Welcome to NDG Montreal

I made it to Montreal,

My first impressions experiences of the city have been positive. I practiced my French on my cab driver on my way to my new place and he was impressed. For some reason French people here don't seem to be aware of the number of French speaking people in Manitoba, let alone the Francophiles like me. When he found out I was here to study music he got very excited. He said.. "I like music" and he rattled around in his glove box for a CD and popped it into the CD player. I was thinking "Oh god.. here we go..." And the taxi was filled with the most beautiful black spiritual choir music I have heard since my listening to Ladysmith Mambazo as a kid. Beaming with pride, he told me about this music and how much it meant to him. Then he blew me away by telling me that he was a member of the choir that did the recording! After that we talked about separatism a bit and how his family came to Canada. Very interesting, like most refugee stories.

I live in NDG or Notre Dame de Grace. It's a well off area of Montreal, kind of like a mix between MiddleGate River Heights and the cooler parts of Wolsley. My place is very nice and I have two great room mates. Dawne the Aboriginal, Behai french horn performance major from Winnipeg and Macha the Russian Jew violinist law student from Montreal.

We are quite a team. Already we're getting along well and sharing various duties and costs. Unlike out here in NDG, the prices in the McGill Ghetto are insane. A tiny one bedroom in a sketchy smoke filled building goes for about 650, including utilities. I pay less than half of that and my place is way nicer.

I went to Ikea. It almost killed me. I hope to never go there again. A manager at the store said it was the busiest day he'd seen in his 10 years working there. Where else can you get 20$ wooden chairs? Thousands of zombie consumers shuffling around shitty (but stylish) home

furnishings.

For now, I lement my lack of home computing, as well as my skateboard. Montreal is all hills. Skateboards are quite common here. (I see people long boarding down town, right along side the cars. Not that I'll do that, I'm just saying.)

More stories to follow. I'll update more often because school has started and I'm around computers. If you have questions, ask in the comments and I'll answer. Also, send me your mailing addresses. I'll respond to any letter I recieve.

Stories I'd like to tell:

-The Metro
-Milk in a bag
-Retro YMCA c.1920
-McGill School of Music (Harvard of the North) acording to Americains.
-Downtown Montreal