Thursday, January 04, 2007

I AM GOING TO DIE FOR FRENCH. The class they placed me in is too freaking hard.

Ok deep breaths. To the 2.5 people who still read this, I am back in Montreal and school has started again, obviously. This vacation was waaayyy too short; it ended before it even began!

So after exams and last minute goodbyes (and shopping sprees and awesome dinners (more on that later) and karaoke) I had dashed off to Boston to reunite with my terribly missed family. I think Michael was mildly amused because I was so jumpy when the bus arrived. And then of course we had a marvellous time although it was rather stressful being the one responsible for bringing everyone around. Bumped into Wern-Jhien and Tze Wei and 2 of their friends at The Producers (which is pretty good, though a tad silly, more on that later), which was pretty cool.

Boston was lovely. Perhaps not that happening, but somewhere I could actually imagine living. Something like a cleaner Montreal, perhaps. I loved Harvard Square and the Boston Commons, and believe it or not, I had the best assam laksa you'd ever get in this part of the world.

New York at Christmas time is indeed amazing. This second visit, I got to see Grand Central Terminal (gorgeous, except for the lameass screensaver of a laser show) and visit the Frick, which I didn't do the previous time. As Eri aptly described it, New York is a giant amusement park. I don't think I'd ever want to live there, but I would go back again and again just for the ride.

Niagara Falls in winter was, as expected, cold and miserable. But my family had to see the Falls I guess.

We returned to Montreal on Christmas Eve but EVERYTHING was closed, even downtown, and after spending 30min walking around the ghost town formerly known as Montreal looking for food, we finally settled for pathetic Tim Horton's (also the only Tim Horton's that was open within a 3 mile radius) for Christmas dinner. On Christmas Day itself, however, while on our way home from St Patrick's, a Chinese couple asked me for directions to Chinatown, and eureka-why-hadn't-we-thought-of-that we went for dimsum at Kam Fung. It snowed on Boxing Day so at least we had a white Boxing Day though not a white Christmas. As usual, I brought my family to the same old places I've been to for the nth time, but everything looks so different covered with snow, so it was nice for me too. And of course, Boxing Day sales is even better when your parents are paying (oh wait, they used the money from my allowance, because it was cheaper to withdraw Canadian dollars from my bank account than to buy them for Sing, dammit!).

When they went back I was naturally quite upset, especially since the rest of the Singaporeans and Kit also went back at the same time, and all of a sudden I was alone! But fortunately, I still had Wern-Jhien, the greatest exchange buddy ever (yes he put me up to this, but it also has some truth in it), who was my ticket to a lovely New Year's hosted by such wonderful and welcoming people in Trois-Riviere, who taught me to ice skate on a lake, let me crazy carpet down a slope, and did not kill me for almost killing them by crashing their skidoo into a bush (je suis tres tres desolee, vraiment).

So that was how I spent my holidays! I hope the 2.5 of you enjoyed yourselves too!

-- tee @ 5:18 am |