KatieTheKat

No, I'm not talking about myself. I was sitting in a tent at the Jazz Fest, waiting for Little Miss Higgins to come onstage, and there was a vacant seat next to me. Seeing a woman looking for a place to sit, I motioned her over. It wasn't until she sat down beside me that I realized the flowery pink bag she was carrying had a mesh panel on the end, behind which a frightened-looking white cat huddled. I asked the woman what her cat's name was and she told me "chat blanc" in a voice that was high-pitched and mousey. She then immediately proceeded into a 5-minute long monologue which I think was about the history of the cat and its siblings whom she found somewhere in Saskatchewan. I found the mousey, fast-paced French hard to follow. Eventually she asked me a question and finally paused in her speech, and I had to ask her to repeat it a couple of times, at which point she suggested she switch to English. I thought this would prove easier to understand, but in that I was mistaken. It was around this point that I picked up the stench of cat urine that was emanating either from the woman or her poor cat's tiny carrier - probably both. The chairs were packed so tightly that I couldn't introduce any extra space between me and cat woman - on my other side so close that I had to hunch my shoulders inward was a smoky-scented boisterous character, also from Saskatchewan. It may seem strange that I was surrounded by Saskatchewanians at a concert in Montreal, but when Little Miss Higgins came on stage she explained that she was in fact from Saskatchewan also, and not from Ontario as all of the festival information had claimed. I noticed a quality in her voice something like squeaky cat lady's, but not quite to the same extreme. Anyhow, despite or perhaps in addition to my interesting neighbours, the show was really good.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for one night, the following session was a free harmonica lesson. There I received a free harmonica and saw the most spectacular harmonica-only band I have ever witnessed.

Other things that have been happening. Well, I guess I haven't blogged since Deb and Andre came to town last week - I was too busy at the time, and ever since I've been mostly busy working. Busy doing what? Well.. eating lots of fat and carb laden Quebecois foods such as poutine, bagels, smoked meat, pigs' feet, cheese, cretons, and the Binerie's famous feves au lard, complete with molasses on the side. Mmm, beans. The pool of lard at the bottom of the dish seems a little much, but yes, they are tasty. On the healthier side, we also managed to fit in an overnight kayaking/canoeing trip in Parc de la Mauricie. Unfortunately no meese were to be seen, but we got a good dose of mosquitoes and did see a porcupine on the side of the road. Aside from that, the week consisted of much exploring less-touristed areas of the city, searching for tartes aux framboises (still yet to be found), checking out a fringe festival play and joining a couple of participatory parades, and randomly meeting people I have met in my meagre few weeks here. In fact the random meeting happened again last night at the Jazz Fest - in line at a food stand I met up with the other girl who came along on my ride to Toronto. So even though there are enormous crowds everywhere, this is apparently a small city.

One such enormous crowd was that at the Fete de St. Jean, a Quebec-specific (or is it European too?) holiday that involves dressing up in blue and white, displaying flags, wearing silly hats, drinking beer and partying. It will be interesting to compare it to Canada Day, which is a rather controversial day in this province. I must have been taken for a local a couple of weeks ago when I was invited to a Seperatist Canada Day boycott.

Well, that's it for me for tonight. Tomorrow I actually DO work at 8am, unlike today when I THOUGHT I worked at 8am and didn't discover my mistake until the little meeting in which restocking tasks are assigned. zzz.

A la prochaine!

Kat

Internet on the Street Corner. So today when I got home from work a man was sitting on the steps of the apartment next door. We exchanged a few words and I soon discovered that he was, in fact, the landlord of the building. I asked him if, by chance, he had wireless Internet that I could use and he said he did indeed and would come by with the password after his wife got home. When he came by, the instructions were fairly long and in large part superfluous, but they made me believe that I needed to do some extra configuration on my side before seeing the network given that I was not receiving a signal with the network name provided. So I fiddled around with settings for some time and was having no luck and eventually realized that although some of the error messages I was getting appeared to be somewhat helpful, they really meant nothing at all since I would get the same error even if I tried to connect to a completely made up non-existant network like "scoobooo". So I began to wonder if the problem was with the signal - even though I believed it to be coming from next door in an area of high-density housing, the walls are made of brick and therefore likely to be quite impenetrable. So I took my computer out to the sidewalk to see what signals I could catch there.. I saw the name of the network I was trying to connect to a couple of times, but couldn't actually establish the connection. Meanwhile, as I wandered around with computer in hand, I heard the landlord calling from above me. He invited me up to see if we could figure out what was going on - as soon as I went into their apartment (which it turns out was not directly next door to mine - there is a hallway in between), I immediately had a solid connection. Turns out the brick wall is a bigger problem than I would have expected. Wifi shielding, apparently. So I can use my neighbour's Internet connection.. I just have to sit on his front step or on the street corner to do so. That was a long and uninteresting story. My goodness.

Xword. I bought a book of crossword puzzles yesterday since I thought it would be a good way to practice some French. French crossword puzzles are hard. At least these ones are. Though, like most crossword puzzle books, I am already finding the puzzles tend to be rather unimaginative. Ok sure there isn't a lot of variety in two-letter words, but the reliance on symbols from the Periodic Table seems to be rather high.

Mannequins and legs. Brenda mentioned to me the other day that she has a mannequin in her.. kitchen, I think it was? Anyhow, she got me thinking about mannequins which led me to realize that I find mannequins and particularly just the legs of mannequins seem to be a particular phenomenon in Montreal. On coming here I immediately recognized the sock/clothing store called Neon from my previous visit because it has 4 mannequin legs in brightly coloured long socks on display in its front. But that is not all. I have seen mannequin legs in all kinds of other stores and also just randomly sticking out of buildings. Is it just me, are plastic legs popular here? And does anyone else find them rather creepy, as I do?

