Adventure #83

Sunday was a nice day. Not to cold. streets started to dry up and i realized. yes. this week i will skate in montreal for the first time since i moved.

On wednesday we had a group of 10 riders go out and ride montreal underground. this is not like "montreal underground parking garage" this is LITERALLY montreal tunnels and passages from subways to stores and hotels. Also we did find some Parkades to enjoy :) we skated for what seemed like only a couple hours and ended up very exhausted. i looked at the time and realized we had ACTUALLY be skating for 5.5 hours. uh-maze-ing :D

But on the sunday i previously mentioned i had promised something more to myself. that i would YES, skate to work. well friday came and i realized. THE DEADLINE IS HERE. it wasnt snowing this morning at 8. which would have been a good time to head to work. but insteAd i left at 10:15. It had started to just sprinkle snow. no big deal. It was still nice and warm out so i knew i would have no problems with cold. so i left my house AND WENT FOR GOLD ! I can only wish that it was a race because honestly most people would have given up in this situation. So 17 KM From my apartment to my work. start off the season strong right? no big deal? usually my average speed is 23-25 KM/hour pushing. The snow storm set in and by the last 5 KM there was barely any road for me to use. but i made it just in time. luckily i brought a change of clothes to work with me. Tim opened the door when I showed up and all he said was "you are a brave man"

I figure I could describe the whole trip but I am going to summarize.
go south. go east. go south. go east. rinse repeat .
I skated through an area i had never been before. I found myself stopping in front of City hall. every building within 1KM of this place is magnificent to look at . just incredible eye candy for architecture. anyone who saw me either gave me the thumbs up or pointed me out to a friend.


It was a very interesting time to say the least. probably won't do that again if i dont have to but it definitely made my day :)
a picture is worth a thousand words so here is a picture that might give you an idea of what i went through

it was nuts.

but alas i was warm and i didnt lose my grin the entire skate :)

my apartment

I know you have all been waiting to see what it looks like so i am going to post some pictures here for you .

Things are really good here im loving my jobs, and im a busy little bee. Some days more than others.

hope you like ! sorry it took so long :)

K$

weeeeeekkkeeenndd

Saturday was a really relaxing day. i went and talked to Ian (my new boss) signed all my forms and saw all the shops i will be working at. its all very interesting. we hung out for about 4 hours and really had a good chat about just about everything
saturday night me and a friend slept at emilies house. This night had snow removal on my street but the OPPOSTE side of the street this time. so parking at her place was wayyyy easier. And the couch was soooooo comfy pretty awesome . watched step brothers before i slept and caught up on some emails. cant go wrong.
Sunday morning we woke up at 530 to go to the land of the free. thats right . canada. BUT THEN we went to USA vermont . I just got my first passport last friday . a little nervous using it for the first time. BUT all was well. we got across with little hassle. Stopped at a gas station where i pulled out some american money for some breakfast and lift ticket. Not realizing emilie had already bought us tickets NOW IM STUCK WTIH 80 F***ING AMERICAN DOLLARS.. not impressed. (by the end of the trip i convinced both of my friends to take the american money at par. such good friends ..the dollar is even RIGHT….not to convert it . )

The hill we went to was Jay Peak. this mountain gets more snow than montreal due to a phenomenon known as the "jay cloud" or as you know it "the snow belt" like in barrie but wayyyy cooler. well saturday night when i went to emilies the snow was epic. so much snow we had to dig out the car in the morning. we left early knowing that the jay cloud would provide much more snow… two ays earlier what i thought was the best day for snowboarding was destroyed by the riding we did at jay peak. knee deep powder. a couple times found it up to my waist. never saw the back of my snow board all day.. This mountain is even bigger than Bromont t. The pass is not a lift ticket other its a little cardthat you put in your pants/jacket/ mits When you go to the chairlift you pass through a gate. your pass has a magnetic chip that can only be activated for a certain amount of time. when you get to the gate it senses that you have a ticket and opens a bar so you can enter the lift area. then you wait to load on. honestly. crazy . Never knew these kind of shenanigans were going on task hills.

So we did a lot of forest runs. i got some deep fresh powder runs, got stuck in some tree wells. left the boundary. hiked in the boundary to the peak . so much snow. epic.
The east coast DOES have mountains. they may be old. they may be few. but they are VERY VERY there. and they are very serious. with the height they are at now. i would love to see what they used to be.

The Return

With more than enough food in the car, and a lot of people missing me, I Drove back to quebec. Montreal to be exact.

