O Canada

Crisis? What crisis?

2007-11-30T06:20:00.000-08:00

Quebec is currently suffering from a little identity crisis, which has resulted in a government commission (the Bouchard-Taylor commission) roaming around the backwaters of Quebec "listening" (in a formal governmental way - i.e. "not listening") to people's fears and woes regarding immigration and "reasonable accommodation of minorities" (buzz-phrase of the year). The first few months were spent in rural areas (where there aren't any nasty black people or muslims) and were full of bullshit about how the Franco identity is under threat and mosques should be regulated and hijabs shouldn't be worn, and kids should be educated in French and all schools should be Catholic, etc. In other words, its all been fun and games with fuming Franco nationalists frothing over nothing much.

Since the commission came to Montreal (where we actually HAVE black people and muslims, etc), the attitudes expressed have, on the whole, been far more tolerant (and there have been protests against the very idea of having a commission - good). Last night, however, was the best one yet! Last nights meeting was the first one to be conducted almost entirely in English, reflecting the fact that (guess what?) lots of Quebecers are Anglophone or Allophone! Secondly, a woman stood up halfway through, greeted the assembly in Mohawk - which confused the chairperson no end because (ironically) nobody knew what language she was speaking - and said basically: Montreal island is Mohawk territory and you're ALL squatters.

Brilliant! And true. Louis XXIV "gave away" what the *real* locals called Turtle Island when he had no claim to it whatsoever. The Mohawk claim has been roundly ignored for 350 years. Which all puts a few people whinging about girls being allowed to wear hijabs in soccer matches in context, doesn't it? Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Rural Quebec.

Saint Patrick's Day (allegedly)

2007-03-20T18:52:00.000-07:00

At the pub on St Patricks Day they were playing some fiddly-widdly gaelic nonsense on the stereo, and after a couple of hours (and pints) I was getting mighty pissed off with it. "Do you have any Pogues?" I asked the waitress, who admittedly probably didn't remember the 80's. "Who?" came the predictable, but still soul-crushing reply. Eventually, I asked the barman, who, in addition to being closer to me in age, seemed by his attire and general demeanour to like The Punk Music. No Pogues, he answered with a sigh. I felt for the guy, as obviously displeased with the Celtic buffoonery as I was. No Pogues? What kind of St Patrick's Day was this?

Now, I can't feckin' stand St Patrick's Day - it's just a brazen attempt to use heritage to sell beer - but it's one redeeming feature in the past has been the joyful sound of the ubiquitous Pogues blaring out of every pub you pass. As far as I'm concerned St Paddy's Day without the Pogues is like International Women's Day without women.

The following Sunday, they had a traditionally enormous parade in Downtown Montreal. And as float after float, politician after politician, passed us by, the missus and I came to a startling, but liberating conclusion: Saint Patrick's Day in North America has absolutely nothing to do with Ireland... or being Irish... or being able to point to Ireland on a map...

The float of the United Jewish Societies of Montreal passed us by, followed (due to an unfortunate lapse on behalf of the planners) by some Buddhist organisation bearing banners with swastikas. In a parade alleging to celebrate a Catholic Saint. You know, Catholicism. That religion that isn't Buddhism or Judaism.

Thankfully, most of the floats seemed to simply be cheap advertisements for downtown clubs and bars - and so we come to the heart of it: St Patrick's Day in North America (as in the UK and, shock, horror, Ireland itself) is about drinking, making merry and having a good time. And no matter how tempted we are to sneer at the ensuing historical inaccuracies and religious contradictions, that can't be such a bad thing.

Mwa ha ha haaaa!

2006-12-03T11:05:00.000-08:00

It's been a bit quiet here recently, things have really slowed down over the Autumn (sorry, Fall). I've been concentrating on getting a paper published and an abstract submitted for a conference in Florida next Spring and collecting data for my colleagues, who are also frantically submitting. Anna is still recovering from International Education Week, which proved a very stressful, but thankfully short-lived experience. This weekend we had our first freezing rain which coated everything with a thick sheet of solid ice, leading many branches to break off under the extra weight and our fir tree in the front garden to fall over completely. The tree was reinstated (see Figure 1) and secured with ropes to the porch, so next time it falls over it will take the front of the house with it! That was followed by the first decent fall of snow, which nicely coincided with our putting up the Christmas decorations. Hurrah! Nice to be in a country that actually gets a White Christmas (Norway excluded). I'm sure a trip to Florida will be most welcome after several months of this...

Quebec City visit and parents

2006-09-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

We are now almost at the end of the visit of the in-laws and we have been quite lucky with the weather. Craig and I have sent Alison and Malcolm off to some places we have already visited, and gone with them to some places that were new to us. Most memorable was the Botanical Gardens and Insectariums. The Gardens are the second largest Botanical Gardens in the world (after Kew Gardens, or so we were told) and is truly amazing. The selection of plants in the greenhouse was brilliant, the bonsai exhibition in the Tree House impressive and all the creepy crawlies in the Insectariums were creepy and crawly.

