How rude

I feel awful. I just realized the last time I posted was August 24th... exactly one day after my husband's birthday and I didn't even mention him! This just goes to show I'm quite wrapped up with school these days and may be ... what's the word? not ignoring, but well just not giving him enough of my time and attention. So to clear things up, on the 23rd we went to Rockaberry's for desert and it was delicious! I had an oreo cheesecake and he had the triple chocolate cake. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but I LOVE MONTREAL! Just to be able to sit outside on a terasse and watch people walk by and live right in the heart of the city is an experience I will never forget!

Last Tuesday was my first day carpooling as well. Remember the 6:35am departure? Well now it's 7am. I definitely appreciate those 25 minutes. I ride with a third grade teacher and with my first grade teacher partner. They are both awesome.

"We should get a move on"... OK I better make this quick. I'm truly enjoying myself here. Work is overwhelming, but I sincerely hope that a routine will quickly be established in my classroom and that way I can stop worrying about it so much. I haven't had a full day with my students yet, but I met them on Thursday afternoon and they were wonderful! They are a lively group, but as I said, I think once the routine gets established, we'll all be just fine.

Other than that, Montreal is awesome. Did I mention that already? I went out to Juliette et Chocolat on Thursday with my friend Melanie, and then we walked up and down main street (St. Laurent) which is closed to traffic for 'main mania' (the shops put their stuff outside and there are a few DJs and dance groups out there to entertain you as you walk along - it's great). Friday I had dinner at my parents, which may sound boring, but it's a blessing when you haven't been living in the same city as them for two years. We had a great time and even played the train game. Saturday we went for a picnic on Mount Royal with Melanie and then we went shopping. I needed to get some things for my classroom so we went to Ikea and then to Staples and then I also got teacher shoes because my shoes were starting to hurt my feet. Last night we went to L'Academie and Vol de Nuit with Willow and Luc and another couple from Nova Scotia. It was so great to catch up with old friends and hang out around Montreal. I hope this feeling doesn't rub off too soon - I'm enjoying how novel everything feels, even though I'm re-visiting it. So we should indeed get a move on and go to Marché Jean Talon for our groceries! Have a great week!

Quicktakes

If I understand from the blogging world I stalk, I can jot down a few things I want to mention without going into full-blown details... please let me know if I'm wrong.

1 - Arbre en arbre (literally 'tree-to-tree') on Saturday with parents, Paul and Florianne to celebrate Paul's birthday. The concept is basically that you get from one tree to the next doing all kinds of different challenges in the air. You have a harness and the game might consist of a shaky bridge (easy) or a weird combination of ropes and logs to walk on (hard). It was very fun, we all enjoyed and then had dinner and a yummy home-made chocolate cake for desert!

2 - Rugby on Sunday. Paul and I went to watch our friend Hector play rugby. We're very good friends because it was rainy and cold and we went anyway. Afterwards we hung out and caught up. We cherish our few friends in Montreal.

3 - First day at work on Monday = waking up at 6am, metro from 6:35 to 6:55, bus from 7:10 to 7:45. It's early, and it's FAR. Oh well. I drank coffee and read (I'm reading Wicked, which I recommend). The day was good. There was a general welcome meeting and then time to check out my new classroom and undo many many boxes full of goodies. The teacher I am replacing was there with her beautiful baby and graciously showed me where everything was and how she normally did things - I have a feeling I'll be emailing her often!

4 - A day-long meeting. Oh boy. Various topics came up such as whether or not children should play with snails and whether or not 'we' (teachers) should move the plastifier to the teacher's room. Both made for great discussion and debate, surprisingly. Coffee was not mentioned, which was a first for me at a start-of-the-year meeting, but they have a fancy-schmancy coffee machine and you have to pay for your coffee, so that settles the coffee issue quite quickly. A few Kindergarten teachers and lunchtime and afterschool aides saw my class list and said "oh - insert awkward smile - have fun". I have 29 students, and apparently a few of them have behavioural and or academic and learning difficulties. Oh well, I hope to make the best of it and make sure those little children reach their full potential and feel awesome! Just in case you are wondering, as a team we decided children should not play with snails and the plastifier should indeed be moved to the teacher's room.

