Christmas in an airport

For all those at home in the UK, it just turned Christmas. For me and the many others here in Montreal Trudeau Airport, it's Christmas Eve. There are a lot of fed up faces. The queues have been excessively long. I spent 2 hours waiting to drop off my luggage, not even to check-in and get my boarding pass because I already had those. I have to admit though, the queue through security though long moved very quickly.
The past few days have been quite quiet, with people leaving one by one. Yesterday was really hard. The 3 girls left. I waved them off at the bus stop. Most of the remaining boys also departed. I didn't get to say bye to some of them.
I kept myself busy so as not to feel too sad and sorry for myself. I dropped of keys and books, did laundry and researched things for my project. I didn't have enough money on my card to pay for the dryer so I spent the evening watching a film and chatting to friends whilst blow drying my clothes. Second time this week that. Later on I also cooked all my food and boxed it up for today, then cleaned all my cooking equipment before shutting it away in Mihai's locker. This was an unusual arrangement considering I was leaving them for Gaston.
I slept in today on the reasoning that milling around all morning doing very little wouldn't be any fun whatsoever. I had just enough time to almost completely clean my room before Jeff came to pick me up. I said bye to Nico, feeling a little bad leaving him all alone on our corridor and departed Sherbrooke.
It feels weird to have left. I was so very grateful to have a lift to the airport instead of struggling with buses an public transport. Oh yeah, it saved me $30 dollars too :)
So now I'm here, at the airport. I've been here for 3 hours and at least 2 to go before my flight leaves because it was delayed. I should in fact be nestling myself comfortably into my seat but alas, Parisian airports and snow do not make for reliable transport links. I'm hoping that being delayed here, (where, with it's free wi-fi and an accessible plug socket, it's not too tragic) just cuts down my waiting time in Charles de Gaulle. However, that flight could also be delayed and I have been warned that I may miss it altogether.
It feels like the Christmas I was really ill, as in I'm not sure I'll be in much of a festive spirit. I'm listening to Christmas carols in a vain attempt to not become a female scrooge but it's hard because I don't want to leave and I don't want to spend Christmas day alone in an airport or on a plane.
So season's greetings, Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noel, Frohe Weihnachten, С рождеством, Nollig Chridheil Feliz Navidad to one and all.
God bless.

T'is the season to be jolly

Thursday, 16h00 - perhaps even a few minutes earlier.  This is the moment when I realised  that my finals were done! Oh the relief. No joke, I spent the rest of the day bouncing. Technically it wasn't the last one, but Saturday's excuse for a final just didn't register as an exam. Well perhaps on the periphery, however it wasn't going to make me worry. My time to relax had finally arrived.  The sad thing is that I have no idea what I've done with myself since!I don't know what to do with myself. It's ever so slightly tragic.
Saturday, aside from the rédaction, for which I used the full 3 hours to write 506 words, was fairly entertaining. Hannah came up trumps by providing a corkscrew thus allowing me into the bottle of red wine that Victoria's parents had left. A group of us ended up joining Naiky in going to somebody's birthday party. Nicole stayed for a bit but left before the rest of us, so it was mostly me and some of the guy's discussing the art of draguer amongst other things. Oh it was fun. On the way back Mark plus friend were stood outside so I greeted them and stopped to chat. Chat mostly consisting of confusing the name Ishmael with smile and explaining to Mark that we call him rapist, what that means in French and why we call him that. It's not as harsh as it sounds I promise. On returning to my corridor I was beckoned to join Gaston and Florian who demanded to know why, if he's nicknamed rapist, I still talk to him. Ha.
On Sunday, Nicole and I decided to go shopping. I wanted to do something nice for the guys here because they've been so awesome but I didn't know what. In the end we put together little giftbags consisting of sweets and christmassy goodies. We attached ribbon and added their names as well as nicknames. I also bought christmas cards, just so I could add a personal message. We then set about distributing them and knocking on doors. Generally the responses were "awww that's so nice. Thanks!". Julian came out with "Why are you doing this? Nobody else is" Mate, we're being nice just be grateful! Bless him.

L-R: Me, P.E and Andrejean.

That evening was quite sad because I learnt that Andrejean and Pierre-Eduard were both leaving in the morning. So I hugged them plenty and helped them randomly with packing (and in Andrejean's case, drying of clothes). Victoria allowed me to see part of my Christmas present for the occasion. She's gotten everyone to write me a message in a little book. I was allowed to see theirs before they left. I had to try really hard not to cry. I was definitely teary-eyed. This was also the evening the girls put a bow on my head and presented me to the boys as a present. I'm sure I looked dashing. We also hung mistletoe in the kitchen but by last night that had been chopped off. No festive spirit!