Alison and Malcolm went off for a few days to Ottawa , which they really enjoyed and then we all went together to Quebec City . I really liked Quebec city, it is pretty and has lovely little street with baskets of flowers and street side cafes, however it does look a little to perfect, as if no-one actually lived there. There is an Upper and Lower section of the city, connected by a steep staircase and a funicular (the men took the stairs and the women the funicular in our case) and has a castle on top (see photo below). The castle was actually built as a hotel, but looks rather nice. We also visited the Montmorency Falls (our hotel was close to the falls) and took a cable car up and walked down a rather long wooden staircase. It was interesting that we walked so much up and down, as on the three hour drive to Quebec from Montreal is absolutely flat, flat, flat!

We have been able to go to several of our favourite places to eat and try a few new ones, both around Little Italy where we live and in downtown. Alison and Malcolm are now in Brighton, Ontrario for a few days visiting a school friend of Alison and we will have a few more days together next week before they go back home and we start preparing for the next visitors, my parents!

News coverage

2006-09-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Can I just add something that Craig mentioned this morning, but did not add to his post.
The reaction of the Canadian media is different to the US in some respects. The reporters and pundits were very quick to start talking about gun control, something that would not happen in the US (I think!). Also there has been no reference to religion, no ministers talking about 'sticking together in this difficult time' and no 'our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends...'.
Just a little note from me.
A

Dawson College Shooting

2006-09-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

In the days to come, the terrible events that unfolded just down the road from my office in Montreal will be picked over by countless commentators with multifarious agendas. The North American news media are already tying themselves up in knots trying to "explain" why "disaffected youth" might perpetrate such "senseless acts", interviewing any student they can get their hands on, endlessly looping library footage of 1989's Ecole Polytechnique shootings and replaying invasive clips of distraught parents being reunited with their bemused, and vulnerable, offspring. It seems that school shootings bring out the very worst that The Networks have to offer. I'd like to comment on just one, seemingly minor, aspect of the reporting of this tragedy: The stupid and insensitive graphics used to lead TV coverage of the event.

In the aftermath of the shootings at Dawson College, Canadian channel CTV distinguished their coverage of the shootings with a logo of a school-crossing sign riddled with bullet holes. State broadcaster CBC produced a graphic of the Dawson College logo with a sniper's crosshairs targetted upon it. Not to be outdone, local Quebec channel Global splashed across our screens a graphic of the Dawson College logo riddled with bullet holes and a sniper's crosshairs!

Were this behaviour not so outraging, it would be funny. It reminded me, above all things, of British news-satire The Day Today, which, in an all-too-realistic manner, punctuated its ludicrous fake news reports with ridiculous computer animations produced by a graphics department that had long since disappeared up its own backside. It gives the students of the college and the population of Montreal the impression that Dawson College is still, somehow, under seige. It instills a sense of ongoing danger in the mind of the viewer, whilst the man responsible for such callous violence lies dead. When, in fact, the world has one less lunatic in it.

Most importantly, for the Networks at least, cool graphics keep people watching.

This sensationalist and wildly insensitive behaviour on the part of Canadian news channels is matched by only one other tasteless and insensitive executive decision in my memory: The production, on the first day of the invasion of Iraq (that's the recent one, not the first one) of a backdrop for the BBC's Breakfast programme that featured paintings of British soldiers caught in various dynamic Action Man poses. Anybody familiar with it could not help but be reminded of The Day Today's War! Special. It was an unfortunate blip in the BBC's (un)usually factual reporting.

As a Brit Abroad, my favourite pastime is watching the dumbed-down sensationalist tripe that passes for current affairs reporting in North America and quietly chuckling along (in that superior British manner that is responsible for a G-list Brit like Peirs Morgan being hired to be a judge on a US talent show). Yesterday I was not laughing - I was planning this post.

Eastern Townships

2006-08-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely weekend in the Eastern Townships, it was like one of those perfectly planned, yet very relaxed weekends away. We drove out of Montreal on Saturday morning, heading first for Granby, one of the larger of the villages, and here we had a lovely French coffee break (meaning large bowls of coffee with warm, crispy and fluffy croissants), in the building on the left.

From there we went to Bromont and visited the Museum of Chocolate (which as you can imagine I was excited about, and Craig appreciated the information board of Fairtrade chocolate). This was essentially a weekend dedicated to good food and wine so we started off well.

We visited Knowlton on Lac Brome, with its atmospheric local history museum, complete with the only still fully orginal Fokker from WWI (which, after the war, ended up in Canada for research as it was seen as so superior to Allied planes). It also housed a great selection of local historic pieces, like radios, bibles and farm tools and had a well-stocked General Store, which included this 'priceless' poster.

