Before I get to my actual post, I would like to point out that the following post was made possible only by the people who have nagged me to blog over the past year and a bit. Instead of posting something current like the events that are actually happening in my fourth year at the University of Toronto though, I present something extremely outdated that has nothing to do with anything unless you are one of the people mentioned in the following story. Again, the thanks goes to you who have pestered me into returning to this strange world of weblogs - you know who you are.
And without further adieu, I present the recounting of an event of March 2004 (I can't remember the exact date).
Montréal: Too cold to be cool
That's the general evaluation of my weekend. We (
Ray came with me, much to the dismay of all parties involved) just got back this morning at 6:30, having braved a midnight departure. Coming back to Toronto after that and then going off to school!? Yeah, we're crazy, of course if you've been reading my zany posts, you probably knew that a
long time ago. Anyway, the following is going to be a long-winded document relating the events of and leading up to RJ420's first out-of-province excursion. Consider it making up for my not posting anything for the last little while - just keep in mind that it really has nothing to do with compensation. I don't owe you anything. Yeah, that’s right.
DISCLAIMER: If you do not enjoy dealing with unnecessarily long strings of information, please disregard this post and
reconsider ever reading this blog again. Although I have tried to make the following account as accurate as possible, I take no responsibility for any misrepresentation which may result from it.
Poor timing and poor planning (required for any RJ420 adventure)
Although the adventure turned out to be much more fun that I might have thought it was a huge hassle to plan for in the first place. The problem was that things (defined in this context as school work, family events, and extra curricular activities) kept coming up both for us and our friends at McGill University (seems they actually have work to do at school there contrary to popular belief). We were supposed to go sometime during the last few months of first-year, then that got pushed back to sometime in November 2003, then early December, and by then there was just no point because our friends were back in Markham. As a result, January became the next logical time to go visit this bilingual city (actually probably the most logical of all times being a low-intensity point in the average academic year).
Due to an inability to coordinate (read: an inordinate amount of laziness), we almost missed out on being able to go this month. One of the main reasons we consented to this trip -because there's not much alone that gives sufficient cause to willingly submit to the horrors and pains of a frigid French-speaking city - was that fact that there was a deal offered by Greyhound whereupon the cost of adding a companion to a regular fare was $15 for one way or $30 for a round trip. Mind you this was a huge raise of price from a year ago, when the "companion fare" deal was that the 2nd ticket for a friend was FREE. Yeah, Raymond was very angry about that and we were kicking ourselves for not going sooner; actually I think in actuality Raymond was doing the kicking and I was doing my hiding-from-angry-man routine.
Good timing but bad packing
Well it turns out that it was good that we happened to go this week because our friends Jeff, Eileen and Winnie were also going as well. It promised to be a crazy weekend... but the craziness started before we even left Toronto. I had thought that our bus left at 12:05 a.m. from the Bay Street Bus Terminal in downtown Toronto. Timing myself, I left the house with my mother and brother at around 10:40 p.m., with myself driving since I didn't trust either of them to know where anything is in Toronto. Traffic was alright; I won't get into a traffic rant here but suffice it to say that this night it actually wasn't too bad and I found myself nearing the Bloor exit from the DVP at 11:12 p.m.. That's when it all went bad.
At this point of the ride, my mom commented that she didn't see the bag of things that I was supposed to bring for my friends in the backseat. I thought back and realised that indeed I did not remember taking them into the car! Quickly deciding that I would rather get there the next day WITH the goods rather than go without, I got off at the Bloor exit, and quickly re-entered the highway going northbound. Now realistically, there was no way that I could possibly do this, and I knew I was going to be late for midnight. The question was
how late.
I called Raymond (while on the highway - yes I know, bad, very bad) and told him the situation and asked him: a) to check on the next departure of the next bus to Montréal and call me back; b) to do anything possible "short of blowing up the bus" in an attempt to stall the departure time. I got back to my house at 11:37 p.m. and quickly grabbed the forgotten bag, which was sitting in the middle of my kitchen.