There you have it! A quick update. I hope to post pictures soon so you can see what the apartment and classroom looks like!

Where do I start?

I have so many things to tell you since our big move! I guess I'll go in chronological order.

Flying with a failing company is quite an adventure. Mexicana is almost out of business and we kept checking our flight status to make sure our flight was still scheduled. Luckily for us, it was and we were able to leave Mexico City on time. Just before take-off, the flight attendant says 'Welcome to flight 880 to Monterrey - LONG PAUSE - final destination Montreal'. The other passengers, as well as Paul and I, look at each other questioning whether this is supposed to happen. She comes on the speaker a little while later to explain we have to stop in Monterrey to fill up on gas. Apparently, Canada and the USA do not allow Mexicana to fill up in their country anymore because Mexicana has an exorbitant amount of debt everywhere. So we stopped in Monterrey for an hour and a half, unable to leave the airplane. Fun. Also, Paul's family had flown with Mexicana to come to our wedding a month before this and had come back telling us how amazing the food and service was... needless to say, the amazing food we got was a tiny bag of peanuts. We did get free beer though (Dos X) and I got tomato juice to add to it, so that was better than nothing, but still. We ate peanuts that day.

When we arrived in Montreal, we had to pass through immigration to explain that I would sponsor Paul to get his permanent residency. The lady we talked to was super nice and everything went rather smoothly. We have to go and actually START the paperwork tomorrow.

My family patiently waited for us and was nice enough to go out for dinner with us at midnight! My poor dad had to wake up super early the next day, but he didn't mind going out for poutine at La Banquise (check it out at www.restolabanquise.com).

The next day was spent going back and forth from our new aparment (Jessica's place) to my parents' house, hauling and unpacking suitcases and trying to find a place for everything. In one day, we did quite well, but were absolutely exhausted by the end of it! Again, thank you mom and dad for a great dinner of moules et frites! Actually, thank you Xavier who made the fries home-made!

Today we woke up very early to take the metro and bus to my new school. The journey went well and even though it's a trek (it takes a little over an hour), I think I will enjoy the time to read and relax. After getting off the bus though, we got seriously lost and walked down a wrong street - google maps' fault! Anyway, we eventually found the school, I met the principal and took a tour of the school. I also handed in and filled out some paperwork. The school looks amazing and the people I met were all very sweet! My classroom is huge!!! I am very excited to start decorating next week. I think I will stop by tomorrow just to drop off some classroom stuff I have.

After realizing how awful it was to live without a phone, Paul and I decided to go out and check out the different plans for the iPhone 4. I was pretty much sold on Telus, but then we went to Rogers and their network is a bazillion times better so we got our phones there. I also realized I just wanted an iPhone, I didn't care if it was 4 or 2 or 3 or whatever. So I got the iPhone 3GS and Paul got nothing - yet! There was a massive line up outside the MacStore to get the iPhone 4 and it was sold out everywhere we went. The super nice lady who sold us my phone told us she would call when the next shipment arrived, but she actually called 30 minutes later to tell us she had found an iPhone 4 in the store!!! So we went back and Paul got his iPhone and we are now able to communicate with the world.

We then got our metro passes in the metro and are now 'home'! It has been a busy few days and I sense it will be a busy next few months! I hope to update as much as I can!

Wedding day memories

Inspired by my awesome friend Kristen who just got married, I decided to jot down a few wedding day memories so I don't forget them! I will go in chronological order.

1 - When both hairstylists used their hairdryers at the same time the electricity went out - I was a little bit worried when it happened a second time, but then they decided to only use one hairdryer at a time and everything was fine.

2 - I arrived at the hotel to be told the room I was getting dressed in wasn't ready yet! I had a bit of a bridezilla moment (my mom and sister can attest to this) but I had no idea how awesome those twenty minutes would be. We walked down to Starbucks and had a family lunch and it was definitely a priceless moment.

