Today is Friday and I'm really enjoying my week off from university. I'm supposed to be doing a lot of work, and I have done some stuff, but I've also been busy with things that don't quite equate to studying..
Last weekend David, Ashley, Sukrit and I went to Montreal, a city to the east of Toronto. It's about a 6.5 hour drive (= appr. equal to driving from Amsterdam to Paris), and it's located in the French part of Canada. Luckily nearly everyone there speaks English as well, so we were able to get around quite easily. Suk and I staid at Sarah's place, this girl who was in my high school in Oman. It was really great to see her again. She lives really close to the centre of the city, which was great because due to extreme weather circumstances (-35 degrees!!) non of us really felt like walking a great deal. Montreal is a really nice city, but because I had heard so much about it being so much more European than Toronto, I had expected this really France-like city. And this wasn't really the case. There were some really nice buildings and some streets with really cute houses, but it wasn't that much different from Toronto. However, I've only seen a small part of the city and I didn't even go to Old Montreal, so maybe I'm completely wrong... The thing that is very European though, is that the shops close at 5:00 during the weekend. So when we arrived in Montreal the shops were all nearly closed and the city died out pretty soon after that. But Sarah adviced us to go have something to eat at this Lebanese place, which was really nice. The restaurant itself wasn't very pretty (and that on our Valentine's day!), but the food was amazing and you got huge quantities! So we really enjoyed that.
At night Sarah and her friends took us to this bar. Because the drinking age is lower in Quebec (it's 18 instead of 19) and because they weren't checking I.D.'s at the door, there were a lot of young people there (read 15-year-olds), who obviously didn't know how to handle their alcohol. It was actually quite amusing to see them, because they were knocking over chairs, puking in the middle of the bar, making out for hours... I wonder if we were like that when we were young as well.. :)
The next day we went shopping, and in the evening we went to this restaurant where you could bring your own wine. The food was absolutely amazing! And Mum, you'll be proud to know that I was trying virtually all types of food! I had veal (which I usually don't eat coz I feel sorry for the animal), mussles (and I actually liked them!), and even snail! After the dinner we went to this club called Tokyo where we could have free drinks midnight. We went there with a couple of Chinese girls who Sukrit knew from Toronto, and Dave and Ashley. The music was all right, nothing really amazing. But we really had a good time. Especially Sukrit and Dave, who ran from one bar to the next so they could collect as many drinks as possible before twelve.
Monday we went shopping again. This time I actually bought stuff though. I have two new handbags (one for going out, one for regular use coz my previous bag is kaput)?, two new pair of shoes and four new shirts. So now I'm broke.. :(
That night we first went to smoke shisha at this bar. And it was gooood! I love that stuff! For some reason I can never get my shisha pipe to work as well as they do in restaurants. And they had Bailey's coffee there as well so I was having a good time! The Chinese girls wanted to go to a stripclub for girls afterwards, but we found out that it was closed. So we ended up going to this stripclub for guys. It was pretty funny, coz it was four girls and Sukrit. He felt like a real pimp! Until they asked him if he wanted to pay the drinks for all the ladies... :) We didn't stay at the stripclub for very long coz eventually it got kinda boring. The girls were just kinda walking around on the stage, not really doing anything drastic.. But it was fun.
We left for Toronto the day after that.
Yesterday Sukrit and I went to Dagmar Ski Resort for a day, which was organised by the International Student Centre. I had heard all these crappy things about the resort because it was supposed to be quite small, so I expected a slope the size of our indoor ski-slopes in Holland. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised, because the hill turned out to be a lot bigger than that. Nothing compared to the Austrian Alpes, but there were several lifts and several different slopes. And even Sukrit enjoyed himself after being taught how to break. He was doing pretty well. He accidently skied backwards once though, and bumped into a wooden fence. And also once his butt got stuck on the ski lift, forcing him to jump off the chair in mid-air. That was pretty funny.
So, today... I really have to do some studying. I'm a bit sick though, I've been coughing like crazy, which is really starting to get to me! But it's all good, life is great and I'm going to Algonquin Park next week! So for all of you who think that by now I've started to miss Holland and hate Toronto: think again! I don't want to leave anymore! :)
Click on Montreal or Ski trip.