Today I am truly a Canadian

Having just trekked for 20 minutes through 6 inches of snow to get my café mocha and chocolate donut at the local Tim Horton's, it suddenly occurred to me how Canadian I've become!?!

Btw, I'm planning on seeing THE HANSARD (monsieur Glen himself, of the Frames) tonight at the FIRST GIG MONTREAL STYLEE... can't wait to see how the Montreal audience behave compared to Toronto's well-behaved audience. I reckon they'll be more like the Irish audience from what I can tell...


Other stuff: it's snowing finally (as you may have guessed from the opening paragraph!) ... yay! I lurve snow I does.
The weather changed so suddenly it's unbelievable... literally 4 days ago it was around 10C and I was wandering around in my hoodie. Then yesterday it dropped to -2, and overnight it started sprinkling white powder all over the town (and I ain't talking cocaine here)

Actually I'm really liking the Montreal weather (I know I keep saying this, but I was repeatedly warned by everyone that Montreal is just too cold to enjoy!). Given you wear the right clothes, it's really very pleasant... like walking through the Phoenix Park on a crisp Winter's morning back in Dublin.

The other day (before the snow) I trekked up to the top of Mont Royal .. the mountain is really just a hill tbh. I did it in 8 minutes by taking an extreme short-cut through some steep rocky terrain (I was determined to push myself to get rid of some of this puppy fat I've developed since breaking my arm).

At the top there is a FANTASTIC view over the city which reminded me a lot of Perth in Australia which had a similar look out from a park.

This is made even more mesmerising by when the sun goes down and the city lights turn on (including the batman-esque floodlights that shoot up into the sky).

In typical Quebec fashion, they've really banked on this great vista, and have a large chalet up here where you can get hot chocolate and even hear big-bands play as you sit around admiring the view.

Beautiful.


Later...

The "Swell Season" gig was fantastic. The theatre, "Le National" is literally only 2 mins walk away from my apartment so getting there in the snow wasn't a problem. The guys got a standing ovation which they seemed to really appreciate (they were evidently ticked-off since 2 members of their band weren't allowed to cross the border from US to Canada for some reason).

The audience were really into it.. I'd say if they knew the songs they would be singing along too!

Quite "well-behaved" like the Toronto audience, but they seem to get more "into it" like the Irish audience.. so a cross between the two really.