Bag contents (sidebar)
The items that my friends Katherine and Eva wanted me to bring were a Calculus study guide and textbook, a box of Clorox anti-bacterial cleaning wipes, a pair of skates (I have nothing to say about this one; they were nice skates), and 2 tins of home-baked chocolate chip cookies. That's right, cookies. I understand the need for the Calculus material (although not how one could leave something of such importance, bad Eva!) as well as the skates (they are nice), but cookies and cleaning napkins? I asked Katherine later when we got there and apparently in Quebec you cannot buy Clorox or
anything with a similar function. Either my friend is very bad at buying things (highly likely) or Quebec is still really a bit of a backwater place (also very likely). And as for the cookies, it turns out these aren't even what Katherine wanted at first.
She had specifically asked for ginger snap cookies from Costco; but her poor mother was feeling ill and unable to find the time to go across town to get them. Instead, the aforementioned kind sick mother spent the time to bake some tasty treats herself (a really nice mother indeed - I don't think I'd do the same for my kids). I guess Quebec doesn't sell cookies either; it must really be backwater. *grin*
Well at least between Raymond and I, we probably ending up eating half the cookies that we brought...
Crazy driving and fun ways to kill time
Returning to the "exciting-but-not-really" story, I quickly got back into the car and was headed back on the highway. Because we humans were born with that thing called hope I kept telling myself that in the end it would work out alright, even though it really was hopeless considering that when I got on the 404, it was 11:42 p.m. If I was driving faster than I should have coming back from Bloor (90-100 km/h in slushy snowy road conditions), I was really pushing it on the way back down. Fortunately upon passing a car accident on the shoulder some sense suddenly appeared in my head and I continued at a reasonable speed, all the while resigning myself to the fact that we might have to postpone the trip to a later date.
Again.
Raymond then called me alleviating my fear. It turns out that I had been misinformed about the time and our bus actually left at 12:30 a.m.! Never have I been so glad to be wrong. Sadly even with this departure time I barely made it, running out of my car stopped on the side on Bay Street. When I got there, I looked around... and could not find Raymond. I asked the bus driver and he said that the bus would be leaving in 4 minutes. Now I was in a panic once more. Attempts to call Raymond's cell were useless as I was met with a busy tone. I tried at least 6 or 7 times before I gave up, resorting to running around the small terminal looking for him. Then with 2 minutes to spare, he called ME - turns out he was trying to call me when I was trying to call him (don't you hate that?). My frantic "get here NOW, you have 2 minutes!" was met with a calm "be there in a second." Is anyone wondering where he was? Well I certainly was seeing as he had arrived WAY before me. It turns out that his girlfriend had driven him downtown and seeing as they found themselves with over 30 minutes to wait (12:30 departure instead of 12:05), they stayed in her car and… put the time to good use. Yeah we all know he's a horrible man.
The journey east and the really long stop
The bus ride was poor. Since we were one of the last people to get onboard, we really got shafted in terms of seat selection. Fortunately enough, we were at least able to find 2 aisle seats that were next to each other in the middle; unfortunately for me, the lady who was snoozing in the seat beside me was reclining in such a manner that she took up most of my leg space. Since I didn't want to disturb the elder (yeah I really should have), I ended up having to sit/slouch at a strange angle, with my feet stretched out into the aisle. Somehow though, blissful unconsciousness found me...
And then we were in Kingston, pulling into the Coach Canada bus terminal there. As I sat up straight, I realised that not only was my back was rather sore but that the stop was indeed a well-timed bathroom stop. Ray and I got out and used the restroom facilities. Afterwards we simply sat in the chairs for a while before we returned to the bus. Once on the bus we had to wait for the bus driver to return. We kept waiting, and waiting. Before he departed the driver had said it would be about a 30-minute stop. Half an hour had passed though and other passengers started to get agitated. A elder Francophone even got off the bus to inquire into the whereabouts of our driver. When he returned, he told us that the driver had walked out the back of the building. We continued waiting and it wasn't until almost 45 minutes after we had stopped when another bus driver boarded our bus. It turns out that they switch the drivers at Kingston - something I suppose makes sense since it was around 2:45 in the morning. When inquired, he said the previous bus driver had lied when he said it would be a 30-minute stop. Trying to find a comfortable position we were soon on the road again.
