Every Day Should Be A Holiday

Forgive the large gap betweens bloggings. I've been busy settling in to my new digs, as well as playing hostess to Daphna's good friend Ben # 2 (not to be confused with Ben # 1 ). We've spent the vast majority of our time wandering around town, playing Scrabble, buying delicious bagels from Mile End (Montreal's equivalent neighbourhood to Bathurst & Lawrence - Hasids everywhere!) and watching Sex and the City DVDs. Oh, and eating. A lot. What's better than that? Nothing.

A couple of nights ago, Ben and Tony and I went to the village (it's funny how my fruit fly-ish tendencies follow me from city to city) to sing a little karaoke at Club Date. Tony and I brought the house down with our version of "Summer Nights" (I know, I know). Ben did "Mac the Knife", Tony did "New York, New York" and while singing Blondie's "The Tide is High", I was very much hit on by a middle-aged lesbian. It was kind of funny - she hopped up on stage and started singing along with me and I thought, "She must be really drunk and like this song a whole lot." Two minutes later - when I felt her nipples in my back - I remembered that I was in a gay bar. And oh good, she just groped my ass! (Ben later told me that he noticed I had no idea what was going on and wanted to say something. It was funnier discovering it on my own, anyway). Aside from that uncomfortable sidebar, that was probably one of the funnest nights I've had out in a really long time. Karaoke is the greatest.

My French is improving. I'm learning new words every day. Unfortunately, no matter how much vocabulary I pick up, I am starting to realize that I will never be able to communicate effectively with native Montrealers. They speak far too quickly for my liking, and often drop the middle syllables of words entirely. When I was getting my hair cut the other day (I now like it, but immediately afterwards I had this incongruous asian schoolgirl haircut happening. It was scary and too cool for me. Especially since I'm neither asian nor a schoolgirl.), my hairdresser and another were chatting back and forth, and it might as well have been in Arabic. Je n'ai compris pas un mot. Fuck.

I'm looking forward to the start of classes, but I'm also not looking forward to it. It all depends on my mood. I've always been one of those people who loves school and whose internal clock starts in September and ends in June, and I'm really excited to meet some new people. Yet at the same time, it's been really nice to just bum around, tan, explore, shop, do nothing. This has been my summer vacation. It all ends tomorrow.

(Now playing: "It's Summertime", The Flaming Lips)