The errr table

People are now leaving one by one. However, there were enough around last night to spark a random game of poker in the corridor. This may not have been so spontaneous for the boys but my involvement was. I can honestly say that they are some of the worst poker players I've ever seen and I don't claim to be a pro myself.
Most of the others also went to Siboire but returned on the last bus just after 12, which surprised me a little. Cup of tea in hand, I was roped into playing a game designed by the guys which involved answering all sorts of personal questions about yourself, from 'when was the last time you wet yourself?' to 'where do you see_____ in 10 years?' Entertainment a-plenty. I learnt that upon first impressions here I seemed uptight and very, very English. Nice.
I slept in late today and as a result was determined to get myself out of the residences. I went shopping and bought juice, butter and a flag for Victoria. It was our "Christmas" this evening. That is, we ate together and swapped presents. Following which we watched a Christmas film. Ahhh Christmas. I have only skim-read my little book so far and it is currently in Mark's possession so he can write something. I think I shall save it for the plane which may or may not be a good plan, depending on whether or not I end up bawling my eyes out.
I also discovered a boy from downstairs will be on the same flight as me to Paris. I don't know his name but he'll be on my flight! I'm hoping all of this ridiculous mess at European airports will be sorted when Friday swings by. If I have to spend any longer at Charles de Gaulle I will scream. Of course, that is not going to happen though. I shall get home without a hitch :D

Revise? I`d rather not...

So what with getting our final classes out of the way, I find myself trying to squeeze lots of typing up lectures and reading and general revision into a short space of time. To be quite frank i just don`t want to do it either. I`m slightly scared by the 2 literature exams (oh there`s another word my fingers don`t want to spell the English way)
Victoria and I delayed food shopping as much as possible and finished off the last of the turkey in the mean time (serious - that $10 turkey has been feeding us since Thanksgiving)
On Friday, we got the bus to Carrefour de l`Estrie,along with Nicole. She disappeared for a while and we set about trying to find her Christmas present. It`s the only one I have left to buy now. She appeared just as we were about to start our food shopping. I may have wasted the rest of the day. maybe, maybe not. i don`t know. Revision just blurs everything into one lump really.
Other than working, i was very excited to have finally organised to go out with Hannah and Nicole. The lack of nightlife has slowly been killing me, or at the very least driving me insane. I needed music and dancing. Saturday night this was. We started with pre-drinks and getting ready together. I spent half of this time wandering around in my pyjamas trying to cook tea also. We had a great time. It went a little downhill towards the end when Hannah stormed off and we couldn`t find her. She did eventually reappear back at the halls though so not the end of the world. Aside from that slight drama, my craving was satisfied. Get in.
Since then it has been all about getting the nose back to the grindstone. I`m now slightly confused that this is even a real phrase.
I made a chocolate cake. I don`t want to eat it because it`s a whole cake and also I have an ulcer the size of a penny (hyperbole much?). Nobody really seems to want it either! i think it`s because everyone is stressed and studying for exams. I`m still cheerful so at first I got asked if I had a recipe for happiness  and then if I was on drugs. This is by different people. What a laugh!
I`m currently in the library finishing off my notes so i can print them off. that way i can just read them through and be ready for tomorrow`s exam. As if by tomorrow I`ll have done half my finals.
I also can`t get my head around the fact that I`ll be home in less than a fortnight. It`s a really bizarre thought and I can`t decide if I like it or not....

Hostages

So Day 2 of our Quebec adventure. We spent the day with Georgie as well and had our day fairly well planned out, starting with breakfast. Oh OK, checking out came first but yes... breakfast. We found a lovely little place full of breakfasty goodies. Mmmm waffles. I didn't actually have a waffle saying that. Anyway, I forget in what order we did things. I think we may have gone on a postcard hunt and thus perused the nearby shops. I promise it's not all about shops!

We worked our way out of the walled part of the city and almost unexpectedly found ourselves outside the government building, a word I seem to be having problems with spelling in English. Oh dear. You can see the big wreath on the front. Classy. Manchester's idea of Christmas decorations is a gigantic inflatable Father Christmas outside the city hall. Poor in comparison. We couldn't get close to the building. Whether this is because you simply aren't allowed, or because the eager beavers were arriving to start the protest about raising university fees. At first I felt sympathetic to the cause, what with the brouhaha going on in the UK until I actually looked up the proposed changes. They pay c.$2500 per year. The increase is $500. Positively tame compared to the hijacking of English fees from £3200 to £7000+. I'm fairly certain they will still be able to afford an education. It seems these Quebecois don't know how good they have it!

