montreal

Since months and months before the start of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, Canadians and Canadian press has put so much pressure on Canadians to win gold on home soil. In the two past times that Canada has hosted in the Olympics, gold has never been won.

1988 Winter Olympic Games, Calgary AB => 0 gold, 2 silver, 3 bronze
1976 Summer Olympic Games, Montréal, QC => 0 gold, 5 silver, 6 bronze

Those are the stats, and we’ve been hearing them on CTV’s coverage ever since well before the games. Everyone in the country isn’t worried about Canadians winning medals, but they are worried about when and if a gold medal will arrive. The pressure is felt even by me, it’s incredible.

Canada’s first hope was in the Women’s Freestyle Skiing : Mogols event, with defending Olympic Champion Jenn Heil trying to defend her title. She narrowly is beaten by an American who gloats around the area with the bronze medalist American, meanwhile Heil was gracious in defeat with her silver medal. It was the most disappointing smile I’ve ever seen in my life: simply heartbreaking.

Redemption came a day later, when Canadian Freestyle Mogols skiier Alexandre Bilodeau takes to the stage. Narrowly behind Canadian born Aussie, he edges him out to win gold, and the gold rush in Canada begins. CTV has been showing a special on Bilodeau for a few days ago; and about his old brother, his best friend, who has cerebral pausly; and how it inspires Alexandre to do well and to keep on going.

The relief is instantaneous, and thank god for Bilodeau having the balls to get it over with. No Canadians can focus on performing, and not stressing about if they are going to win or not. All I can say is “Thank God,” now lets go get ‘er Canada!

When Markus’ family and company left Bridge Street Café, we were going back to Amherst to drop off his sister, Sarah to her cute house out on the marsh. It smelt like Christmas, which was amazing, and then we were off to Halifax. During the drive, Markus and I clearly were tired and hung-over, to the point that we didn’t last five minutes in the car without falling asleep.

When I woke up we were in Dartmouth, having passed the entire province without me noticing (awesome), and we had to get some food for the engagement I was going to in the evening with Markus, and for the dinner. I found that my dear friend is in fact a celebrity in the East coast, as just about everyone knows who he is and thus we must stop to talk to everyone. Slightly awkward, but I just pretended to not speak English and keep quiet in the background; I didn’t expect to be introduced anyways! I can’t imagine how much more awkward that would have been.

We arrived into Lake Echo, where he lives, and we shoveled the walkway since a storm had arrived when we were coming through. Greg and Joanne were shocked that I wasn’t cold in shoveling the driveway without a scarf or mittens, I guess we become immune at some point. We went in for some hot cocoa and then the tour de maison as Markus stated. Their beautifully decorated house has an amazing view of Lake Echo (how ironic), and just so much character. We made dinner and floated over to Markus’ friend’s house.

The original engagement was cancelled since Stacey got sick at the last minute, but it was okay. We were there, and we heard stories of wild Australia, and random East-Coast adventures. I probably drank too much, and thus my tounge was a little loose, but it was all in good fun as apparently I’m a riot!

We headed back and “hung” around for some long hours talking, before I fell asleep on the most comfortable pull-out bed ever. It was just perfect, minus one thing. I got a little upset during the evening, but it was all fine when I woke up and we were headed into Halifax. We did some errands on the way in Dartmouth, and then we got dropped off at the harbour of Halifax.

We walked around through the mall, got some mango shakes, checked out the people (aka people watching) and continued on our travels up to the Citadel and Historic district. The tour was amazing, and quick! The usage of complicated phrase structures and obscure words were making me hot, so we thought that it was better to go back to the meeting spot to avoid anything else more scandelous!

We made it back to meet Joanne and then proceeded to Halifax International Airport where we had a coffee and I got onto my flight, in the most unrushed flight process ever. I could have gone through security at five minutes before departure and it still would have been good. Tears were shed, and Christmas Joy was spread all around, and I was off to Montréal to make my connecting flight to Toronto…

Christmas is in a few days and I’ve yet to think of it, since I didn’t plan on coming home this year!  

After going through some photos on my computer, and seeing the referance on Myspace *cringe*, I have been reminded of my immersion trips to the lovely town in mid-northern Québec, called Saint-Donat! They were five-day skii-immersion trips made for students, where about a dozen of us got the opportunity to immerse ourselves in French. Now that I think about it, I realise that we learned a whole bunch more than I thought at the time. It’s certainly where I learned to say “c’est un beau mec,” but that’s because Brittney was trying to hit on Jean-François, the local hunk.

In any case, it’s a nice little town north-west from Montréal. It’s beyond and even more north-east than Saunt-Sauvé, another town I visited three years ago with my parents en route to New Brunswick for the first time. The towns up there are so rustic and lovely, and luckily for me in 2002, it was a huge place for skiing. It still is, and it was there that I first got my taste of what it’s like to be on skiis!

