Summer Vacation

Since uni finished, on the 16th, I have been for several long walks, read two books, baked study cookies, caught up with people and been a research assistant for my prof.

I really like this. It was built for the 1967 Expo, by a guy who's concept was that if you can't see your neighbours, and you can't hear your neighbours, they're not really there. So in each of the apartments you can't see or hear your neighbours. It seems a lot of things here were built for either '67 or the '76 Olympics.

This is Lac de Castor (Beaver Lake for Anglophones), it's very beautiful. On weekends it is packed with people enjoying picnics.

St Joseph's Oratory was very impressive.

First time going to Walmart.

Cirque du Soleil on Friday night was amazing!!!!!! Afterwards we put up Kony posters - with blu-tack. Oh we are such vandals.

This place was great! It's an Australian and New Zealand pie shop. I had mince and cheese (which was titled beef and cheese for locals), and a lemon lime and bitters (which I had greatly missed). I also found the chutney I had been looking for, and they had hokey pokey ice cream, pavalova's, RJ's, Tim Tams, lollies (aka candy), Milo and so on.


On Monday I leave Montreal, first stop: Halifax.

Home Sweet Home

On Monday Iskra and I went for a long walk, spilit up to do some shopping (resulting in the purchase of red J.Crew sandals), then met to visit Grand Central Station and the library. On the way home to Montreal, the group stopped off as a massive designer outlet place with a super cute layout, and watched films in French (no English subtitles). We arrived at midnight, and I had an absolutely amazing weekend!

He Is Risen!

Sunday started at the "Easter Parade" - an interesting name when it's really just people dressed up in unusual hats and a mass of other people taking photos of them.


For Quebec, provincial pride far exceeds national pride - these kids were a big group and rather noisy chanting about Quebec.



Cluedo + me.


Unfortunately I didn't make it to church, which was quite a change from spending the last 9 years at Easter Camp. Missing church on Easter is something I hope never happens again.


From the parade we went via Central Park to Chinatown and Little Italy.







After a siesta in Central Park we went to walk across Brooklyn Bridge. A few avid photographers in the group meant we stayed a few hours to watch the sun set over the city.








When we finally made it across the bridge we headed back for dinner at a burger place called Junior's.

Concrete Jungle Where Dream Are Made

Here are a few pictures from Friday night that I thought you might be interested in seeing. The aesthetics of the subway in New York City ranked 3rd place on the list of 3 metro/subway systems I have seen. And the underground maze of different lines was incredibly complex.


I was amazed to see carparks looking like this.


Times Square was alive at all hours.


We had dinner at Planet Hollywood, and my "individual pizza" turned out to be the same size as a regular one in New Zealand.



On Saturday morning we went to see Brooklyn Bridge.


Then on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty ('see' as opposed to 'go to').



The tall building on the left is the new World Trade Centre under construction.


This is my Mexican friend I met on the bus.



Wall Street looked a bit different than what I had expected.




Back at Times Square, this guy tried to 'help' our decision as to which show to see.


Stomp was fantastic! Here's a picture after with two of the cast.