Victoria at the choc. museum

Anyway that was totally off track. I blame the snow. It's gone to my head. From there we searched out the chocolate museum. There was even a free taste of chocolate on offer. It was however, much smaller than expected so after browsing the wares for sale in the shop we set off again. This time our destination was the plains of Abraham. Full of historical contexte and stuff that I have no idea what it is, it appealed to Victoria. We battled our way through the snow, which kept whipping up and seriously must be attracted like a magnet to the eyeball. There was also the problem of walking up a steep hill in the snow as well as avoiding the large piles of snow at the roadside. Crossing the street became a task equal to the hurdles.
However, we made it to the edge of the park before realising that one, it was frette à tabernak and well that there wasn't much to be done in a very snowy park. I made a snow angel and we attempted to make a snowman. It was definitely only an attempt since the snow was too fine. We did find boulders of snow though so we tried piling those up. Georgie then put her scarf on it, decapitating it in the process. It was quite the formless snow man. Whilst Georgie went to warm her cockles inside, Victoria and I tried to find sticks for arms but short of cutting down a tree, it wasn't happening. Instead we had a nosy at the citadelle, just next door. Sadly at this time of year it is no longer open for tourists such as ourselves. We went back to find Georgie. After drying ourselves off and warming up a little, we decided to head back inside the wall fro some lunch and to decide on the afternoon's activities. In our absence the protest had grown a fair bit, with plenty more students still arriving and the police shutting off nearby roads. Apparently they crashed a cabinet meeting. At least they didn't beat up royalty though.

After a little wandering we found a wonderfully quaint little restaurant. We opted for the midday special menu - thinking we were just getting the cheapest main course when in fact, we were treated to a starter, the main course, tea and a pudding. All for the grand total of $15. Bargainous meal!
Sadly with it being a Monday, it scuppered our plans of visiting the things we had missed out on within the walls the day before. We had a nice wander round and looked at a few things, just having a nice ramble after discovering that the Ursuline convent and a church were both closed. We ducked into some more shops to try to finish off the Christmas shopping. In one of these shops I found myself humming along to the music without really being aware what it was. In the end I had to ask the assistant if it was who I thought it was. My suspicions were confirmed when she came back brandishing a Mike Oldfield album. I am too cool for my own good.
From there we decided to hop on the ferry across the river. An artist we had spoken to the day before had suggested doing the trip just for the views. Not bad I have to say. I good view of Chateau Frontenac looming over the city. We didn't get off the ferry, simply staying aboard for the return trip. After a few more ramblings we made our winding way back to the hostel, stopping to pick up some food for dinner. However, once back at the hostel and checking my email, I discovered that our car-sharing trip has been cancelled. We panicked a little and tried to find out the bus times but we wouldn't make it to the station in time for the last one. We had to book ourselves in for another night. It was a quiet evening spent in the dorm, writing postcards, catching up on reading and not doing an awful lot really. We booked another car-share for the morning.
This should have been simple. Get up, go to station, go back to Sherbrooke. It wasn't. We ended up going to the wrong station so we missed our lift. Bad times. If we were waiting for the next bus we'd be there until 6pm, not exactly desirable since it would push up the cost of our trip by a large amount and also, we had work to do for class the next day. We went out on a limb and headed towards the Allostop office, hoping they would be able to hook us up with a lift. They did. This time, the woman gave us full and detailed directions to the correct place for our pick-up. We had a bit of time so we went for lunch. Again the midday menu proved to be a hit, if not quite as good value as the day before. Feeling much relieved to have a way home, we hopped on a bus. Arriving in plenty of time we found a nearby cafe and plonked ourselves there. Free wifi and warmth. Can't go wrong!
Thankfully Quebec did let us leave third time round (they always say that one's the charm) so by early evening we were back at the university having picked up something for dinner.
I hope next time I go to Quebec I manage to leave as and when I want!

Winter Wonderland

Quebec City - oh my, what a place! Our journey there went without a hitch (unless you count our driver playing Jon Lajoie to us). We were dropped off somewhere in Quebec but without having the slightest clue where or how to get to the old quarter. We asked a few people which didn't exactly help a huge amount. After finding the bus stop but no timetable we decided to pay a visit to the nearest hotel for a bit of information. The rather helpful man informed us that the bus came once an hour and we had just missed it. We opted for a taxi.
This saved us quite a bit of time and allowed us to drop our things at the hostel and go exploring. We didn't wander very far but found a number of things. It was dark already and snowing (it snowed pretty much constantly whilst we were there - it made taking photos at night kinda hard).
We stumbled across the German Christmas market. Sadly I didn't get any Glühwein, which makes me sad. By this point however, I had realised that my boots were NOT by any means suitable for this much snow and as a result I was wandering around with some icy puddles by my toes. Not so much fun. We managed to have a nice nosy around some shops, where I finally found something I've been dying to buy my god-daughter. SCORE! After some mooching we settled down for some dinner in a restaurant, which turned out to be down the road from our hostel proving that everything really is close together in the old quarter. I was most uncouth, taking off my boots and socks and using hand warmers to get some feeling back in my toes. Probably not what people want to see but I tried to be discreet about it at least! Although this was a fantastic idea and it made my feet feel about 100 times better, it did mean that this cupcake shaped hand warmer, courtesy of my mother, began setting itself off at random occasions all by itself. Hmm...
The next day we had a few things in mind to visit - first stop being shoooeeees! Man, I felt so much happier walking around in my new boots that kept my tootsies dry. We did a fair bit of shopping, I have now sorted all christmas presents with one exception. Sweet no?
I walked past one shop and saw something which instantly reminded me of my sister so I rushed in to buy it. Victoria was left not knowing exactly where I had disappeared to.

