As
of this past Monday (September 28th), I have been in Montréal for
exactly one month and as of today (October 1st), it is the start of
a brand new month which means it’s blog time!
It seems crazy to think I’ve been here for almost the exact same amount
of time that Lauren and I spent in Québec City two years ago. That summer seemed to go by at the perfect
pace and I had always thought, “Wow!
Five weeks is a long time!” But
it still feels like I just arrived in Montréal.
Perhaps it’s because I have my classes only once a week and the content
moves so much more slowly—perhaps that’s why things seem to be moving at a
completely different pace. Maybe it’s
because it feels like there’s so much more to Montréal than Québec City—so many
more people (over 500,000 more), so many more places to discover and see. Not that I’m saying “Montréal is soooo much better than Québec City.” It’s just different and perhaps it takes a
person more time to really get used to it.
But
while I say the past month has gone by so quickly, quite a bit has happened
since I last wrote in early September. I
spent the first week getting to know Montréal and, mainly, the transit
system. I’d already taken and gotten
used to the metro back in November when I visited, but I’d only ever taken a
bus in Québec City (and back in California), but never in Montréal. My problem with buses is that you have to
know exactly where you’re going and what your stop looks like in order to know
where to get off, whereas on the metro they announce what station you’re
at. So I was apprehensive about taking a
bus and potentially getting lost. My
first foray on a Montréal bus was when I went to go have lunch with my lovely
friend, Gabrielle. I managed to get to
the restaurant and back with absolutely no trouble. Hallelujah.
A few days later, I went to Montréal’s Six
Flags park, La Ronde, as an activity with a bunch of people living in the three
dorms. I had been worried that I would
end up walking around by myself, but I was lucky enough to meet a group of nine
others and we stuck together the whole time.
We called ourselves the C-Squad, cutely enough, and went on about five
rides with super long lines. But roller
coasters is roller coasters and I hadn’t been on one since I was fifteen and my
school’s choir went and performed at Disneyland.
Two
days after La Ronde, it was the start of classes. And by golly was I nervous. My first class was on Tuesday at 10:15 in,
weirdly enough, the business building.
It’s a class shared with mostly undergraduate students; only three of us
are graduate students, but the professor has different criteria for us and has
separate meetings with us. My other two
classes have four and six people respectively.
What I hadn’t really thought about was the possibility of most, if not
all, of my classmates being native francophones. This puts me at an extreme disadvantage in
that I have to work twice as hard to make sure that I can understand everything
and speak well. Not to mention the fact
that, in at least one of the classes, the professor takes off a lot of points
for grammatical errors, which, again, puts me at a huge disadvantage. Gulp.
But as anxious as this all makes me, I’m trying to keep my chin up and
tell myself that they wouldn’t have accepted me into the program if they didn’t
think my French was strong enough.
Right? Right.
I
managed to intermix my studying and constant (CONSTANT) reading with other
things. I got to hang out with my friend
François after I had been here for about three weeks and had had lunch with
Gabrielle the day before that. They’re
probably the only two people I know here in Montréal, other than those I’ve met
since I’ve been here, so it’s been nice to see some familiar faces. And they just rock, so there’s that, as well.
For
a while I had been planning on attending an event on September 26 held by Yamaska (which is apparently a soap
opera here?) about suicide prevention.
Bruno Pelletier had recorded a song for the event and was going to
perform in there. Now, Bruno was
originally the draw for me to attend, but then I realized what the event
actually was and how important suicide prevention is to me as someone who has
struggled with depression for over ten years as well as suicidal thoughts and
feelings. Unfortunately, not enough
people purchased tickets and the event was canceled. I was rather disappointed, and people
reminded me that I would be seeing Bruno in October, but it was hard to explain
that that wasn’t the point of my disappointment. It was an important cause, something about
which awareness should definitely be raised, but it was canceled because not
enough people cared to go. Ah, well.
