Issue II: “That City is Going to Eat You Alive”

I arrived in the Francophone city of Montreal on the morning of the 24th after an overnight flight from Los Angeles. I got through customs easily, but had a lot of trouble buying a bus ticket into the city. I had an anxiety attack when I couldn't even read the sign on the machine and wondered what I might have got myself into, but soon realised that it wasn't in French, I was simply trying to read braille. I did eventually get into the city though, and found my hostel easily enough. I was too early to check in, so I left my bags in a locker and went to look around.

The second day in Montreal was my birthday. I didn't get up until after 10.00 because it was so dark in the dorm and I thought it must have still been before 6AM. I went into town again, and bought the banana and chocolate crépes, not because I like that combination, but the French words for chocolate and banana are very similar to English. Later on I got a lift to Old Montreal with a guy from Ford who was giving people demos of the new self-parking car. He was a Concordia student too, so he took a while to drive around and show me some stuff, then showed me how the car could park by itself without him touching the steering wheel. Later that day I met up with my housemate-to-be, Leighenne, whom I had met on the university's off-campus housing website and we just 'limed' for a while (Trinidad slang for hanging out). The next few days I walked around a lot and became friends with a guy called Tom, who I went exploring the city with.

 

Early the next week I met Niamh and went out with her and her friend Kiara, who drives a Lexus. I wished it was the new Ford model though when she tried to reverse park and knocked over a Vespa in front of a restaurant full of people. Then as always, I went back to the dorm and slept. Daniel and Michael, 2 of my dorm mates moved out on the same day later that week, and a French guy called Phillip and another guy whose name I never caught, moved in. Phillip was a nice enough guy, but had some trouble getting into the bunk without scaring the other people at the hostel into thinking we were feeling the aftershocks from the East Coast earthquake. And he must have watched a freaky movie before going to bed both nights, because he started almost-yelling French at around 2AM, sounding very distressed.

I moved into the apartment on Thursday afternoon and didn't do much all weekend except for going to a college football game with Tom on Saturday. In the end I was really glad that I waited for 30 minutes for a bus that never arrived, then caught a bus 20 minutes in the wrong direction before realising, and finally arriving an hour and a half after kick off, because it meant I only had to sit through 55 minutes of game time (for those of you who don't know, that's a joke. The game has 60 minutes of play, but when they take a time-out every time someone blinks the game can end up running for three straight weeks).

Leighenne moved in on Monday, so we spent the afternoon liming and went for a walk around the neighbourhood. University began on the 6th, so tune in for the next chapter titled “Scholastic Endeavours: Kyan Goes to his First Class of University in Montreal, and Other Fun Stories” to read all about it.