Les [etes] de mon enfance etaient des saisons [petits, petits].  Nous vivions en trois lieux: l’ecole, [la piscine de natation et en Montreal] mais la vraie vie etait [en Montreal].  Les vrais combats se gagnaient [en Montreal].  La vrai force appraissait [en Montreal].  Les vrais chefs se manifestaient [en Montreal].

See ya in a week!! 😉

If you haven’t seen Paris, JE T’AiME you probably don’t know much about it.  It’s not so much a movie, but 18 Mini Movies.  It’s kind of a Frenchified [and better] Love Actually.  It probably goes without saying… I recommend it.

I’ve now seen it twice.

Since it’s not really a movie.  I’m not really wrecking the ending.  This is, however, from the very last scene.  It’s translated; in the movie, it’s in French because the speaking character’s an anglophone French Student (like me) doing a French Presentation as best she can.

“I found a very pretty little park.
I sat down on a bench, and ate the sandwich I had bought.
It was very tasty.
And then something happened, something that is hard to describe.
Sitting there, alone in a foreign country, far from my job and all the people I knew,
a feeling came over me.
As if I recalled something, something that I had never known
and for which I had been waiting.
But I didn’t know what it was.
Maybe it was something I had forgotten.
Or something I had missed my whole life.
I can only tell you that at the same time, I felt joy and sadness.
But not a great sadness.
Because I felt alive.
Yes. Alive.
That was the moment when I fell in love with Paris
and the moment I felt that Paris had fallen in love with me.”

and now, obviously, I need to go.  Any takers?

So, in my humblest of opinions, I spent Monday and most of today sitting pretty high in my week-long French Class.  I was now FINALLY pronouncing some words with some amount of accuracy.  I was now able to actually express actual thoughts rather than random descriptions and colours of random objects and office supplies but today all that may have changed.

I was bumped up a level.  HA!  In three days I’m now in Level 3!!!  Imagine that!!  It was during the last break… I was pulled aside and asked if I thought I’d be bored if I continued in Level 2.  I said I didn’t really think so but that I was willing to try one higher.  It was all based on today’s activity, describing a city… I of course chose Montreal and knocked one out of the park!

So I joined a totally new and different bunch for the last hour.  Holy intimidating!  a) I have no idea what they’ve learned the last two days…. b) they’re all reading my abilities…. c) i don’t even know the tense they’re talking in.

We’ll see how tomorrow goes.  :S

Hopefully, well.  I’m pretty much ready to be French.

the last e-mail ‘facebook message’ that i received from dvb, my now-australian bff who knows me better than most, ended with:

well, cheers, I hope you have a blast in Montreal! It hasn’t failed us yet 🙂

as always, he’s quite wise: i will and it really hasn’t.

i’m sad he won’t be along for this adventure.  if he were, it would be our third round at this exact same time of year.
(in fact, if he were along, it would be his turn to be patient with me, with a patience level beyond most’s capacity, because that’s how the pendulum has worked so far.)

see: to date, montreal has been the place of discoveries, and new beginnings.  the place of patios, dancing, street festivals, metro-navigating, laughter, intense weather, accommodation nightmares, language barriers, and stories you would have had to live to fully comprehend.  i have a fondness for montreal comparable to my connection to trochu’s calmness, red deer college’s bricked halls, or red robin’s dimmed lights after close.

when you realize all that, it doesn’t seem strange that mind, body, and soul i’m excited for this trip.  it doesn’t seem as strange that next week i’m taking a week-long intensive french class in preparation.  or that i’m going to the gym/swimming so i can feel my best when i’m there.  or that much of my e-mail/texting/facebook time has been devoted that chunk of my summer break.  see: part of me’s already there.

I was just able to take my family to Montreal [more accurately, they took me].  While I’m aware that the twinkle in my eye while there outweighed their twinkles collectively, it was really great to share with them a place i’m so excited about and connected to.

So here’s to round 5 (Round 5 in two short years).  Here’s to it being a blast.  And here’s to a city and culture that hasn’t failed me in any way, shape, or form to date!  The more the merrier, so if I see you there… just look for the big smile attempting his best-french and best-dancemoves!
😀

10… 9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1……

[click above or see my facebook for the pics]

10 is the 10 (or maybe more… it’s hard to keep count) Coaster Rides at Canada’s Wonderland. – I was impressed!! There were basically no lines… and the rides were pretty alright.  From Sponge Bob 3D to Mom even riding the Italian Job.  A full five stars!

9 is Row 9 – On Westjet… that was our home both directions.  TV both ways.  That never happens to me.

8 is the 8 Years it’s been since my High School trip to Ottawa – and I still knew my way around.  Best part: probably the Sound and Light Show.  I almost had patriotic goosebumps.  Did you know Canada had the first daily newspaper?

7 is 07/07/07 – Mine won’t be remembered by a wedding.  It’ll be remembered by a visit to Niagara Falls.  It’s part Banff; part Vegas; part quite-something else.  The best part was by far the cheesy Maid of the Mist journey

6 is the 06 recap of the Stanley Cup Play-Off Movie at the Hockey Hall of Fame – the whole place is like a church to Hockey.  Ya, I saw the cup… but it’s not the traveling one so that’s boring.  I think I even saw people from Red Robin that I know in the movie but I’m not super sure.

5 is the 5 Homeruns I saw the Jay’s score at the Jays Cleaveland Game – So so fun.  It was my first 7th Inning Stretch and my first Skydome Hotdog.  Cleaveland only scored 3.

4 is the fact that this was my 4th time to Montreal – When I go two weeks today it will be my 5th.  What a perfect little city.  I love that it even smells familiar.

3 is 3 Towers – Toronto’s CN Tower, Ottawa’s Peace Tower, Montreal’s Olympic Tower… the scariest is the glass floor in TO.  Who knew I’d be such a wimp.

2 is 2 Subway Day Passes – the Classic Montreal Metro and the good ol’ Finch Train in TO.  I love subways.  So urban.

1 the number of times I had poutine – It was Pie-IX station… and as always I only really wanted one bite.  After that poutine’s always a ‘meh’.