3 - We were already taking pictures and I was so happy with how everyone looked and then THE BOUQUETS ARRIVED! Oh my goodness, it was pure perfection! I had never in a million years imagined something so beautiful!

4 - I arrived to the church and needed to confess myself before the ceremony, but I definitely did not want Paul to see me, so I confessed myself outside on the street! I was in such a happy and excited mood that I honestly could not think of anything to confess, so we just prayed for the fact that Paul and I lived together before getting married.

5 - The walk down the aisle was not as I had imagined it would be. I could barely see anything or anyone through the veil so I just caught glimpses of guests. I was really excited to see Paul and his reaction (he looked bored according to my sister) but I couldn't until the last second. My parents were so cute the whole walk down they kept saying how happy and proud they were. As soon as I did see Paul I got a huge knot in my throat and my eyes started to water and I knew I would be crying the whole time if I didn't control myself. I did a pretty good job through the readings and everything up until the vows - as soon as I said the word 'husband' I was practically bawling, but I got through it.

6 - Before we ate, when we arrived at the reception, what felt like many people (but was probably only a few) kept coming up to me and asking questions. I just remember turning to Paul and being like I'm done organizing and planning - tell them to figure it out! My second bridezilla moment (to my friends, this is also why I missed the group picture). Oh well my mini freak-out worked because the rest of the evening went really smoothly.

7 - I remember not being able to sit down during the dance at all. Every new song was better than the last and I didn't want to miss dancing to it! I did take a break to get some fresh air at some point and missed the beginning of the boy's group dance to 'Backstreet's Back'! I ran in though (again, how could I NOT dance to 'Backstreet's Back'?) and caught the end of the dance!

Well there you have it - those are the moments that truly stand out in my memory. Overall I just kept thinking of how great it was to have everyone I love in one room having a good time. I wish I could get married every weekend! hehe... minus the planning and spending, of course!

Goals

My three personal goals for this school year are (in order of importance):

1 - Eat organic food. There are a few great organic shops I can't wait to try out when I'm in Montreal - I will surely let you know what I think of them. Also, Paul and I would like to go to Marché Jean Talon once a week or so to stock up on fresh veggies.

2 - Find a spiritual group. I believe in God, I have a very hard time with religion, which to me is a man-made construct. I would like to find a group I can grow spiritually with.

3 - Do some kind of exercise. Yoga? Dance? Pilates? That kind of thing appeals to me and would help me feel healthy.

I will let you know how this goes!

Blackberry madness

Before I start, we have decided on a new dinnerware set. Paul's grandma recommended Villeroy-Boch because they last for years (she's had hers over 25 years and Paul's mom has had hers for 30 years and they don't chip or break!). So we started looking there and found this:

We went to see Paul's aunt and she has agreed to buy it for us, but some items are temporarily out of stock. We are going to wait to buy it, but this will most likely be it! It's called 'Flow'.

Paul did win his hockey tournament last night!!! We went out to celebrate but instead of Tacos al Pastor, we went to Applebees. At one point in the evening, there were about 10 people there and I swear to you I was LITERALLY (oh how I wish I was exaggerating) the only one without a Blackberry. This would not be a problem for me but they were ALL (again I wish I was exaggerating) chatting/texting/calling/etc! I looked around as thought 'I wish they would all turn into blackberries (the fruit) and explode' just like in Charlie and the Chocolate factory when that girl (Victoria?) turns into a blueberry. It was so annoying and I felt so left out, but then I also thought I really don't want to have a Blackberry and turn into one of those people who ignores everyone - especially at the table! To me, texting or talking on the phone while at the dinner table is very rude. When I absolutely have to, I will excuse myself about having to use my cell phone at the table. So to be the only person who was sitting there willing to talk with someone and having no one but BB addicts to interact with, I did the only logical thing I could do: I turned to my husband and told him to put that piece of technology away. Being the wonderful husband he is, he listened, and slowly but surely everyone else followed suit. Now this is a very important note. If I EVER become a Blackberry addict, please, please someone remind me of how rude it is to use it ALL THE TIME, especially at a dinner table. Thank you in advance.