I get back to Montreal and the last 10 minutes instead took me 30 minutes because the highway was closed due to : snow removal. I get to my street that has parking on the left parking on the right and not a lot of room for driving. people don't care that there is a foot of snow on the ground. they are still going to parallel park. they drive as fast as they can and wedge their cars up on the snow. to the point that they are stuck. out of 100 cars i would honestly say 80 of them are stuck. tow trucks are rolling in money here. i couldn't jam my own car into the spot out front of my apartment so i had to park a couple blocks away.

In the morning. i wasn't stuck but an old lady was. so i offered in english to help her. and she accepted in french. (i live in a very french area of town. ) she grabs this strange red apparatus made of metal with 4 hinge points (picture below ) sticks it in front of her wheel and PULLS AWAY . her car was completely wedged with snow underneath . i don't get it. strange apparatus or what i found out over the next 12 hours is the most important tool to every driver in montreal.

With my car out of the spot now i was able to un pack. and RE pack for SNOWBOARDING =D

SO I DROVE ALL THE WAY TO … the south end. Myfriends drove to and from Bromont. it was AWESOME

bromont is a small mountain. only 2x the size of Blue mountain. to say the least my arches were sore in my feet. Some amazing riding. lots of fresh snow up to my knees. what i knew to be the best day of snowboarding for my season… or so i thought. (next blog)

Friday was snow removal. you can only park on one side of our street. A street in which is already packed on both sides. So i went to Dmitris for a couple beers and slept on his couch as there was ALOT of parking in his end of town. we had fun and got carried away . a whole bunch of skaters came over and chilled . so fun .

SNOW REMOVAL…NOTE:

Step one - place signs up to not park between 19h - 7h (7PM - 7 AM )
step two - sometime between 7 and 7 a tow truck comes through WAILING his horn beep-beep-beep-beep=beep-beep. so you know snow removal is coming to your street Very Very soon.
step three - and this is the tricky one - AGAIN a tow truck comes through wailing his horn . THIS TIME with several tow trucks following him.. if at this point you are still parked in the no parking side of the street they tow your car.
step four = oh no my car ! if you are a lucky fellow and you are dumb enough to get towed they must take it to the impound right ? WRONG. your car. is towed AT MOST 4 OR 5 BLOCKS AWAY. pretty sweet huh ? so you don't have to pay impound fees. they record where your car is. BUT if you walk around and find your car you are lucky. if you don't find your car.you call the towing company. when they tell you where your car is THEN you owe them money. pretty sweet huh ? NOT

im glad i knew all this before hand . kind of makes me remember how good life is when its not your car getting towed.

The family - gotta love 'em

Arrived in barrie sunday night save and sound. slept on the couch at my old place and got up bright and early to my stupid EX ROOMATE (thank god this is the last time i have to write about him) cutting bacon with his fork. So if you are a fan of utensils scratching on porcelain / nails on a chalk board . This would have been your lucky day, not mine. Got up and packed what i had left to move in my car and pulled it out of the driveway where it had sat for the past three days. so much snow i had to get in the passengers side and jump the console.
and of we go


Its monday, what could possibly go wrong. I was supposed to go snowboarding with some friends all day and all night but after some very head turning news, i decided i would go straight to london instead. That night i had dinner at Moms, good ol fashioned pizza. Can't go wrong.
Tuesday. i woke up bright and early at 9:30 , went phone shopping with Stacey. We had fun and apparently I'm good at making Friends. As the gentlemen helping us and myself bashed iPhone for a solid half hour :) After, I went for brunch with the my Nana and Grampa where they shared some stories of when they used to live in montreal. it was quite neat to see pictures between then and now. "i used to walk across the street to school each day" said nana "but now there is a 6 lane highway, i'd never make it" Kind of a cool statement.
One of the pictures was of my grandfathers old house in verdun. HUGE front yard HUGE backyard and quite literally it had side yards. a lot of property. Verdun now… building to building to building…
After lunch i went to the doctors. i had a very cute swedish nurse taking blood. she asked me "Vould you like to lay down?" and before i said yes. i realized, we weren't thinking the same thing. My first time having blood taken . its pretty cool stuff.
Wednesday . Dinner at dads. Driving from london to ingersol my car decides "hey its time to suck…" so the wheel gets all janky . i pull over, no flats, no bent rims, everything looks alright. somethings hanging from under my car, coolant on the ground. ef
So i took my time getting to ingersol. went to canadian tire with my car and said "please look at this right away" . they gave me the usual canadian tire "not to worry we'll get it in as soon …. as its inconvenient for you " =D So i was not thrilled at 11 o clock thursday morning when i had to go get my car and take it to another shop because they STILL had not looked at it.
I THOUGHT YOU WERE DIFFERENT CANADIAN TIRE BUT YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER CHEAP FRANCHISE LIKE THE LAST. ...im breaking up with you

on that note.

much love
kev