pamplemouse oui oui?

ah, montreal, land of bagels. i had a grad conference a month or so ago, and took a five hour flight out east.


it's a very european city, kind of like paris or amsterdam (being the last european cities i've visited), except chockers with canadians, which is kind of weird. most everybody speaks french, and usually english as well. i think i could live there, but i think i'd have to learn french first.



i stayed with some friends of friends, who turned out to be funky academic queers, so we drank a lot of wine, played with the dog and talked shop. they were great!


all the staircases are outside, all twisty and slippery and beautiful. you can still see snow on the ground, but it wasn't too too cold when i was there.


i spent two days wandering the city, drinking very good coffee and buying nice clothes, and two days at the conference, listening to lots of english nerds talk about dracula and 18th century novels and victorian prostitution laws and film adaptions and science fiction novels. i'd forgotten how historical english lit is, and also how much of it i'm familiar with. it was very relaxing to be in that environment.


bike lane separated from traffic! so simple! so safe! there was also very sweet public sculpture, which made me happy.