Saturday, August 28, 2010

Things I miss about driving in Victoria.

So, I have been living in Montreal for a while now. I've done some driving around, although I have luckily managed to avoid driving on any highways on the island thanks to my wonderfully considerate husband (I freak out so much I actually try and sit in the back seat so I can't see what is going on). But, regardless, I do sometimes do the driving. Today, for instance, I drove to Zellers (fascinating, huh?). So I thought I'd take this opportunity to reflect back on some driving habits practiced in Victoria that I now miss.

Things that I miss:

-Turn Signals.
-Being able to turn right on a red light (illegal anywhere on the island).
-Being the first car stopped at a red light and knowing for certain that if a car is pulling up to the right of me, in the one and only lane going my direction, that they will be turing right. And not having to worry about the possibility that that car might just pull around me and keep going straight (in their defense, since they are so used to no one using signal, they really have no idea what I'm doing and there is a 50/50 chance that I COULD be turning left and the idea of having to wait for a minute IS completely unfathomable to Montrealers).
-People only honking at me for an at least somewhat rational reason.
-Lanes that don't disappear either because of being worn away by snow removal or just for the hell of it. I suppose there's no fun in knowing whether I'm on a street with two lanes or just a fairly large one lane...
-Not having to move our car twice a week because of the once weekly street cleaning and the $52 parking ticket that comes if we don't move it at the specified times.
-Cyclists that stop for red lights and actually wear helmets.

You could summarize this all down to missing having any semblance of an idea as to what the other drivers on the road are doing and laws that make sense.

Now I feel bad. There are a lot of things about Montreal that I legitimately do like. Just nothing driving-related.

In other news, one of Dylan's uncles is in town house-sitting and was super kind enough to take us all out for dinner. We settled on Thai, and the place we chose turned out to be a vegetarian Thai restaurant that is somewhat known for mock meat. I thought the fake shrimp was good and pretty close to the real thing, but the beef was a bit lacking texture wise. Mock meat aside, everything was exceptionally tasty. And it's always nice for Dylan to get a chance to see some of his family and for me to get the chance to get to know them better, especially with us being so far away from home.

We are so popular! Three visits in as many months and a fourth not too far away.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Update

Hello world!

I thought I should update, but I don't really have too much to tell y'all.

We had a friend come and visit us last week for two days. We wandered around downtown, had poutine, and went to the Jean Talon market. Actually, the market was really neat - it was huge and had lots of tasty vegetables at pretty good prices. 6 peppers (red, green, and orange) for 2$ or 3$ (aren't I so french?). A 5lb bag of carrots for 3$. We also tried our best to drown her in super hard rain.

Oh, we got a fridge. Unfortunately, not before our guest left. Also, not before Clair got food poisoning. But it is exciting for us anyways.

Clair's friend from Calgary is visiting for the week. Picked her up yesterday from the airport and then Dylan promptly got us horribly lost. We figured things might be going wrong when we started crossing a bridge that lead us off the island... We all went out dancing last night. Good times.

We're having pizza for dinner.