Christina <3 Montreal

Montreal made it to the top of my "cities I'd like to live in"-list. It's awesome. We had some fun times hanging out in Quebec City, exploring the city and it is also a nice place, but it was not really special to me. It could have been anywhere in Europe. And it's home to the seperatists :D. Luckily they didn't kill me for insulting them in public :D. Still, after 3 days I was done with Quebec City (though Eastern-Canada's biggest mall was next to our hotel and I probably could have spent some more time in there).

So on wednesday after a short shopping-excursion we last-minute jumped on the bus to Montreal. Unfortunately our AIESECfriend whom we were supposed to stay with cancelled so we were homeless in Montreal. Which didn't really improved my mood, but I was still very impressed and amazed by the city, I just had some troubles showing it. We walked around downtown and finally found out we could stay at one of the other AIESECers places, Rafaelle. She lives in a very nice house outside the city and we had a great bed and a great breakfast there, so we hoped the next day would be better. But we didn't count on the Montreal public transport system. We had to go back from somewhere in the suburbs of Montreal to downtown, so upon entering the bus we needed to buy a ticket. I already got used to the fact that in Canadian buses, you always have to pay the exact price because they don't give change, but the Montreal ones don't even accept bills. So there we were, bus went without us until we found someone to change our money. Very annyoing. Luckily, right after this incident we could start enjoying Montreal by walking the Old Town. There's a Basilique Notre-Dame here, it looks exactly as the Paris one from the outside, only a bit smaller. Quite different from the inside, but still awesome. Very interesting light installations. The rest of the old town was also very nice. The contrast between old-town things and american-style city makes Montreal very very special. And the contrast between English and French...my french keeps getting better and better. Especially my shopping french :)

Yesterday at night we had dinner downtown and then went to "The Village", which is the gay district for drinks. A lot of gays here. Sometimes, Canada seems to me like a very very big version of the Netherlands. Lots of gays, even more weed...apart from the farm close to our congress venue, I often see people smoking or making the smoking preparations. Right now I sent Nikolai to a museum so I could catch up on my AIESEC work, facebook and write some e-mails. I decided I have seen enough museums in Copenhagen and these things also have to be done. In the afternoon we will climb the Mont Royal. And tonight finally explore Montreal Nightlife!!!!!!!

Oh and the pictures are coming...