Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait en Montréal?

I'm glad you asked! (In case you're wondering what you asked, you asked what I did in Montreal) I'll try to keep it brief, there's alot that happened but I would probably be unable to write them all and yet manage to keep this post interesting.

The trip up to Canada was relatively uneventful. I manged to sneak in an hour or so of sleep to save up for the sleep I knew I was going to lose. Listened to my iPod, talked here and there when the others and I were awake. Got over the border with no problem, Canadians don't seem to care too much about who's getting into their country. Nothin' special. After entering Quebec, we stopped by a bank to change our American bucks into Canadian currency, discovering the awful truth that inflation is so high that the Canadian dollar is worth more than its Canadian counterpart. Ninety-one cents American equals one Canadian dollar. Pretty sad, last year we went it was one American dollar for a Canadian dollar and 14 cents. Anyway, after exchanging said dough, we stopped by a mall in Montreal. The mall was actually made up of about five malls connected by tunnels, which made for lotsa walking and lotsa looking at what was, for the most part, clothes. Blech. However, and the plus side, I got an awesome tee-shirt. The front side had the question, "What's the definition of a Canadian?" The back side said, "An unarmed American with healthcare.......heh heh heh." >:D Lol, I love it. Funny that you can buy shirts making fun of Canadians in Canada. Unless it was intended as a lame insult to Americans for not having an inefficient socialized healthcare and for actually fighting in wars? I doubt it, I don't think even Canadians could be so bad at insulting someone that they'd insult themselves. Heehee, just kidding. Anyway, after a while at the mall, during which we ate dinner, we left for our hotel. We had reserved two hotel rooms, one big and one not-so-big. The intent was for the girls to get the big room, as they were supposed to have more people, and the guys to have the smaller one. Well, one of the girls wasn't able to go on the French trip because she had gotten sick the day we left. So the number of males equaled that of their feminie counterparts. But, our French teacher, who so happens to be a woman, decided that since the girls were supposed to get the big room in the first place, they would still get it. And thus, we were split up to our separate rooms. The girls room was a few steps away from the registration desk; they snickered as they walked into our room. And we, the guys, climbed the stairs. Then we climbed another flight of stairs. Then another. Finally, we cam to our room, number 46. WE looked at each other in dismay. The door was tiny! It was half the size of all the other doors in the hotel. We opened the door, prepared to enter whatever size room lay ahead. And came face-to-face with a small spiral staircase. We climbed yet again. Upon reaching the top, we beheld a large, spacious room, with four queen sized beds, two large round windows, and a third window that could be opened. It was the best hotel room any of us had ever seen. This set us to wondering about how big the girls' room was. Turned out, our teacher had made a mistake; 46 was the big room, in fact, I'd say it was the biggest room in the hotel, as it was built into the attic. Our teacher felt bad making us move, since we all had settled in, so we got to keep it, and gloat over it every time our group congregated in the room. Those two windows were big enough to sit in, and thus me and another guy would regularly sit in what we called our "emo windows." Heh, I can't really describe it in any way that would make sense, I'll just leave it at that. Anyway, after devotions and bedtime, thus ended our first day.

The second day was packed with things to do, and since I don't want to bore you any more with details, I'll just say that we visited a giant cathedral, went to a few restaurants, walked around Montreal, etc. Oh yeah, I got this awesome Russian-looking hat. In the evening, we went to a giant indoor ice skating rink. This was only my second time ever skating, the first time being my first French trip, while I still had a broken toe (during which endeavor, I, going faster than I probably should have given my complete inexperience, I knocked over a girl from my class when she suddenly swerved in front of me while I was trying to pass her...I still don't know how to stop on the ice). I did decent, in my humble opinion, for a second time. The only time I fell down was because an attempt of kindness on my part. I had been skating behind a couple, and noticed the man's gloves drop out of his pocket onto the ice. I was unable to pick them up for him, but instead caught up to him to let him know (a difficult task, he was going pretty fast and there were lotsa little kids who unkowingly tested my dodging skills) I finally caught up to him, and tried to tell him in French that he had lost his gloves. But he didn't understand, probably because of my accent and the fact that I had probably used the wrong word for gloves. So I, passing him, tried to turn around to tell him again what I had said, and in doing so, fell over. A group of friends was conveniently taking a picture together near where I had tried to tell the man about his gloves' impending doom; and I, of course, fell right into their picture. Remind me not to try to help anyone anymore. Anyway, I told the man where he had lost his gloves, he thanked me, and snickered a little with his little amie. Oh well, can't blame them, musta been hilarious to see. And so I learned a very important lesson: never try to do do good deeds and speak French while skating without much experience. Oh yeah, when we went to a restaurant to eat, the place was full and we had to wait for our seats, which took a while. During that time, Andrew and one of his buddies went outside and pretended to be bums, making a sign that said "Donations will buy us a coat" and an attempt at "Give us money" in French, also using shot glasses they had bought to beg for money. Heh, immature but still pretty funny.

The third day, Sunday, was relatively uneventful. We went to a little French church in the morning, which was really cool. I didn't understand too much, the people kinda had funny accents (in French I mean), but it's cool to meet other believers in other countries. After church, we stopped by a restaurant called Boston Pizza (kinda ironic, ain't it?) and left for home. Uneventful trip down, until we stopped by this little Chinese restaurant in Vermont, and continued on our merry way. And now I'm back, it's good to be home.

Nuthin' quite like the sound of good ol' American English.