They hold lessons, and you start on the bunny hill, but within days I was off into another group, and I loved the experience so much that I went back a year later with a different group of people. Random things that come to my mind are, a horrible time sharing a room with my mortal enemy, Adam; buying a solid touque from the skii shop, going to a caban à sucre and singing “Alouette” with the actual québecois words; playing in the snow at night with other people; and most importantly learning that people from Sudbury are bilingual! At this point I didn’t know that there were francophone regions outside of Québec, but in northern Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta, there are tiny little pockets of French-speaking communities.

I realies that this is going to be a huge adveristement (or not) for the lovely town of Saint-Donat, and Ski Mont-Garceau, which is nestled right in Les Laurentides (mountain range), but my refelction is necessary beyond words! In our little cabins which had entertainment rooms, a talent show, cultural activities, bingo night, a dance (how scandelous at that age), and nordic-track skiing. That was by far my favourite, and I’ve loved it ever since.

What other things do I remember? Having breakfast in the salle à manger, playing a board game in the lounge area, my councellors, Jean-Philippe, Jean-François, and Claude. The skiing was lovely, and I am even going to attach some ghetto photos from my old non digital camera *shock* but it’s just nice to reflect. I remember the girls from Loretto Abbey in Toronto were all a bitt, err, slutty, but the word “Loretto” makes me think of slut anyways, for some reason. I met this really nice guy named Adam who was heading back to London, on the bus. We hung out and everything, but we had talked a few days before we left. I remember being really upset that we never would see each other again, and that he had to study for a calculus exam on the bus.

One day, in a random act of randomness I will cross him, recognise him, and he will think that I’m a freak for remembering. It’s all up here *points to brain*, and it’s all good memories. Including our little fiasco’s of joking that Mlle. Ryalen was sneaking off with Jean-Philippe, and that Mme. Dee was getting drunk off the wine all the time, and thus unable to participate in our activities. It’s all rubbish, clearly, but it made our time more enjoyable.

Now that I think about it too even, I remember being lifted up at least two metres high by random people from London and Sudbury, and being thrown through an empty car tire, as one of our “orientation activities.” Oh good times! On day I will wander back there, and try it all out again, but probably by myself.. How depressing!

Vive Hôtel Manoir des Laurentides à Saint-Donat, Québec! Whooo!    

I can’t believe that there is such horrible TV on at this hour. 03.00 and the only thing on is infomercials with cheesy people preaching good things about this machine by “Body By Jake” that is supposed to make your abs amazing.

The results are too dramatic, the machine costs too much, and the guy is nearly Richard Simmons but straight and prolly shorter and in better shape.

It all just kind of reminds me of my 10km run that I do everyday. I seem to be wearing less and less clothing while I do my run simply because it’s so damned hot. It got up to 42°C today, and I nearly died while running, but luckily I had water with me so I survived and then had a nice little chat meeting the new neighbours that moved in in October, that I hadn’t seen since now. John and Marie they are named, and they are a young married couple who are very nice and even invited me over for some wine, but unfortunately I was on my way over to the school for some sprinting practice.

Anyways, so yeah the all black running outfit needs to be rethunk, as it looks nice as a contrast to my skin, but it’s super hot. Oh well, I could always use the loss of calories anyways, so no changes! The shorts are pretty nice and tight too so there is no worries about the moving of my music player that fits in the pocket. And the t-shirt rolled up to beyond my shoulders, and then rolled up my tummy for good airing of the skin. It looks pretty cool to me, I think; very retro which is always in (in my opinion for running at least).

So John wants to learn to run, but when he heard I run 10km he nearly fainted, and said that I should go shorter distances every other day so that he can come too. I will rethink this maybe, as it would be a nice way to allow him to have some friends in the neighbourhood (even though we are moving in a few months). Oh well we will see what we do.

Next post will be about the top 2 most fun times I’ve ever had in my life!
1) Montréal Music Trip
2) Québec City Grad Trip

Does anybody know the sound of dissapointments? I think that I have learned what it is… silence, complete and utter silence. So how does ‘silence’ relate to the recent occurances in ‘life’?

Technically, I should have been at the most famous beach in North America right now, but surprise surprise; I’m not. Who would have thought? Well I did, because I knew in the back of my mind that this would happen. How could something not? It was just too perfectly set up for something not to happen.

It would have been my first vacation in 11 years, but alas; apparenly I need to wait another 11 years to enjoy myself for once. So what exactly is the word to describe a feeling like this? At first someone could say dissapointment, but that just doesn’t describe it well enough. It’s more of devastated to the point where I haven’t spoken aloud for 48 hrs, left my room, eaten anything more than water, or done anything more than just lay around. Sounds pretty pathetic, but I guess this is what I have to prepare myself for: a life of just sitting around doing something.

On a happier note everyone else is there having a good time. Jim, the one who was supposed to drive, decided to go to Montréal for a little vacation of his own. Dan decided to go visit Parker in New York, and where does this leave me exactly?

Nowhere. My room, in otherwords, becasue dang-diddily, who’d ‘a thunk’ it thad I’d ge’ screw’d over! Excuse me while I go lay down again and consider ‘existing’