what the trains look like, but mainly so you can look at the weird face that woman is pulling.

I don't know if this was a magic show or some kind of weird mating ritual.

This one is kind of out of order, but it's in the forest at the Laurentian mountains.

Accueil pour l'instant. Je souhaite juste que je parlais français afin que je puisse le lire.

The Laurentians day trip.

What brave people. They almost drowned then just got right back in there again. No wonder health insurance costs so much here.

If some one ever says to you that shuffleboard is a good game, I would tend not to believe them, but don't ever let anyone tell you it isn't hard.

I have no idea what Melvin is doing here, but it sure looks impressive.

To set as desktop background, right click and "set image as background".

In search of Pocahontas. I didn't have the heart to tell Melvin that we were in the wrong country, and century.

The obstacle course was very tiring.

I caught this photo mid-exorcism.

St. Joseph's Oratory.

Lunji: Uses 35mm film, does drawing and painting, rides a Vespa and shot a moose on a recent hunting trip.

Louis' party.

Next week I get my test results back, buy my winter clothes and play a CD at my apartment. For all this and even more excitement, make sure you catch the next installation - “A Yard-Sale In Outremont”.