Random thoughts

As promised, here are the dishes we are pretty much set on. I think they are just right - a little bit of green and blue trim and a beige center. They are not too crazy and not too plain.

So big news - Paul and I sold our car today!!! Yay! It was quite an ordeal and with just a week before the big move we were both getting a little bit stressed. First we went to a sketchy dealership with gross men who were wearing bling and horking (spelling?). One guy even smoked in our car without our permission - gross! They were offering to buy the car for really cheap, like way less than what we had paid, so we said no thank you and went on our merry way. We went to a second dealership where the guy called another guy and it just seemed complicated so we left. Then finally the lightbulb came on and Paul had a great idea! We just went back to the dealership where we bought it four months ago, explained our situation and sold it back to them for a fair price - the fairest offer we'd had all day! That is taken care of and that is one less thing to worry about.

I'm off to Paul's final hockey game, I hope he wins and we go out to celebrate with some tacos al pastor!

Dinnerware

Who knew it was so hard to settle on a dinnerware set? Paul and I have been surfing the world wide web for about two hours now and we can't seem to settle on anything. My problem is that I keep thinking 'man, I have to look at those dishes for the rest of my life'. That is way too overwhelming for Little Miss Change here. Also, this is a gift from his aunt, so I feel like it would be inappropriate to use them for a few years and then change. I guess we will be living in different countries though, we could just take it out when she comes over, which will most likely not be too often. Anyway, hopefully we narrow it down soon enough - I might even post a picture of what we settle on!

Movies and stories

Most of you already know that I love movies and good books. I was thinking about this the other day and it occurred to me that what I really love are stories. I love meeting people and hearing about their life story, or going for coffee with friends and hearing their stories. I love teaching little kids and hearing their stories. The world is full of stories we just have to learn to look out for them, and appreciate them. I guess not everyone appreciates a good story. 


Going back to movies, I appreciate even a bad story. Or well, a very predictable one is what I meant. You know the typical Hollywood love story or romantic comedy where X falls in love with Y (someone they are really not supposed to fall in love with like a coworker or a bosses' daughter or something) and then a variety of good things happen so they are super duper happy and then something goes horribly wrong and then one of the two has to prove their love to the other person and then they life happily ever after. Even though I already know all of this, I still enjoy them. But I must say I do prefer a shiny, new story. All of this blabbing has just been to tell you how amazing the movie Inception is. It is new and fresh and I don't think anyone will be bored or unappreciative of this story. I don't want to ruin it for anyone so I won't tell you much, but I wonder about the end: is he or isn't he? What do you think?

My honeymoon on the Oasis of the Seas

Before I start, I just want to say my blogs wont always be this long.

On July 17th we took a shuttle from our hotel in Fort Lauderdale to the port and saw the ship for the first time. It is HUGE! It makes all of the other cruise ships look like babies in comparison. We got very excited and practically ran up the ramp  Our whole entire afternoon was spent discovering this beast, with its 16 floors, 24 restaurants, zip line, pools, hot tubs, and more we had a lot to see! We had to do a 'sinking' drill which was kind of entertaining in that a lot of people were in this aqua theatre place (where the diving shows were held) and the messages were said and projected on screens in many different languages. The funny thing was that the people sitting next to us got almost ALL of the languages wrong - they guessed French for Italian, Italian for Spanish, etc. It was funny. Then Paul and I had signed up for a couples massage. We had checked it out online and it cost approx. 100$, which we thought was very reasonable. So we get there and we see the price is around 220$ and we were like oh ok that must be the price for both of us... no no it turned out to be 220$ EACH! So we were majorly ripped off at the spa (Paul also thought it was a good idea to listen to the lady and buy all kinds of soaps and oils which cost a gazillion dollars). The massage (hot stone, by the way, which is incredible) was amazing though, and it was most needed after the crazy stress we'd been in for the previous wedding planning and hosting month. After that we got ready for dinner. I LOVED dinner. Every night we got to dress up, some nights were fancier than others but I just enjoyed wearing a dress every night. We got the wine package so we got a bottle of wine every night, and that was enough to get us both quite tipsy. And the food was yummy!!! I wish I remembered what I ate every night. I know there was lasagna, gnocchis, fettuccini - you all know how much I love pasta! 