Arrival and phone finding
I managed to get my old seat back and to my delight, the lady beside me was considerate of my foot space when she fell into a slumber this time. Raymond was not so lucky. he must have upset the fellow who was sitting next to him earlier because although the spot was not taken, his neighbour now sitting on his seat and had put his own bags in the window seat beside him. He even gave us a look when we looked his way. Well Ray was good enough not to force the man to give him his seat back and found an empty seat nearby. I don't think he was pleased though (Raymond that is - I'm sure the man was quite pleased with himself).
Despite the extra delay at Kingston, we actually arrived at Montréal 30 minutes ahead of schedule at 6:30 a.m. With a sore back and troubled eyes (you know, the kind where your eyes are feel a sort of burning sensation - sleep on a bus is never any good), I got out of the bus and tried to get my bearings. At first we decided that we would look around to try and find our friends, whom we were hoping might have the sense to come meet us (namely Katherine). After exploring the small and dingy station, we found that our not-making-prior-arrangements-and-relying-on-telepathy-to-communicate plan was probably a bad idea.
Although we didn't have Katherine's phone number due to our terrible planning, we WERE fortunate enough that they had called Raymond from Fehmida's when were in Toronto and the number was recorded on his cell. Fortune truly favours the unprepared. *grin* And so we set out to find a pay phone. Of course being the efficient guy I am, instead of backtracking 10 steps to a row of pay phones, I insisted that we descend to the subway area where I was sure there would be a phone on our way. We looked all around the area and all we could find were many photo booths (damn it's only $3 there instead of the $4 at Markville). We didn't find a single phone. With Raymond giving me attitude for my stupidity in insisting on going into the subway station, we headed back towards the escalator up to the bus terminal. And there, small and easily missed, was a single dirty public pay phone hiding behind a phone card machine. Like I said, fortune works in great (but mysterious) ways.
Taking the Métro with Angry-man and Tim's! (métro = subway )
Once we connected with our friends (we called Fehmida's, where Katherine happened to be anyway), we worked out a plan whereby we would take the subway to meet them near McGill campus. Therefore, into the subway system we went! Here I had two observations to make. First, the Montréal subway network is much better than the TTC; I don't know the logistics of how much area they have to serve etc. but it seems to cover their city really well, whereby you can reach most parts of the city (yes I know that systems in places like Paris and Hong Kong are much better - recall that this is little old Canada here). Second, the ticket prices don't make much sense - it's 2,50$ for 1 fare, or 11,00$ for 6 tickets. Why on earth would a person ever pay 2,50$? That's a lot more than the more than the 1,83$ that it would work out to with the 6 tickets and even more than the 2,25$ single fare here in Toronto. And we complain....
It was a short trip for us in the underground; we were only about 3 stops away from where we needed to be. Nevertheless in the time, I think Raymond said enough to get us banned from the city if any officials ever heard him. He must have ranted on everything from Montréal subway trains looking cheap (and everything else about the subway), to French people not knowing how to do anything right, to the province of Quebec in general ("It's as if we've left Canada and stepped into a foreign nation! [regarding the crappiness of the country]"). Thank goodness there weren't many other people commuting at 7 on a Saturday morning.
When we got to the McGill stop (pretty original name huh?), we met up with Katherine and Fehmida. Since it was the appropriate time, the four of us went to Tim Horton's for breakfast - pretty Canadian, eh? I don't know if it was because he noticed that we were from out of province, but the cashier who handled our orders was very polite and courteous. Even Raymond commented that he was impressed with him (for the record: no homosexual undertones in that statement).
