TRIUMF Guest House

Advertised as a 'boutique hotel in Vancouver'... it was truly a very nice house... I felt not too happy during my time there for a lot of reasons like I was sick the first week, then it was raining quite a bit, I missed my friends, and... the UBC campus where the house was, is soooo sooo desolate... On the one side mountains, on the other side the ocean, and trees in between... Later, one of my friends would ask, what's not to like about that? And for a long time I had thought if I had a house on the beach, I would need nothing else... But there's a difference between 'on the beach with the waves breaking withing earshot' and far enough from the beach that you don't hear them... And then add to that there is almost no life... Oh and also I went there during reading week (the spring break equivalent), so... They have state of the art buildings and all, but really UBC got no character... It might have been named one of the most beautiful campuses in the world but it is so bleh....

First Beer in Vancouver

From a microbrasserie around here... Can not hold a candle to Montréal beer... man I miss Montréal beer... a couple days later I would be chatting to someone still in Montréal, a Vancouver wannabe, who would start talking about all the wonders of BC, and in the midst she says "the beer is so much better in BC" to which I say "no no and no... there might be somethings I am yet to discover in BC, but it is not that beer is better"... she laughs... and says to me "well the next time I come, I will bring you a Fin du Monde"... That is not one of the best beers we have... I felt kinda sorry for her - she's all BC wannabe, but she doesn't know what she's missing in Montréal!!!

First sublet Vancouver

Tonight I went to see a sublet, that I think I might take. It snowed like 5mm here and the buses were like half an hour late and they were going about super slowly... hee heh...
But, like any true Montréaler would have, I braved the tiny ice crystals pricking my face and went to see the place...

It is a 2br/2bathroom apartment and a little over my budget, but I guess I am going to take it. So he was like one of like 20-30 places I contacted, but when he wrote back, he included his website and it turned out he is a semi major musician and he looked cute (!!! I know... but sometimes it is how I roll) so I agreed to see his place. Pretty soon he added me as a friend on facebook; when I actually had the chance to go through his profile, under religious views he listed ‘love’ under political views he listed ‘love’ and I was thinking oh god damn opinion-less people!!! It reminded me of this conversation I once had with a friend, he claimed hippies were not cool, cos they never really fight for anything and they are always like oh so peaceful and all. And at that time I was kinda disappointed to hear that, cos I identified myself as a hippie (a neo-hippie, to borrow from another friend) but didn’t like opinion-less people. Punks are certainly not this way he said, they do something about things. And today he said well you are a mixture of both hippy and punk... I am not sure the punks will welcome me into their ranks... the hippies probably will (maybe also because they are opinion-less)!!!

Anyway to get back, so as expected he was a total hippy... But like I said to some people, better chill than mean, so... But he did seem to be a bit pushy... he is going to shove the parking spot down my throat and I really don’t wanna pay another $50 for parking when I can very well park on the street. So we shall see... I said yes to him... partly because I felt obligated, somehow he talked as if I promised to stay there (he didn’t say this outright, which made it hard for me to be totally pissed and walk away) and he started calling me ‘love’ in his texts and e-mails and what not - now if that’s not hippy I don’t know what is!!! So I said ok, for one month... and the first thing I did when I got home was to look for sublets for April...

Also this past week, two people told me how Vancouverites are laid back, they said this as a plus point, but I do not like people who don’t have opinions, really! So we shall see if I will find nice opinionated people in Vancouver!

Peace man!

Red Burrito

Have you ever had one of those mega burritos (from a chain) that are not even vaguely resemblant of any Mexican food, let alone Mexican burritos, and enjoyed it? Well I just went to Red Burritos and... and... I was in heaven. I know sometimes I can be ‘pas de class’!

Everybody Moves On...

So I received this mail today about my previous experiment’s regular meeting and there was this agenda rich with contributions. It feels weird to see this. I was so involved in this experiment and now I have left, and life seems to go on there without anyone so much as blinking (not that I want every thing to come to a drop dead stop just because I left... but it does feel weird). I wonder how long it will be before I will feel this way about Montreal. I’m sure they miss me, just as much as I do them... On the one hand I dig the gypsy in me... the ability to be detached, to just pack up and move... on the other hand it would be nice to belong to some place....

But now old friends are acting strange,
they shake their heads, they say I've changed.
Something's lost but something's gained
in living every day.
- Joni Mitchell in Both Sides Now

Today turns out to be an extra gloomy day - I am thinking, today is Wednesday, and shouldn’t I go to my club du conversation du français? Well, if I were in Montréal... I miss them so much... people at the atelier... the laughter, the honesty, the bond...

