Land of the Bloody Cold

Well, I have arrived, its been very cold here in Montreal, it was -25 last Thursday, and we had snow banks on the side of the road over 4 feet tall, which was very disconcerting for a West Coast kid like me, used to my rain, and very unwhite winters !

Its been a fun experience thus far though, Montreal is very European, and very arrogant. As a city, the moment you meet any of the locals, you get the feeling that this is a city that knows its one of the oldest in North America (if not the second oldest, only to Quebec City), it knows its beautiful, and it damn well thinks its the best place on the continent. There is certainly an elite arrogance, and powerful pride to this city, which I view as both a positive and negative thing. I love the city's architecture, the old buildings, with their ornate decorative design, they just don't build great office structures, or even townhouses like they used to !!

And Quebec City just celebrated its 400 year Anniversary, which I am very sure makes it the oldest city outside Mexico, in North America, it was definately founded before any city in the USA... and as an interesting scandal, the Queen was invited to the celebrations, but she turned it down, due to the prominent arguments of many Quebec politicians that the British monarch should not be recognised in Quebec. I honestly do not know why Quebec is allowed to get away with what it does, I mean, we (the British part of Canada) won the war against Quebec, and conquered it hundreds of years ago, so just move on for God's sake ! But, alas, they insist for preferrential treatment, under a system that is unfair on sooo many levels (someone born in Quebec pays half the University tuition than any other Canadian citizen, double standard much?)...

Anyways, I am ranting, I love the city, I need to start taking photos, its absolutely a winter wonderland, and its been getting warmer, nearing 0 degrees C, which has been absolutely wonderful. There are such cute little coffee shops and wonderful places, and the Metro, LOVE the Metro, its a wonderful mass transit system that makes it soo easy to get around ! the underground city is especially wonderful... I especially love the shopping, yesterday Cody and I went to the underground city and got the ring resized, got our brows waxed, purchased a coffee maker, and went to see a movie, which we left (long story).. all while staying underground, and walking between like 7 different shopping centres, and hotels !

OH, I completely forgot to mention, My family and I and Cody all went up to a ski resort called Sun Peaks for Christmas this year... and Cody took me for a wonderful walk throught the ski village, and around the cute little shops in the valley, and then on the way back to our Chalet, he stopped me on the trail and proposed ! It was amazing, the snow flakes were coming down and it was very sudden that I didn't believe him at first, I was totally shocked ! It was absolutely lovely, and amazing, and the RING is GORGEOUS, its two bands, each one representing our corporeal bodies, his body is represented by a band of yellow 18k gold with 26 diamonds, and mine by a white 19.3 karat band with 26 diamonds, and then an intertwining weave of gold in the middle represents our intertwining spirits, and our energy joining. I LOVE that it was a custom made ring here in Montreal, and jeweler is amazing, very nice man... but the ring was a little bit too large, so we are getting it remade to be smaller to fit my finger.

Its very exciting, no date for the wedding has been planned yet, although we want to do it on the Summer Solstice, and its a secret how we want it done ! Either its going to be June 21 in 2009, or 2010. Not sure yet... we need to start saving, lol !!

I am right now snuggled with the dog, watching a documentary on Dubai on CBC, and holy Christ the city has changed a lot since I was there, there are entire sections that were once desert that are all now dense scyscrapers, but such is Dubai... and the more I watch, the more I remember that perhaps a couple of years there is what we need to jumpstart our careers, perhaps thats what we need to make the lives that we want for ourselves back home... perhaps.

But then I remember that our new found love, and our young enagagement, is completely illegal there... and I wonder if we could ever live there... even maybe for a period.