Alrighty posting time about Montreal

OH CANADA!

Ok so I feel kinda behind on this blog, and I feel bad since I haven't posted in a while. So here's what I did and experienced in a week:

Montreal truly is a lot to take in. I was a bit overwhelmed with the city itself. I suppose it hit me all once, since it hadn't really sunken in that I was going to be away from everyone that I know. At the airport, it was a real trip for me to actually hear and see people interchange from French to English and vice versa so easily. It was even more shocking for me personally to hear Asian residents speaking French when I expected them to spew Mandarin or Cantonese. Quel suprise!

On the topic of French, I would say I quickly discovered how much I had forgotten by taking a year off from practicing the language. I pretty much made a fool of myself when I got my first metro pass. It basically boiled down to:

Me: Bonjour, je veux un billet pour le metro.
Ticket lady: [lots of fast French]
Me: [Looking confused] uhhhhhhh...vous parlez anglais?
Ticket lady: [does a LOL] yes

There go all those years of sitting in French class!

Anyway, when I moved in, I was slightly disappointed to find that only one other person would be on my floor for the summer. I live in an house with a bunch of rooms owned by McGill, but it's a sublease, so it's significantly less than what the University would charge me. It's a cozy little room with a good kitchen , see below:

Anyway, my neighbor Charles is an MBA student, and he seems to be really nice. He pointed me out on the first day where to go shopping and go for a quick bite. There are some people upstairs, so hopefully I'll meet them soon. Charles also told me that Montreal closes off one major street called St. Catherine's for pretty much the whole summer, because that's where all the bars are. Definitely will partake.

One criticism I immediately had were the prices for food. $3.99/lb for tomatoes!?! Absurd! I guess it's the city, but still. Outrageous. Startin' to miss those Atlanta prices right about now. So yeah, I also made two mistakes when shopping. I was 1. hungry when shopping and 2. i bought too much. The former kinda led to the latter, but ultimately, I looked like a fool dragging my groceries all the way back to my apartment. And I was starving. So now I try to shop every 1 or 2 days for fresh items, and I'm guarding my budget very strictly.

Oh and for the green folks out there: Canada charges you five cents per plastic bag. Annoying? For a guy who doesn't have a reusuable sac? Yes. I will get one very soon.

Also for the green folks. Exhibit A: Bag of milk. not bottles. not cartons. Bags.

I suppose the one benefit for being very close to the US is that you can pay for stuff in USD as long as it's in cash, which was very helpful when I left my credit card at my place on accident.

The day after I moved in, I was going to call the lab to let them know I was stopping by. Wait, I can't because I don't have a cell phone. Oh no! (Side note: as part of budgeting I decided to just forgo a cell phone, since I'm pretty sure I can just get by with email and the internet). Anyway, I decided to stop by the lab and make my existence known. Along the way, I got a good tour of McGill's campus...because I got lost. I'm probably the world's worst traveler (hehe). Anyway, I introduced myself to some of the lab staff, but the guy for whom I'll be working, along with my PI, were not there, so I did what any other sensible person would do: Go to the pub to watch the Canadiens/Flyers game.

I went to to this pub called McLean's, and it was the typical bar setting, except everyone was really into the game, since the Canadiens hadn't scored a goal in two games. The beer and fish and chips were good, and the Canadiens won! Unfortunately, they're not in the finals for the Stanley Cup but oh well.

More research: the next day the post doc for whom I work showed me around the lab and gave me a fast intro to what we would be doing for the summer. For most of the day, I observed electrophysiology experiments with hippocampal brain tissue as well as mouse hippocampus extraction. It was pretty darn cool.

After that Friday, Charles told me that it was a long weekend (Monday was Queen Victoria's birthday), which gave me loads of time to tour Montreal! I won't post all of it now; I'll save it for the next post, but one of the highlights of my weekend was going to the top of Mont-Royal in the Mont-Royal park, which was designed by the same guy who did Central Park in NYC. Here are some pictures I took on my hike: The first was on the furthest side of the park and the 2nd and 3rd are pictures of the city from the top of the mountain.

I also went to the Jean Talon Market, where local fresh produce and plants can be bought, and it was absolutely overwhelming. Prices were slightly lower than the local grocery stores, but the food there was awesome.

Awesome bakery that had the best bread!

People at the Market

It's Tin Tin!

Alrighty, that's all for now folks. I hope to post sooner about the other things I did this past weekend including going to Chinatown and Vieux Montreal as well as this weekend's events :)

Until then!