Our day wasn't entirely devoted to shopping. We visited the Basilic. Unfortunately, I seem completely incapable of pronoucing this correctly in English and often found myself refering to a rather large snake as appears in Harry Potter. Isn't it pretty? I like the wreath. The 2 candles say vigilance and espérance. Just to add some detail there. From there we went on a hunt for the Break-neck stairs. I was sorely mislead into thinking that these would be incredibly steep/narrow/some other sort of thing that would make a flight of steps particularly perilous but alas, they seem all to safe. The original steps, which may have been responsible for numerous injured parties, were replaced a long time. What a let down. They did however lead us to a very quaint shopping street. The photo doesn't really do it justice. It had classy christmas decorations!! I didn't even see tinsel in any of the shops. I think that this is because there wasn't any but you never know, one of the many snowflakes to land on my eyeballs could have blinded me somewhat.
Our aimless wanderings took us to many an interesting spot before we worked our way towards to Christmas market. First stop being lunch. I thought the christmas market was a bit of a let down to be honest - it was almost entirely food. I did get a nice sample of some ice cider which can compensate for it the lack of Christmassy things.
After the market, I followed my nose. Map skills? pah - who needs 'em. Besides the old quarter of Quebec City is so small before you know it you're back where you started. Getting lost wasn't going to happen. We walked along part of the fortification walls. where we found this snowman.  Isn't he cool? Looking all G, chillin' on a cannon. What a dude. I wish I could boast that we made him but sadly this is not the case. We continued along the wall and found ourselves back at the beginning (I said that's what happens!). We mooched over to Chateau Frontenac. That's a hotel but it's super fancy. We had a sniff around. I approve of the choice of Christmas decorations.
From there I think we returned to the hostel. We chatted away to teh Australian girl, Georgie, who was also in our dorm. The 3 of us went out for dinner. We went to an Irish bar. So cultural. I got a damn good burger though and some creme brulee. Yummy!
That's pretty much it for day one, aside from all the chatting and giggling that took place once back in the dorm. Day 2 can have a post of it's own - I'm sleepy!

Alba gu brath!

Not that I did anything to celebrate St. Andrew's day besides having it written on my door, thanks to Katie. I should have told Andrejean to whip out his whisky. In fact my entire week so far has been spent in a studious mush trying to get as much work done as possible before our weekend away. I haven't got quite as much done as I would have wanted but it's fair to say I have progressed hugely.
Aside from studying and going to lectures (though I will add that we are yet to return to our grammar class), there's only one or 2 things that have gone on. It's been an exciting week...
Julian and I settled our differences after Thursday. I may or may not have mentioned that already. Anyway, we hugged and made up, which is always nice :) Gaston asked if I wanted to join them watching a film so I squished myself into his room with Florian, Julian, Alison, Gaston and Patick (Alison's rather large stuffed toy dog). We watched 99 Francs which is so French it's unbelievable and being based on a book by Frederick Beigbeder it was always going to be weird. I was absolutely freezing towards the end and was trying to snuggle up unnoticed between Florian and the dog. It was much easier with the dog. I do wonder what Florian would have done had I openly tried to snuggle up. (I'm sniggering to myself a little right now).
The girls and I were all fairly giggly last night. I put this down to a mixture of generally being in high spirits and the fact that the 4 of us guzzled a whole sugar pie. Sugar rush much? After that, with it being Thirsty Thursday all the troops appeared. Habillé span me round numerous times in the corridor as I was trying to get to Nicole's room. He also attempted to sing along to Michael Buble singing some christmassy song without knowing any of the lyrics. They then all admired my Christmas decorations. Before long they were getting the munchies so the kitchen was invaded. I took myself off to bed as Hervés rant about colonisation and alliances between random countries (he wasn't entirely making sense - he was talking a fair bit about rainbows) was coming to an end.
I really wish I knew how to work my radiator. Either my rooms is boiling or I open a window and promptly freeze. However, in comparison to the UK we are enjoying the rather balmy temperatures of around 1 degrees. Get in.