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.