Sunday, September 11, 2005

Back in Québec. New job, new apartment, no food.

I arrived back in Québec after a month out of town that went like this:

Québec,
Boston, MA(2hrs),
Portland, ME(48hrs),
camp in Harrison, ME(2 weeks),
Ottawa(3 days),
New Haven, CT(5 days),
Montréal(24hrs),
back in Québec.

So I arrived Thursay afternoon, immediately started apartment-hunting, and 24 hours later, I'm sitting in my new bedroom in my new apartment on rue Saint-Olivier! Everything just came together. Pictured is the street where I live. Click on it, then on these: (a), (b). Life with my new roommate, Frédéric, should be interesting. He seems very different from me, in that meat-eating, hockey-loving, video-gaming, beer-drinking kind of way. I'm more the tofu-eating, figure-skating, guitar-playing, juice-drinking type. Fortunately, he's really nice, so I'm looking forward to the next months.

Interesting fact: after all that good food in New Haven with Laura and Indian food with Alexia in Montreal, today is my third day eating exclusively Ramen noodles (with the exception of a few stale biscuits). So I'm about to go to the market and get some food. Monday I give my first English class to the bureaucrats. I saw the class list and some of them are big shots, which is kind of funny. We'll see how it goes. I'm trying to decide how to go about testing high-powered civil servants on their verb tenses.

5 comments:

khris said...

verb tenses sound nice :)
from the first picture, i thought (for a second) it was a latin american country.... interesting, isnt it? :)

well, good luck tomorrow, fill us out.

xoxox

Matthew V said...

So re: my street looks latin american, I should say that the area where I live does remind me a little of downtown Havana (not vieja Habana, but centro Habana). Like you said, of course, the few similarities are neat but hardly overwhelming. the streets are narrow here, but in Havana much more. The buildings are almost as colourful round here, but the paint isn't peeling so much. The cars aren't as antique but they run better. Lastly, Havana architecture, Québec architecture.

(Those links are for anyone interested in cities, not necessarily Kris). Thanks for the good wishes! I'll let you know how it goes.

Alice said...

mmm.... ramen. that stuff is EXCELLENT when you come home after a night of drinking. you must try it if you've never done it before. you'll be converted. seriously. mmmm....

Jess said...

out of that whole list of places i have been to not one of them... i so need to travel

Anonymous said...

Funny, Matt: we've had similar months. For me however it looked like this:
Berkeley, CA (San Francisco)
Bend, OR/Deschutes River Whitewater Guide (1 week)
Eugene, OR - See Grandma (2 days)
Bend, OR/Deschutes River Whitewater Guide (1 week) -again
Portland, OR (1 day) - drop off truck
Boston, MA (3 days)
Camp in Harrison, ME (2 weeks)
NYC - (4 days)
Camp in Harrison, ME (1 week)
Randolph, NH (1 day) - hike prep
Mahoosuc Mountains (3 days/30 mile hike)
Randolph, NH (12 hours) - sleep
Apple Valley, OH (10 hours) - vist aunt, sleep, visit Kenyon College
Elsah, IL (1 day)
Back to Portland, OR
Whew.
Now I head up to Seattle to pack for the South Pole.

Have fun teaching English. I did that in Japan for a stint. I have a friend who taught in China. Let me know if that really interests you.

Ciao!