While Raymond made
an ass of himself conversation with our two McGill friends, I was trying to read the French version of the Toronto daily Metro, aptly named in Quebec, "le Métro". I have to say that after studying that language in school for 12 years (grade 1 to 11, OAC to 1st year), I'm still terrible at it. I can read/understand most of the paper but vocabulary is a huge problem. Maybe I'll go live in Montréal one day or something to immerse myself in the language...
Cold streets and smoky apartments
After the much needed coffee, we headed over to Fehmida's house. The weather that weekend was supposedly one of the frostiest this year, and it truly was brutal. Cold biting winds were the primary sources of pain, which were so bad to the point where I wished that I somehow didn't have any nerves on my face. That was just the problem; it was terribly cold but NOT enough to numb the face sufficiently. There were moments when I had just wanted to fall into a snow bank just to feel the blissful numbing cold). It wasn't that far of a walk but believe me, an old brick building in the middle of a student ghetto has never looked more appealing.
It was a cozy warm place, with 2 bedrooms, kitchen, washroom, and even space for a washer/dryer in a closet. It even had a fireplace, which I don't believe they used. Fortunately, my friend's roommate was back in Toronto for the weekend so there was one less person who would think that Raymond was a freak. After spending much time there warming up (I finished my American history notes) I headed over to Katherine's apartment to take a look at where she lived. And I should have brought some sort of breath mask.
The night before we arrived, someone on the basement floor of Katherine's building was smoking on his or her bed. Since no one ever told said person that putting the ashtray on your bed is not smart, before long the entire room was on fire. Yeah, talk about idiotic. And since smoke travels upward, the entire building smells like chemical/wood burning. Well suffice it to say that I didn't stay there very long, although her apartment is actually very nicely sized especially for a single occupant. The one thing I did do there flip through this really amazing scrapbook of memories that was given to Katherine by another friend of ours. I even was able to laugh at references to Raymond when he was in grades 7 and 8 (the book went from like grade 4 to OAC). I've done my fair share of reminiscing but this was definitely the most fun I've ever had doing it. Ah the grade eight "Raymond + Katherine" references... too good *grin*
A Fruitful Lunch and the Way to Pay
Through a series of phone calls to Katie's residence, we arranged to all have lunch together at a popular student eatery nearby. Eva joined us at Katherine's residence and we all waited outside for Fehmida to meet us. It wasn't a long wait in reality but with the cold it was all too long for me. When Fehmida arrived, the 5 of us went to meet Katie, Jeff, Eileen and Winnie. Despite our seeming tardiness, we actually managed to arrive a little before the others did.
The food was great and conversation entertaining, with the exception of the reoccurring science discussions coughFemidacough (actually I should excuse her, anyone who has memorized entire biology textbooks is bound to leak some of that information out every now and then). Tasty dishes aside, I also learned why McGill students favoured the restaurant - those with a McGill student card are entitled to free fresh fruit drink with the purchase of a meal. After a team effort to eat all the fruit (every single order came with fresh fruit on the side and Eva or Eileen ordered an EXTRA side dish of fruit) we finally got to the bill. Here things got a little silly. The deal was that: a) Katie had a card that allowed for a 10% discount, b) we were each paying separately. So what we did was each pay with the card and then subtly pass the card back to the person behind us (or in the case of Raymond, just turning around and giving the next person the card). Pretty bad, yes, but I'm sure that the cashier was used to students doing it all the time. You take what you can when you are in University...
City Shopping
The other group had already made plans as far as what they had wanted to do that day (having planned, unlike us) so Raymond and I followed Katie, Winnie, Eileen and Jeff as the girls went shopping. After going to a couple stores, we decided that it was too cold to continue outdoor street shopping so we relocated to the large system of interconnected indoor shopping areas. It was the usual sort of outing filled with the usual sort of antics: me trying on various ridiculous hats, me applying some sort of feminine scent onto Raymond's clothing/neck, the guys waiting around while girls popped into stores to "take a quick look", the girls spending an hour in a large clothing store while the guys went over to the book store next door, and of course everyone buying gelato (mango flavour for me).
