August 12th

Today was a roller-coaster of emotions. The day started so very well. I viewed such nice apartments, and fell in love with 2. But now its love on the rocks. My hopes and dreams are held in suspension for a couple of days. I don't know what to do, keep on looking, or play the waiting game... mmm.

Urgh, but I saw the worst place today, it was owned by a man named Pana. Now here I was imagining a cute, young, female exchange student. You may imagine my surprise as a man with a deep voice picked up the phone. Anyway, he requests ONLY females, and all the females keep on insisting the Pana is really good, really nice. Mmmm, I don’t think I trust you nice girlies. I feel some brainwashing or clockwork oranging has gone on! And to increase the suspicion, all the girls were leaving Pana!

But I am enjoying roaming the streets very much. The traffic prior to popular belief is VERY safe. Everywhere you go, if you dare even step out onto the road cars will come to a halt. Today I saw a man go so far as to brake at his own green light to let some stupid girl saunter on by! This kindness happens every-time. No one has never not stopped for me. I might even go as far as to say it is apparent there is no road rage in Montreal!!! But perhaps I speak to soon. The streets are three lanes wide, but are often filled with street parking on each side, so really the drivers only have about one and a half lanes to enjoy - and yet they enjoy! I am trying hard not to push their good nature too far!

So today involved a lot of hanging round the hostel in between a lot of house hunting.This is to check emails, make numerous calls, and to ponder the rejection or accepting of housing. Here are some photos of the gite. It is so cute. There’s a kitchen, which I made my first stirfry in – woo! I am surely learning many life skills, The whole place makes me very happy.

We also hung around Square st. Loius. This is our favourite square so far. It is so pretty, it has a house of crepes, it teems with statues and fountains, and it has many pigeons and squirrels for amusement. The houses that surround it are so gorgeous. But sadly there are also a lot of shaggy homeless people. I guess you can’t win them all. This Square backs onto Rue Prince Arthur. Or Prince Eh, as I affectionately know him and Prince Alfred as mum crazily calls him.

I read the about the intelligence of the wildlife here today in the newspaper. To reduce road kill the council builds tunnels for the moose and deer (massive road kill) to use, to cross the road. How smart! I bet if we gave a kangaroo or a wombat a tunnel it would make no difference, in-fact rape and murder on the roadsides might go up, instead of reducing wildlife fatality. How do the animals know!!! But it seems to be a huge problem and electric fences surround a lot of highways!

The last exciting thing was the discovery of the Willian Shatner Building! Viva William!!!