Winter coats in Vancouver

It’s getting cold in Vancouver and I am still in denial (or maybe not in denial... but I refuse to wear a winter coat anyway). So seeing me in my thin sweater,

office mate : “are you going to walk to the house like that?”
me : “yeah, why not?”
office mate : “err... you must have had a winter coat in Montréal, no?”
me “precisely my point, I would be an embarrassment to all of Montréal if I wore a winter coat in *Vancouver*”
office mate : ”well I am from Minnesota, do you see me going around in a thin sweater?”
me : “well you are an embarrassment to your people”
office mate : “oh for fuck sake... just get in the car”
me : “ok, I’ll take the ride, but not because I am cold... (brrr)”

and to think that I seriously thought of throwing away my winter coat on the day I arrived in Vancouver... I mean like throwing it away in the garbage... I thought, “well it is old, besides I don’t think I am going to need it in Vancouver... well at least not this winter...” It is old alright, but, man am I glad I kept it... my faithful winter coat...

Unfulfilled Love

“only unfulfilled love is romantic” - Maria Helena in Vicky Christina Barcelona I feel my love to the people (and by people I don’t just mean Montréalers, but all those people I met here in Montréal) and the city of Montréal was very fulfilled... hence I go with a less heavy heart than I left Minneapolis... Or it may just be the stress of wrapping up a whole condo, putting it on sale and moving out is still overwhelming me, that I don’t have the time to hunker down in a corner and cry...

Home Sweet Home

It was a good condo, my first condo, the first place that I ever owned... It is like this that I first fell in love with it 2.5 years ago, at its barest, it was still the prettiest place I had ever seen. Over the months it gained character through my part physicist, part neo hippy personality, and it was filled with the voices of many people, mostly friends, but sometimes not so friends, but always people who were so interesting, people from all over the world. Boy friends, potential boy friends, just friends... Dinners, drinks, pot, conversations, political, sociological, moral... The sun shining ever so brightly, it is a perfect reflection of my life here in Montréal - a life lived to the fullest, no regrets... just only not enough time... I could easily come and live in Montréal again and find things to keep my awe.... What a charming little condo....

A few days after I moved to Vancouver, I would look at its pictures, and I think I can probably not stand to see it for real one more time... I might just call off the sale...

René Lévesque

Enough mush mush.. time to vent...

So we were walking in the parliamentary grounds... and there were all these statues of former Québec premiers, among them, my favorite and most respected, René Lévesque. I know he was a vocal advocate of QC separation, but not in this racist exclusive way this Marois woman does. I have always claimed that it is hard to be a separatist without being a racist, with the one exception of René Lévesque. Besides he fits my ideal human - he gave his life for the cause that he thought was right (and actually under him I would have voted for separation, if I hadn’t known what crazy successors he would have, and Marois is not alone, Parizeau also comes into mind...), lived a common man’s life smoking and having café in your neighborhood coffee shops (in those good old days when you could smoke inside coffee shops and politicians could exist without body guards) and also apparently dressed shabbily and smoked his life away (as evidence by the missing button on his statue). To clarify, I don’t care too much for smoking and being the health freak I am prefer non-smoking, but I advocate the right of an adult human being to do what they want... and smoking does impart some romantic idealism.... :) So anyway, this group of people walk up to his statue, clearly at least some of them were Quebecois francophone, just said a couple jokes and posed for photos, hugging the statue or cradling their head in his larger than-life palms... and they did not say a word, about the struggles of the man who fought so they could walk freely and speak French without embarrassment, here in Québec. I wonder what René Lévesque would have said about that episode... probably taken a deep breath of nicotine and said “c’est la vie”... I on the other hand am disgusted...

Bye bye Québec

In a fitting tribute to the place I called home for more than two years, the place I felt most in sync with its people, I spent the last weekend as I did my first weekend here. That warm summer first weekend in June of 2008, I went to Québec City, by train, for a conference (like I wrote here). This cold snowy last weekend in February, I went there again, by train. It wasn’t planned to be all nostalgic... I just realized this while I was on the train... That first weekend I took the train with a whole bunch of people who were in awe of me (and me of them) and we seemed really to like one another. Today two of them are all but estranged, two of them remain close friends... Today I took the train with my best friend, (so best that I will list him as my emergency contact in all the bureaucratic documents in Vancouver and Japan) and my closest confidante. What will our future bring?

There they go...

There they all go... Within a month I will learn that this all will cost my employer an arm and a leg, which is not my concern, but also me... The cost of all this shipped will exceed my moving allowance...