As much as I make it sound boring, I actually did have fun - on my part I was trying (without success) to buy a hat to combat the cold of the city. Even though there were hats being sold all over the place, there were very few hats of any design that fit me - why is my head so big?!? Argh! Still like I said, it was an enjoyable time. If anything Montréal definitely has one up on Toronto in terms of downtown shopping; the only one thing is that the Toronto Eaton Centre is bigger/better than the Quebec structure of the same name. Winnie and Eileen were the only ones that made any purchases that day, a hat and a top of some sort I believe. Raymond also benefited; I figured that with the fruity scent he could manage not to take a shower for another day at least. =P
Eat and Sleep
The walk back to the student ghetto area seemed much shorter than the time it took us to get to the shopping. Eventually Raymond and I parted ways with the group and returned to Katherine's residence. The day seemed very long to me, as I'm sure it did to Ray. After killing more time at people's residences, it was soon enough time for dinner. Although I really wanted to sample Katherine's cooking (she was planning to make lasagne for the lot of us), I also wanted to spend a bit of time with other friends that were over in Montréal. In the end, I went out to a restaurant called Thai Express with Winnie, Eileen, Jeff, and Eva. Raymond on the other hand stayed behind at Fehmida's where pasta was being made. Dinner was a simple affair, nice being able to eat with friends in a foreign
country province. I felt a little bad though because I had told Katherine that I had wanted to sample her cooking months ago. Ah well, there's always next time.
After dinner I got my bags and went with Eva to her residence where I would be resting for the night. (Raymond stayed with Katherine who had a foldout futon/sofa - thinking about it now, it was probably very comfortable) Fortunately it was close by and the winds had died down a little at this point. When I finally got to her room, the first thing I realised was how small it was. Well... I guess they would be considered normal by single-occupant dorm room standards but I guess my double room with Raymond in RJ420 had really gotten me used to at least being able to not have to put a chair outside my room to put stuff on! Of course it might have just been the fact that there is this mat that takes up one-third of the floor space in the room and on which a person is NOT allowed to step on. There's not much else to say except that her floormates are pretty fun (and a little crazy, but mostly 'Jen' with her Hello Kitty theme song alarm clock) and McGill cots are wretched little things unless your back is
naturally hunched. At least the washrooms were clean - at least that was the impression I left with. Some time late at night or early in the morning I finally fell asleep too tired to continue reading the National Post... Oh the effort I make to stay informed.
The Great Hat Search Continues
I awoke at 10:30 in the morning feeling cold and with a slight pain in my back. Not that I complained at all since it was the first time I had gotten any decent sleep in a couple days - anything beats sleeping on a smelly bus (although the back problem persists on the bus away well). Not being a morning person, I had to be yelled at several times to hurry up, before Eva and I found ourselves at Tim Horton's for breakfast. After that I decided that my search was not over, that I HAD to find my hat.
To my surprise, Eva indulged my irrational desire and agreed to take me on my quest to find headwear fit for my crown. We went back into the same shopping complex Raymond and I went in the day before and looked for over several hours. Largely we encountered the same problem – there isn’t much that fits my head. Alas after searching high and low, we returned to one of the first stores we tried and there I purchased one of those funny looking hands with flaps that cover the ears. Very goofy looking but practicality won out in the end. Mmmm nice toasty warm ears.
The Last Supper
Afterwards, Eva and I parted ways and I returned to Katherine's appartment to meeting up with Raymond and plan the evening. Fehmida had wanted so join us for dinner since she had not seen us all that much during our visit and we decided on St. Huberts. After wasting enough time digging though Katherine's artifacts, it was finally time for dinner. Fehmida joined us at a predesignated meeting spot on the streets and our little group was making its way across the city.
Soon enough we found ourself seated at a quaint little rotisserie chicken restaurant.
There's no place like home
Eventually though it was time to go and at the last minute (because we're the people that we are) we hopped back on the subway and were thankful enough to make it to the bus station on time for our transportation. Sure enough, we were soon back in the comfort of our beds.