July 18th, we woke up super early to get off the ship in the Bahamas. We were in the Bahamas around 8am and decided to get a taxi to go to the Atlantis hotel, which is famous, and as it turns out, quite beautiful. We got there and just walked around and saw sharks and sting rays in a lagoon, we walked on the beach a little bit and then we were in a water park! Everything was closed because it was so early and I think this definitely worked in our favour because we were able to see the entire hotel (we later heard a security guard telling people that the area we had been in was for guests only - oops!). Inside the hotel we walked around some more and found a casino and Paul decided we should play. I hate slot machines so I was against this idea until he convinced me to play only two one dollar bills. So we did and I won 15$ (we only actually won 11 because we spent 4, but you know what I mean), and then I decided slots were pretty fun! haha... We took a taxi back to town and walked up and down main street. We went into a few shops, they were mostly jewelry shops, we didn't get anything and soon got bored because they were all the same and we didn't really want to buy anything anyway. So we went back to the ship and went to the pool, and relaxed and read. Paul wanted to see the boat pull away at 2pm since we hadn't seen it the previous day (we were in our massages at 5pm when the ship left) so he went to watch while I read some more. He came back super excited because four people were left behind in the Bahamas! Then we went and had a nap. We got dressed up for dinner, which was a formal night, and enjoyed dinner. We chatted a bit with our dinner neighbours - there were five tables of two right next to each other so the first couple on our left were two older ladies from Boston, they're best friends and go on cruises a lot, next to them were a nice couple from Pennsylvania, George and Debbie, the last couple never came. On our right side was an older couple from Trinidad and Tobago. The lady LOVED to talk - she talked Paul's ear off that night! Afterwards we were going to see the diving show at the Aquatheatre called Oasis of Dreams, but it was cancelled due to technical difficulties. They told us we'd get to see it again later on in the week, but the technical difficulty never got fixed and we never got to see it! So we walked around and stumbled upon a fabulous jazz show - I think Paul has a video of the band on his Iphone, it was amazing!

July 19th was a day at sea. I honestly can't remember what we did during the day, but it was most likely relaxing by the pool or in a hot tub, walking around Central Park (yes there is a central park on this ship), ordering room service and sitting on the balcony eating cheese and cookies. I just remembered what we did!!! We went to see the 'hottest man in the world', which ended up being a super cute 10 year old boy who danced really well. We also went to 'Guess that 80s tune' trivia and to a 'learn how to dance like Michael Jackson' thing. There were just so many things to do! After dinner that night we went to see the Love and Marriage game show - it was just like the show Newlyweds, except they had a honeymoon couple, an older couple (39 years) and an in-between couple. It was really funny! After that we went up to the top of the ship for a party. This day the ship was super rocky because of a storm, so in my high heels it was so hard to dance! It was fun though.

July 20th we landed in St. Thomas. It was raining cats and dogs when we arrived and I was worried our snorkeling tour might be cancelled, but it wasn't. So we walked off the boat (just FYI if you ever go on a cruise I recommend buying a waterproof bag to keep passports and stuff in - we did and it was a very good decision) and got herded together with the Turtle Cove snorkel group. We got on the boat and were soaking wet already, so we sat at the front and started chatting with a very nice couple from Ireland - Ursula and Paidrag (which is Patrick in Irish). Then all of a sudden, the captain told us we'd have to turn around because there was thunder and lightning and the coast guard didn't think it was safe for us to be out. We were all disappointed but they were ready to serve us rum for breakfast, so it wasn't too bad! Just as the sailors were starting to give out the drinks, we saw blue skies! So the captain called the coast guard and told them we would keep going if that was OK. We arrived at turtle island, which is a beautiful natural reserve we weren't even allowed to step foot on! We snorkeled and were lucky enough to swim with sea turtles! It was a magical experience. On the way back, we got rained on again, but this time the rum was flowing freely throughout the boat so we didn't even feel cold! We had been told St. Thomas was the best place to buy things, so we got on the ship to have a shower and get dry in order to go shopping afterwards. We stepped out and I think the rain just sensed our presence or something because it started to seriously downpour! We decided pretty quickly that shopping was a bad idea. We got back on the ship and hung out with our new friends in the hot tub. That night after dinner we went to see the headliner show, which was a man singing. He was OK. He was very talented but catered more to an older crowd. 

