Sunrise Alone Time

So, the last post might have given some people the impression that I'm spending my time entertaining and living it up. That's only partly true. I am living it up, but the girlfriends staying over was an exception. I'm mostly "living it up" by having amazing alone time in a city which 2 months ago was almost totally new to me. To recap: I'm from Montreal. And I had been to Québec before moving here, of course, but if memory serves, only on a grade 6 field trip. And back then I was way more concerned with who I sat next to on the bus than seeing the city. So now I've been exploring! Pictured is an example. It was Friday night and I went out with my little guitar sometime after midnight to wander the old city and play. When I got back, the dawn was about to break, so I ran in for my camera, then made my way along the city wall to a fire escape, which I climbed up to the top. And saw the light grow over the city slowly, which was my very first Québec sunrise.

But back to bus seating on field trips: oh, man. Those were wild and stressful days. Were any of you guys like really really cool in elementary? I feel like everyone I meet claims they were a misfit back in the day, but is that just because in retrospect being a misfit seems romantic? Where did all the cool kids go?

Houseguests in Québec

The last 4 days in my little apartment on Sainte-Angèle street were spent with these 3 friends. Aude is on the left, she's French, an exchange student in Montreal this past year. We met in October. The Université de Québec a Montreal had a weekend up at their outdoor center near Mont Tremblant for anyone who wanted to help them sweep out their cabins for winter, and so my roommate Rachid, being a student there, brought me along, and almost everyone else there was a French exchange student. So that's how I know Aude (and others) and now her year is up and she's going back to Ardèche, so before leaving she came up from Montreal to visit me in Québec along with Manuela and Lucie, two friends of hers. This was taken two nights ago. We lit a bunch of candles and put them all together in the living room to have a candle-campfire.
Other highlights: chesnut spread from Ardèche, a bunch of concerts, delicious crêpes, talking about Nichiren Buddhism with Manuela, and singing along to "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles.
We're all laughing in the picture, because when the timer in the camera went off, it made a rooster sound! Weird camera.

Canoeing in the Saint Lawrence

This weekend (July 10) I went canoeing in the Saint Lawrence. I live in old Quebec now, inside the walls, so I walked down to take the bus out to the Baie de Beauport, rented a canoe down there and set out towards Île d'Orléans. A storm blew in, though, so I had only gone out about 20 minutes when I figured it would be better for everyone involved (meaning me, and the boats in the shipping lanes) if I headed back in. Even then, it was a bit of an adventure, so I'm grateful not to have been silly about it.
Being a kid on the South Shore of Montreal, then living in Montreal, now in Quebec city, it's a funny feeling having grown up beside the river and never having been in (or on) it. When my mother was young, there was still a beach at the end of Pine Avenue in Saint Lambert and everyone would swim in the river all summer. This is the mouth of all the great lakes, plus Lake Champlain, plus a bunch of Quebec rivers and lakes you all haven't heard of. It's the largest estuary in the whole big blue world, and whales swim in it. Big old whales swim in this river. And it's the river of my life. So it was a great experience to get out on it and touch it and wade in it and paddle it and really connect with it for the first time.

Pictured: Quebec city seen from the stern of my boat. For those in the know, you can make out the Château Laurier and the Price tower.

Sam jimmies the door

Right, so I live in Québec city now. Where people think of me as a city slicker because I'm from Montreal and look at me with either a little disdain, a little envy, or a little bit of both. If they care that is. Not everybody cares where you come from. Or judge you on it. a couple of weeks ago I had gone to Montreal for the weekend, and I came back to Quebec city without my keys. Oops. That was plot point one.
I live in a big house that has been converted into rooms that are rented out. So my room is on the second floor of the house. The room I couldn't get into cause it was locked. I went downstairs to Sam's room. He's Cambodian-Québécois, and pretty clever, so I figured he could help. But as we walked out of his room, I closed the door. Just as he said "ferme pas la porte -".
Now we're locked out of Sam's room and my room. So that night, using only a swedish penknife with one blade, we broke into Sam's room, went to the second floor, couldn't break into my room, but broke into the room NEXT to mine (who's occupant wasn't home yet) and climbed over to my upper window to pry it open. That part didn't work. And was scary. But we made two out of three break-ins!
Pictured here is Sam working on my neighbor's door. Haha.

Do operate heavy machinery

Do operate heavy machinery
Originally uploaded by miaowmatthew.

This is me, and a big machine. Some people walking by were probably really confused about what I was tinkering with on the ground, but when I hopped in the driver's seat and they saw the flash go off, they laughed pretty hard. At me or with me, hard to tell.

Intimate highlights of this week

It's late at night and I'm sharing (with no one) before I go to sleep.
Linden Arden stole the highlights. We're stealing it back.
Here they are for this week:

1. Skipping rocks at the lake in the park, and making one all the way across.
2. Being asked by the mayor if she could take a picture with me. Graciously accepting. Twice.
3. Climbing like, at least 4 trees in the park.
4. Baking chocolate chip cookies with Jessica (that reminds me...)
5. Haha, eating a leftover cookie right now
6. With the spring wind blowing like crazy, literally sailing a full city block on my bike from a standstill without pedaling. Bike sailing!
7. (And by far the best) Seeing a garbage truck crush a refrigerator! And near the end something got punctured and it started spraying white foam all over the street. Totally cathartic.

The end.
Goodnight stars / Goodnight air / Goodnight noises everywhere.

Raison d'être

So Laura is my good friend, and she has a blog. I've been reading it the last few months. And Tito, who is also a friend of mine, though he lives far far away in Santiago de Chile, just now made himself a blog. Both here on Blogger. And he invited me to be a guest contributor or something. I haven't figured that out too well yet, but long story short, since I was on the site already, I made my own blog.
To be continued. Maybe. Or this might be the only post on here ever.
Hi Laura. Hi Tito.

Tito's blog: http://titoarq.blogspot.com/
Laura's blog: http://roarlaura.blogspot.com/