French words. There is a guy going through some of the same training sessions as I who tends to use a lot of slang words in French and also borrowed from English. I found it amusing to note that today he referred to something "cool" saying "c'etait malade!", like my former roommate would say that something was "sick" in English (as in, "that was a sick party, man!" or something to that effect). I wouldn't have expected such an expression to be translated so directly. I have also heard a lot of what we in French Immersion would have called Franglais - I wonder if it is becoming more common here in Montreal with the greater infusion of English into cultures everywhere or if it is more just a feature of Quebecois. In any case I hear a lot of things like adding french verb endings to English verbs, a smattering of English slang and jargon within otherwise pure French, and literal translations of figurative expressions/product names (eg. the brand Camelbak leads to a hydration bag being called a "chameau", though only by the mec in my MEC training group, not most people). It seems like basically anything goes.

I have been uncommunicative here for a couple of reasons: 1 is that I still have no Internet at home, so to access the Internet I take my computer to a coffee shop with free wireless and I don't do that everyday (though nearly) - I feel so disconnected! 2 is perhaps some correlation with coming to a French-speaking place, or maybe even more so with coming to a place where part of the time I speak in English and part of the time I speak in French, and in each new situation I'm never sure which will be appropriate. It seems like the result of this situation, thus far, is that I tend not to talk a lot because I tend to find myself searching for the right words in either language. I'm not sure how to describe it really. I expect that it will pass with spending more time here and I really will achieve the goal of being more confident in French, but the intermediate stage is difficult. It reminds me of my first week in Portugal - except there I really had a reason not to speak and I often couldn't understand what was going on either.. I haven't become a mute or anything like that, but I do find complexity is added to the already somewhat challenging task of striking up a conversation with a stranger when you're not sure whether to begin in French or English. It doesn't make sense though, really. I think it is just a psychological block. Anyhow. I will get over it soon.

Meanwhile. Yesterday I had a fun day at "Swing L'Ete" - I haven't been swing dancing really since 5 years ago or so when I used to go semi-regularly in Vancouver. It was fun and I sort of remembered what to do. The venue was fantastic - a shaded dance floor in a park down by the river. The weather was warm and sunny - a little too warm, really, but luckily a cool breeze would pick up once in a while. I met a few interesting characters - unfortunately not from Montreal - they were Ottawaers (ottawaites? ottawaians?) who apparently are Swing Dancing fanatics because they came to Montreal on 4 hours' sleep after an all-night Swing extravaganza in Ottawa. We snacked and chatted after the dance and managed to navigate our way into the center of town though a good general sense of direction mixed with some trial and error. I then met up with Hans and his daughter Andrea in the midst of the Formula One crowd down on Crescent St (where it took me about 20 minutes to walk up one block due to the hordes of people crowding the sidewalks). After a light dinner and a wander through the throngs to admire some ridiculously expensive and strangely outfitted cars, we made our way to the Old Town for drinks on one of Montreal's many outdoor patios. Watching a woman drawing portraits and others drawing caricatures made me recall my idea, not yet put into action, of finding such a spot to set up my own little sketching/drawing kiosk where I could draw stick figures or something of the like just to see if anyone would actually offer to buy them. I really must do that one of these days.

The day before was another day of wandering around - I headed up to the top of Mont-Royal and as I was walking down, discovered I had passed the point where I had wanted to descend. Instead of backtracking, I opted for taking an unofficial trail down which was really more of a rock climbing/bouldering route. It was pretty exciting, especially given that the rock was a little slippery, I was only wearing sandals, and there were pieces of broken bottles strewn about the trail. It did at least feel like a bit of adventure, which I needed since I haven't yet made it out of town on any sort of backpacking trip. Soon, I hope.

This week I have several days of work/training to look forward to, not to mention the staff auction tonight.

Well, that's all for now. I hope I am not too late to join the weekly drumming circle up on Mont Royal that I have not yet attended!

Quebecois du jour: I believe that "une fille craquante" means "a hot girl" (according to an ad for Axe deodorant on the metro). I wonder if the same adjective works for guys.

A plus tard,

kat

Thursday afternoon - no reservation at a hostel for the weekend. Not much money. In need of a plan. Kat ponders many options such as going to Mont-Tremblant (expensive), getting a ride to Trois-Rivieres or somewhere in the vicinity with Allo-Stop (but how to get where I actually want to go from there?), going to Ottawa (to do what/see who?), going to Toronto to see Mikee (but buses/trains are expensive!). Ponders.

Friday morning, 10AM - a new posting on the Montréal craigslist rideshare page. Someone is going to Toronto at 11AM. Kat calls and arranges a ride at a good price. Hopes the driver does not turn out to be crazy. 11AM - Arian and his other passenger arrive and both are exceptionally kind and friendly. A comfortable and enjoyable ride to Montréal and a semi-successful attempt to solve a Rubic`s cube ensues.

Saturday and Sunday - Kat enjoys a couple of days in Toronto involving tasty cooking, BBQing, waffles, seeing Mike Wu, witnessing some crazy sketch-inspired improv piano, a drumming circle, MarioKart, board games and more. Sunday night a ride back to Montréal with Arian again and finally moving into a new home in Montréal.

Today - cleaning, buying supplies, wandering the city, relaxing.

Tomorrow - a first day of work at MEC Montréal (training in tents and sleeping bags!).