This
is all chronological, I swear. I found
out about the event cancelation after I got back from hanging out with
François. I had little time to dwell on
my sadness, however, as I had found out just the other day that Marie Mai, one
of my absolute favorite singers, who is going to be “in residence” at the
Théâtre St-Denis this December, was not only starting the ticket sales the
following day, but that she was going to be at
the theatre for the event, taking pictures and signing stuff. Holy cookies.
I felt a bit weird about going alone, especially being twenty-four when
most of her fans are under twelve, but I don’t care. I love her!
So. Saturday.
Tickets were due to go on sale at 10:30, but I knew the line to see her
was going to be crazy, so I decided to get there at nine. (Luckily the theatre is right next to a
metro station I know really well, so I didn’t lost – yay me!) Already there was a line forming, as
apparently people had been there since six, but I wasn’t too far back. It turned out later that I ended up arriving
at precisely the right time. But more on
that in a bit.
After
a while, as more people started to arrive, people from different radio stations
and the like began running up and down the long line of people and filming us
(them, really, I was too self-conscious) screaming and looking excited. A pair of girls went up and down with boat
load of Marie Mai swag and asked young girls to sing a few lines from their
favorite Marie Mai song to choose something like a baseball cap or a
lanyard. All the while, a small
selection of Marie Mai songs were blasting from a speaker. Sweet.
Just
after 10:30, a large, black SUV pulled up to the curb right in front of where I
stood in line. And people. went.
nuts. There were security dudes
and camera dudes and screaming girls and people across the road filming with
their phones and people chanting her name and holy cookies it was crazy. It took a while to get out, but people
continued to go nuts. One woman also
thought it would be appropriate to actually lean on the side mirror of the SUV
and just stand there, using her phone to film Marie Mai through the window for
like five minutes. How stalkerish is
that? Honestly, some of the moms were
crazier than their daughters. I hasten
to add that I was standing back further on the sidewalk, away from the crowd.
Things
went crazy again when she got out of the car.
All of a sudden her little blond self was on the pavement and people
were screaming their little heads off. I
stood toward the back and watched as she ran up and down the long line of
people, high-fiving and giving hugs to ecstatic little girls. I did manage to get this bit on film, as I
was highly amused by the insanity. (This
is not to say that I was not excited—I most definitely was. I just did not lose my head.) On her last run back up to the SUV she turned
around and had someone take her cell phone to get a group picture. Immediately everyone crowded around her,
mostly young girls but a handful of moms, as well, managed to get near the
front. I didn’t want to be pushing any
ten-year-old girl or taking her spot when she should be close to her idol, so I
just peeked up from the back. They
posted the picture on Facebook a little while later, and you can see me waaay
in the back, and she just looks so happy surrounded by her little fans, and
they look absolutely overjoyed to be with her.
It’s adorable.
[I
hope I’m not coming off all ‘high and mighty,’ like, “Oh, I was so composed while they were all nuts.” I really was excited to see her, but I wasn’t
flipping out trying to get a glimpse of her or touch her arm or get in the
front of the photo with her. I was happy
to be there, but I knew the little girls who loved her, quite possibly more
than I do, deserved to be at the front with her. I wasn’t about to try and squeeze past them.]
Anyway. Moving on.
She went ahead into the theatre and, after a while, the line began
moving. At some point, one of the
theatre employees informed the masses that a number of seats had been “blocked
off” from the online sales so as to give those who were waiting in line a chance
to get really good spots. A burly
security dude was standing at the main doorway to prevent things from getting
too crowded and to direct people either to the ticket booth if they had not yet
bought their tickets (some were members of the theatre’s… club… thing and had
had access to a pre-sale) or to the long hall where Marie Mai was if they
had. I went up to buy my ticket and the
woman asked what date I wanted (there were fourteen shows, I think, to choose
from), and I told her that any of them would work, so she found the best seat
available. So on Friday, December 18, I
will be seeing Marie Mai from the second row, almost exactly in the
center!! It’s better than anything I had
expected – I am SO stoked! It was extremely hard to hear the woman
because, for some reason, ticket booths like to put the tiniest sliver of space
in the glass separating you from the teller, but eventually she asked me for my
phone number and I told her I didn’t have one, so she told me that, if I lost
my ticket, they wouldn’t be able to replace it.
