What a Wonderland

Y'alrighty, it's September, which means it's time for a new entry, so let's get crackin'.

I am, as of August 28, in Montréal!  Because I like to be a detailed little thing, this will probably be a long entry.  So beware.

The Louisville airport is 4.5 hours away from my mom and sister's apartment in Elkhorn City, Kentucky and my flight was at 10am, so we left at 4am.  Ew.  It's always a pain trying to buy plane tickets since I have to pick one that a) leaves at  a decent time and b) arrives at a decent time, and I can't always get those two points to coincide.  It was either leaving extremely early in the morning or arriving in MTL at like midnight.  Which would not be good.

The flights themselves were fine - cramped, but fine.  I had a three-hour layover in Detroit and had to endure said three hours listening to two middle aged women talking a lot.  Not that I mind being around other people, but there was no silence.  At all.  Gah.  Both planes were extremely small, but on the first I ended up on the side with only one seat, so I got to sit by myself.  On the second plane, I also had a window seat, and for a long while it looked like I would get to be by myself again, but at the last minute an older gentleman got on.  He wasn't the smallest of dudes, so it was pretty uncomfortable, but hey, c'est la vie.  (He also smelled strongly of Italian food, which I thought was interesting.)

To get up to MTL, we had to fly over a couple of the great lakes, so it was a bit startling when I rolled up the shade and was all of a sudden looking down upon an expanse of blue.  I've never actually flown over a large body of water, so that was a bit disconcerting for a minute.  I had also noticed that, while the flight attendants were doing their spiel at the beginning, they didn't say what they usually say about "In the unlikely event of a water landing..." and instead just said "In case of a water landing..."  Great.  Luckily we didn't crash and drown.

We arrived at the airport right on time, but as I was walking down the long corridor toward Customs, I was surprised by a long line extending down from there.  A lot of people were walking on the (stopped) moving walkway and cutting in front of everyone, but most were at a standstill.  Finally, when I got up far enough, I was absolutely floored to look down at the room below.  It was literally filled with people, winding lines stretching from one end of the room to the other.  Last time, when I came in through YUL (the MTL airport), it was in the evening, and there'd been no one else there.  This was something completely different.  It took a while just to get to the escalator, at which point I joined the long line for Canadian and American citizens; citizens of other countries had a completely different line.  It moved relatively quickly, but the entire process of just getting my declaration card processed took about an hour.  When I got to the front, the Customs Agent told me to go to the glass-enclosed room to the left marked Immigration 1.

I walked in to the front desk and handed the guy my passport and declaration card.  He gave me a slip of paper with the number 467 and told me to take a seat.  When I did, I saw that they were currently on number 424.  Joy.  Now, while on the plane, they had told us that we weren't to use our cell phones until we got through Customs, but I knew I needed to contact David and Deb, who were waiting for me in the Arrivals area.  So after about thirty minutes, when they got to number 432, I finally went and asked if it was okay if I used my phone, and he was like, "Uh... yeah."  So I texted Deb to let them know where I was and hunkered down to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

Finally,   After a good long while, my number was called.  I handed him my documents and passport, and he told me to sit back down and he would call me when it was ready.  Joy.  So I waited some more, terrified all the while that it would be rejected and I would have to go home.  After about ten agonizing minutes, he called my name.

"Here are your papers," he said.

I gaped a bit.  "I got them?"

The man looked a bit confused.  "Yeah.  You seem very happy about it."

I explained that I had been wanting to come to and live in Québec for a long, long time, and he smiled.

"Well, you have all the paperwork and everything was fine, so..."

He then explained where I needed to go to pay for me new permit as well as where to get my checked luggage, but it was all sort of muddled.  Literally right after, Deb called, so I told her I would be down in a few minutes.  First things first, I went to get my luggage.  I arrived at the carousels and went up to the Delta desk.

"Hi," I said.  "I arrived 3 hours ago from Detroit aaaand I was wondering where my luggage was."

The guy was a bit surprised.  "It took you 3 hours to get through Customs?"

"Yeah," I replied, "well, it was mainly Immigration."

