Rigoud and Montreal

Posted On December 31, 2009

Hi Everyone,

Well I’ve been here for nearly five days now and so much has happened. The day after I arrived I went out to Rigoud with my host family for Christmas Dinner. The turkey was giant… 9kg! There were 16 people and we only got through half the thing. As you can imagine we will still be eating that at Christmas in July! Although I will be back in Aust. by then!

The next day, in an attempt to walk off some of that turkey, we went for a walk around the back streets of Rigoud. Rigoud is about an hour West of Montreal and is a small villiage of about 800 people. It is a really nice place full of charm! I imagine my Mum and Dad would love it there! It was a ‘warm’ day that day, about 0C. I was even working up a nice sweat on that walk. The dogs came with us, they must have some kind of high-tech suit, because they loved playing in the snow! I had fun playing in the snow as well, the way it crunches under my shoes gets me all giddy!

The next day we explored some more and found a ski lodge, literally around the corner. And so, I had my very first ski lesson, and IT WAS AWESOME! My very cute, tall, Canadian instructor said I was a natural. (yes I am blowing my own whistle). It was gorgeous skiing as it was dark and lightly snowing, all the trees were glistening in ice… it was just like a Disney movie! Shame I was spending most of my energy on NOT falling over, or I would have taken some pics.

Unfortunately (although not really) we had to leave Rigoud the next day and go back to Montreal. On the way back we went the scenic route via the St. Lawrence River through Lachine and La Salle to Verdun. Then it was time to orient myself with the lay-of-the-land, and do some grocery shopping at the local IGA (really they have then here too) before I died of hunger instead of hypothermia. OMG (I do hope that is the one and only time I use that phrase int his blog) they have Pop Tarts here… they are almost impossible to find in Adelaide, the only place I know of is the Foodland at Mitcham Square and you have to buy them individually. But here they come in heaps of different flavors and colors an packs of six and more! I have reached heaven!

Today I finally got to do some hard-core shopping with another exchange girl Ye, from China. I was becoming desperate for some new jeans a the ones I had been wearing were getting really dirty. So we went downtown, and if things couldn’t get any better, I found the most amazing shopping district! I now have a new favourite brand… Joshua Perets. I got a gorgeous handbag there for CAD$30, and its nothing like what I can get in Aust. LOVE SALES!

Anyway, after I finally ripped myself away from these heavenly stores we went wandering the streets of downtown Montreal and it was FREEZING! about -10C and it will only get colder! However, Montreal was still really busy and gorgeous. Occasionally glimpses of Mount Royal would appear, which is a rather large mountain in the middle of the island. There is also this great coffee chain called Tim Hortons (who was a famous hockey [ice] player) and is Canada’s answer to Starbucks! Go Canada! It was really cool, and this cute old man started talking to us about how he wished he was in Australia right now where its nice and warm. Little does he know how warm!