I don’t know why not having a phone affects that, but oh well. It’s not like my ticket is leaving my room
for another two-and-a-half months anyway.
After
I bought my ticket, I stood at the end of the line of people waiting to get
into the long hall. It had been
decorated with all of Marie Mai’s various awards and posters from her discography,
which was awesome. Annabelle Cosmetics,
which I believe Marie Mai is the “face” for, was giving free makeovers to
anyone who wanted them, which made a bunch of adorable girls happy. As I was waiting in line, a woman approached
me and asked if I wanted to be entered in the contest to see Marie Mai in Las
Vegas, so I said “Suuure,” all tentatively in French, and I guess my timidity
showed, because she immediately switched to English and said, “Oh, would you
like me to speak English?”
“I
prefer French,” I said, “because I’m here to learn French so I really want to
speak it well.”
“Oh!”
the woman said, all surprised and delighted.
“That’s magnificent! Great! Okay, so…” and then she launched into her
spiel about how to enter the contest, which required me to take a selfie and
post it to Instagram with a certain hashtag.
She took the picture of me and stood over me while I posted it and,
voilà, I’m entered in a contest to go see Marie Mai in Las Vegas. How cool would that be? (And ironic as hell to see her in the
U.S. Or maybe it’s not to see her, it’s just to see a concert. Hm.)
The
line moved fairly quickly amidst the posters, makeup stands, and popcorn and
cotton candy machines, and soon I was up at the front. A woman standing up there told me I could
either take a selfie with her or get my picture taken by one of their people,
at which point it would be posted on Facebook.
I chose the latter. Then,
suddenly, it was my turn.
“Bonjour,”
I said, for once managing not to be overly high-pitched, as I walked forward.
Golly,
she was nice. She said “hi” and then
looked a bit perplexed for a moment.
“We’ve
met before, haven’t we?” she asked.
“No,”
I replied. “I’ve only been in Montréal
for three weeks after I moved from the U.S.”
“Wow!”
she said. “You’ve been here for three
weeks and already you speak French like that?”
Teehee. I explained that I had bought her whole
discography on iTunes and therefore didn’t have anything for her to sign other
than the back of a huge sticker I had been given by some random company while
in line. I must have babbled too
incoherently, because she seemed to only hear the part that I owned her whole
discography, because she was like, “Aww, merci!” As she signed it, she asked my name, and I
told her it was Rose. Her signature is
lovely. She spoke English for like one
sentence, but I can’t remember what it was.
But it was French for the most part.
Yay! We turned to the camera and
smiled all adorable-like, I thanked her again, and I got a hug, and then it was
over. Dreamy sigh.
She’s
awesome and so super nice. Go listen to
her music. Right now.
Since
then, not much else has happened. Last
Sunday I went and looked at the blood moon with a group of friends, whom I
adore, and that was fun since there were no clouds, though it was cold. Golly, it’s been cold. Not cold
cold, but cold enough for me to have been wearing fluffy pajama pants and a
sweatshirt. I mean, my window is open
still, but that’s beside the point.
Oh,
wait, other things have happened.
Lauren
gets here in two weeks! TWO WEEKS I SAY!
And
then.
So
you guys might know about my love affair with Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, which started about seven years
ago. I met, not only Lauren, but also a
lovely Canadian girl by the name of Kate.
We became super close and talked all the time, but we had never been
able to meet in person ‘cause, hey, we lived on opposite sides of the
continent. And we still do. BUT.
Later this month, she will be visiting Ottawa, which is approximately
two or so hours from Montréal. You know
what that means? THAT’S RIGHT, KIDS:
KATE AND ASHLEE ARE GOING TO MEET AND THE WORLD IS GOING TO EXPLODE. I am SO freaking excited to finally meet this
wonderful person. We’re insane and it’s
awesome. I’m going to take a bus to see
her on October 25 and spend the day with her before heading back to Montréal
that night. It shall be wonderful and
excited and AHHHHHHH.