July 21st was our day in St. Maarten. We landed on the - wait I just realized do you 'land' when you are on a boat? maybe I should be saying 'docked' - anyway, we arrived on the Dutch side of the island and had signed up for a kayak & snorkel tour, so we followed our little group, got a briefing on how to kayak and set out! I was enjoying myself up until Paul said I wasn't kayaking correctly, which just pissed me off, how did he know it all? Maybe he was the one messing it up. We made it through our kayaking experience overall generally happy and were one of the first ones on the other side of the beach, so I guess we must have been doing something right! We snorkeled for a bit but St. Thomas was a lot better in terms of variety of fish and marine life. Here there were a lot of those scary black sea urchins and I kept thinking I would hurt myself. After the tour, we both really wanted to go to the French side of the island, so we got the best taxi driver in the world and went. The taxi driver was just very high and hilarious. Paul asked if there were 'coffee shops' on the island and if they were legal like they are in the Netherlands and the driver's response was that there weren't any coffee shops, but that they had a lot of coffee. He was like "I have coffee every day" and showed us his joint, sitting right there by the steering wheel. After an entertaining ride, we arrived on the French side and had lunch at a restaurant called "Le café de la mer". I had fish, it was good. Then we went to the market and bought a few bracelets and things for Paul's sisters. We returned to the ship and sat in an infinity hot tub while we watched the ship leave. Then we went to the comedy show, which was pretty good, and then had dinner. At dinner that night, the George/Debbie couple got us a bottle of wine as a congratulations on getting married gift, and then the best friends couple got us shots! So we had a good time and I don't remember what we did after dinner! 

July 22nd was a day at sea. We had a few things we wanted to do on the ship: the zip line, wall climbing and ice skating oh and the flowrider, which is a surf simulator. Of all of those things, we were only able to go wall climbing because everything else was either closed at the time we went looking, or too full to wait. We did go see the ice skating show, which was amazing. We also saw a diving and synchronized swimming show, which was also great. After dinner, we watched a musical show called 'Come Fly with me' it was really well done! Almost circus like with trapeze artists, dancers and singers. Then we went up to the top deck for a party, but we were about to leave because the music got boring when Ursula and Paidrag showed up, so we stayed a while longer and hung out with them. We were going to go to the bar called Dazzles, but the pizza place got in the way, so we ate and then it was 3am and we got tired and went to sleep so we never did see the bar on the ship! 

July 23rd was another day at sea. We bought each other honeymoon gifts with our leftover spending money, I got Paul a nice watch and he got me a nice purse and wallet. I don't remember what else we did, considering we had three bottles of wine to finish that day from our wine package! We had one with lunch, one with dinner and one we brought back to our room with us, but we never did finish it since we were pretty tired!

July 24th got off the ship really early at 7am, took a shuttle to the Miami airport and then realized our hotel was NOT close to the airport! Urg! So we finally make it to the hotel and of course we can't check in until 3pm, so Paul was worried I would freak out about not being able to sleep but I just said if we could find a Starbucks as fast as possible, I would be OK. We did, since we were right next to Bayside, which is a big shopping center. After that we went to Ocean Drive and found Miami Ink (we briefly considered a tattoo and then decided against it). Then we found another shopping street, bought stuff at the Gap, ate really great wraps, and went to yet another mall! I was really intrigued about Target and Marshalls since my American friends always tell me so much about them so I went. Target was awesome, I went a little crazy (but not too bad) and Marshalls wasn't so cool - it's just like Winners where everything is disorganized and you have to find the clothes yourself. I prefer nicely folded and colour-coordinated Gap-like stores. 

There you have it, if you read the whole thing, I'm quite impressed!