Programmer, Property Tycoon, Media Mogul
So, I was told about this thing called PHP Beer some time ago, and met up with about 12 people, most of whose names I’ve forgotten. At the risk of insulting those whose names I cannot remember (I’d like to blame the alcohol for that), I’d like to thank Yann, Marc, Louis Philippe, Nelson and everyone else for making me feel welcomed. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, met a few new people and exchanged a few ideas that grew into good ones!
Leave me a comment if you were there to remind me of your name 
Wow – it’s almost two weeks since my last post. While that’s not too unusual for me, I was hoping to be a bit more active while in Canada. A lot has happened…
We went to Saint-Donat, a small village north of Montreal, the weekend before last and stayed with friends who own a chalet up there. This was the weekend of the big ice storms in Montreal. I had my first poutine on the Saturday night, and it was delicious!
The week days since my last post have been spent in near solitary confinement, and I have to admit it’s starting to affect me a little. We’re staying in one of UQAM’s residential apartments in the centre of Montreal, and I’m working 9 to 5.30 (or thereabouts) every day. I wake up here, I have breakfast, I get to work, I have lunch (occasionally going out), get back to work, S gets home and we have dinner. Evenings are a little easier – we’ll meet with friends/colleagues, go to a pub, we even went to see the Elvis Story at the theatre last Saturday. But in general, I think I’m going slightly nuts. More nuts that usual. I can’t wait to work from the office again (after some proper holiday, of course!).
But back to happier subjects, we’ve been trying the suggested eateries and l’Etranger was great. It looked like a road-side diner, but the menu was awesome. Took about 10 minutes to read the thing! We both went for the soup of the day (broccoli), I had a Yo Lurvely!
My French is improving mildly too. I went to visit a friend’s office last Friday and on the way back to the Metro, started talking to a born-in-Montrealian who’s never left the country, but aspires to some day. While the conversations were simple and basic, we managed to converse in excellent Frenglish (franglais en français!).
My confinement will be temporarily lifted tomorrow, as S and I will be going to Ottawa for two days. I will probably take the laptop and work on the bus (2.5 hours each way) to keep on track, and will probably end up working a few of my official holiday dates to make sure I’ve actually done three weeks of work during my stay here. The end is now in sight – the 19th is my first day of holiday, and I’ll probably work that day to catch up and then I’m free until the end of January (Note to boss – not that I don’t enjoy my job!)
Well, S should be here any minute for lunch, so (there’s the knock at the door!) so I’ll sign off for now and try to be more active before leaving for Guatemala.
Alors, on était arrivée hier soir, c’est mon premier jour a Montréal aujourd’hui, et j’arrive par metro a McGill as 9:30. C’est aussi l’anniversaire de ma soeur – bonne anniversaire!
J’ai organisée l’access d’Internet pour notre chambre a la residence d’UQAM, ou on habite pour 21 jours, mais j’oublie demandez si c’est un gym pres de nous. Avec S, on a gagne chacun 4 kilo! Moi, je n’ai pas fait beaucoup d’exercice, et S a mange bien en France!
Quand je marchais les rues, j’ai écoute l’album de Moby, 18. C’est un tres bon album pour découvrir une nouvelle ville. I felt as though I was in one of his music videos.
Right now, I’m drinking a coffee and eating a yummy lemon and poppyseed muffin while I wait to meet S for lunch at half past.
My first impressions of this city? It’s not as cold as I was led to believe it might be. The wind, especially at road intersections, does make it a lot worse though. I haven’t checked out down town yet, but this area (rue Ste Catherine) – a strange, sprawling mix of universities, old buildings, low-cost high-rise residential and office apartments and shops – is a little depressing. There are lots of homeless people sleeping in doorways and it doesn’t look overly attractive. I’ll let you know what I think of down town when I’ve been there. I’ll also post some photos of both soon.
Oh – and apologies for my passable French, I’m making very little use of Firefox’s built-in spell checker and no grammar checker at all. Feel free to correct and educate me.
A la prochaine.
So, I’m going to be in Montréal, and I’m looking for tips. What should I do there? Where should I eat? Who should I meet?
A little birdy gave me a few eating tips: Schwartz’s, Beauty’s, and some others I can’t remember. Found another site that has links to other eateries in Montréal.
I’m also interested in meeting up with people from open source/PHP/developer types to those that just want to meet up for a coffee/beer. I’m hoping BarCampMoncton will be held while I’m there. I’d like to go to some user groups while I’m there. Do you live in Montréal, or know someone who does?
So, any ideas or suggestions?
We stayed in Dubbo from the 30th of Dec until the 1st of January. New Year in this town was interesting. No fireworks (fire danger), no streets of crows with big screen displays and a major celebrity counting down to midnight, just people going to pubs, big scary bouncers giving out (and wearing) paper tiaras and blowing those funny horn things with the paper that unrolls and gets soaked in your beer.
We left the pub at 11pm just after the police arrived to take away a very drunk and very loud young lad to go back and drink a bottle of bubbly outside our cabin.
Well, I was going to tell you about Dubbo Zoo, or so the title of this post would lead you to believe! There will be pics up on the photos site as soon as I get round to uploading them (probably when I get home and I have faster access to the server). The zoo itself is great – they’ve designed it so it appears there’s nothing between you and the wildlife.
With the exception of really tall wire fences around big cats that can jump higher than small cats (which is still quite high), most enclosures are small lumps in the ground (think levy) with a fence on the other side of the mound, no higher than the mound. In other words, you can’t see the fence. The animals also have plenty of room to move around – must be great.
I’m thinking of updating my reincarnation wish from cat (just laze around) to any chimp type animal. Imagine having the best aerial trapeze skills in the world, and getting bored with how long you can dangle by one arm before throwing yourself 30 metres to another tree. I’m sure he was showing off, but so would I if I could do half of what he could…