The man told me that my suitcase was on Carousel 7, so I went to go wait there.  After ten minutes of seeing nothing, I looked to the side and saw it all by its lonesome.  Sigh.  The man at the Delta desk told me I could pay for my permit around the other side, in front of Carousel 10, so I went there.  They told me that I paid for it outside.  So I got in line to get through the last step of Customs, but as I handed the woman my declaration card, she asked, "Did you pay for this yet?"  She then told me to go into a room marked Secondary Inspection.

I waited about forty-five minutes in line with a bunch of other grumpy people whose bags had to be painstakingly looked through.  When I finally got through, the man looked rather apologetic and said, "Well, for... well, not future reference, I guess, but you should have just gone to the Cashier Window over there."  ARRRRGHHHHGHHGGHGHFTJOLFKH:K.  Anyway.  So I did so and shelled out the $150 for the permit.  I then proceeded to the Arrivals area, met David and Deb, and drove to their hotel/apartment/thing in Vieux-Montréal and promptly crashed upon the couch.  Before that, however, we went to an awesome Polish restaurant a few blocks away to hear Anthony Cooperwood, a friend of David's and Deb's and a Truman alumnus, play the piano and get drinks.  (A Québécoise woman who worked in Cirque du Soleil said my French is great and to keep speaking it.  Wee!)  So then, after camaraderie, dinner, and drinks, I crashed.

The next morning was MY BIRTHDAY YAY.  It was also move-in day.  David and Deb were kind enough to get me a shirt with the Titanic on it, despite the fact that they already gave me a freaking iPad for my birthday.  After a spot of breakfast, we went to Concordia's Loyola campus about 6km from there where I signed a lease, got my photo taken, and had a bunch of big, strong football players move all my stuff up to the fifth floor.  Sweet.

David and Deb were (are) positively awesome.  We went to a store that's kind of like a smaller version of Wal-Mart but with fewer Wal-Marty things.  I realize now that it's called Loblaws, but I kept forgetting, so I just called it Lobotomy.  Anyway.  We bought a bunch of stuff like plates, bowls, cups, utensils, cleaning supplies, etc. - stuff we kind of forgot I needed.  That evening, we headed to a restaurant near the Notre-Dame basilica for dinner.  I got a piece of delicious cake with "Bonne Fête" written in chocolate on the plate and a sparkler stuck in the top.  It was awesome.  After dinner, I took the metro to a café near McGill University to get coffee with my wonderful friend, Ekaterina, and her husband and son.  They got me a Montréal water bottle for my birthday and I felt ever so fuzzy and special!  Then I headed back to the apartment, at which point David and Deb dropped me back off at my dorm for the night.

Sunday is a tiny bit of a blur for some reason.  I got my permanent access card to the dorm buildings and we went to my favorite restaurant, m:brgr for an early dinner.  I got poutine.  It was incredible.  Since David and Deb were leaving early the next morning, we said goodbye once they dropped me off at my dorm, and then I was on my own.  I'm so incredibly grateful for everything they've done for me, not only while they were here, but over the past five years.  I don't know where I'd be without them, Lauren, and Kat.

Over the past week, I've been getting everything squared away, and it's not been overly fun.  Things like orientations, getting my student ID, going to the International Student Office, figuring budget stuff out, etc.  I don't enjoy it and it definitely induces a large amount of anxiety, but Lauren is confident that once that stuff is all settled, I'll be able to relax and focus on actually being in grad school and being in Montréal.  Tonight is the first football (American football, that is) game of the season, and everyone living in the dorms gets to get in for free.  I'm not a big football person, but the cafeteria is closed due to the corresponding barbecue, so I think I'll go regardless.  The players were nice enough to help everyone move in, after all.  Tomorrow I'm heading back downtown and on Sunday it's off to La Ronde (the local Six Flags park) for an extremely discounted price!  Yay!  Monday is Labor Day and Tuesday is... dun dun DUNNNN... my first class!  AHHH!!

Also, bit of explanation if you've noticed that off to the side it says "Ashlee (aka Rose)."  The reason for that is I've started going by Rose, rather than Ashlee here.  It's not that I don't like my name, it's just easier to pronounce and spell, regardless of language since it's a name in both French and English.  No one can spell my name, so I've given up.  I'm not about to ask people who already know me to call me Rose, but I've been introducing myself as Rose, and so far it's working! ;)