We stayed the night in Sutton at a B&B run by a lovely lady (from Islington, it turned out) and ate a wonderful 5 course meal at a recommended local resturant. This is the winemaking region of Quebec, so the local plonk was really very good. Craig ate snails for the first time and found that he liked them (!) and I discovered how well goats cheese goes with carraway seeds (as well as the fact that I actually like duck, when it is prepared in lovely French style and not the horrible Peking crispy stuff). Lac Brome duck is famous in the region, however we discovered later that they were not the healthy free range ducks waddling about on the shore, but farmed instead - which made it less palatable in retrospect.

Sunday morning started with a proper English fry-up (how could we turn down such an offer from a proper English landlady?) and we drove further south towards the US border before travelling north up Lac Memphremagog to Magog (the town). They claim the lake has its own 'Nessie' style monster, but that seems to be a PR-stunt if you ask me.

So to end the weekend on a high, we visited a vineyard near Mont Orford and brought home a nice selection (there were tastings too, but Craig was driving), and ate another 5 course meal, this time Craig had the other French cliche, frogslegs, and found that he liked that as well (although he says they don't taste of much, which is why they come deepfried). The highlight of my meal was at the end, when I was not even sure I could take any dessert so I opted for the fruit, which was the most gorgeous blueberries bursting with flavour, served with a small amount of good quality 'creme anglaise'.

All in all the perfect weekend away (or anywhere for that matter).

Bye to L&M - hello work

2006-08-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

Said goodbye to Lindsay and Matt after a lovely week of being tourists and not cooking for ourselves. While Anna and I were at work, L&M disappeared off to Niagra and Toronto (producing some impressive photos [not shown] in the process). When they got back to Montreal, we spent a weekend with them in town.

My recommendations? The Flora festival in Montreal is pretty cool and we spent several sunburnt hours there wandering up and down a strip of the old port that has been decontaminated and landscaped in multifarious imaginative ways. We joined the rest of the tourists on Place Jaques Cartier and ate at the Jardin Nelson (still good, still reasonably priced). Anna and me took the Monday off, which was their last day and we all drove up to Val David and Mont Tremblant to reconnoitre for our Xmas skiing trip. Amazing views from the mountain top - should look quite different under a metre of snow.

The weirdest thing we did was definitely going to the Glengarry Highland Games with my ex-colleague Aaron and his wife Pascale. 'More Scottish than Scotland' should be the slogan. I saw tartans and witnessed "traditions" that I've never seen in 6 years of living in Scotland. High point was the Caber Toss. I bought a Cranston tartan tie and the chap in the shop said that he ahd never before met a Cranston - my sister was there too, so like buses, I guess Cranstons come along in pairs. Och aye the noo ya bampot.

Juste Pour Rire comedy festival

2006-07-25T09:02:00.000-07:00

Friday we went to Thomson House (annoyingly spelt without a 'p') for
drinks with friends. People here buy pitchers of beer and get a
collection of half pint glasses. For some reason at the crowd
dissapeared quicker than the beer so that we ended up with 3 pitchers
for 3 people. Well, that should have been the end of our night in
normal circumstances, however this is Montreal. Therefore there is a
festival on (there is always a festival on), at the moment it is the
Comedy Festival 'juste pour rire'. So on Friday night we went to see
Billy the Mime. He is an amazingly good mime artist, but deals with
non-mime topics, so one section was called 'The Abortion', another 'A
day called 9/11'. He was very good, it made you think, however some
people were very annoying as they laughed at what I thought were
inappropriate places.

Well, Saturday night we went to see Demitri Martin, the comedian from
the Daily Show, very funny, many good oneliners. (I cannot seem to
remember any at the moment, except 'if I ever see an amputee get
hanged then I just start shoutng out letters')

And as if that was not enough then yesterday we went to see Tim
Minchin, an Australian who writes funny songs (like Australia's
answer to Bill Bailey, I think). He was hysterical, and such a
brilliant piano player.

His peace anthem for Palestine went as such:
You don't eat pigs and we don't eat pigs,
it seems to have been this way forever.
As you don't eat pigs and we don't eat pigs
why don't we not eat pigs together?

Craig and I are both humming it over and over again, it is very catchy and I think will be a huge success and will result in ever-lasting peace.

A

FORZA ITALIA and more

2006-07-11T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

Well, my ears have finally stopped ringing after watching the World Cup final in Little Italy on Sunday. Those Italians really know have to celebrate, and a lot of it is done with screaming. It was an amazing experience watching the football with them though. There was flags and balloon everywhere and Italian cars and vespas in the streets (photos coming soon). Half way though the first half (after both goals) the electricity went out in the whole block, the cursing and swearing could make a grown man blush. The CTV van became the salvation with their backup generator and we could watch the nailbiting second half on the big screen erected in the square. The duration of the penalty shoot out was accompanied by chants of 'Buffon, Buffon' and the explosion of noise when the Frenchman missed and then when the final Italian penalty went in was indescribable. I am only used to screaming like that in high pitched girly voices, but this included huge booming bass voices of 'yyyyeeeeaaahhh'.

In other news I have started my summer job at the International Student Services at McGill. The people here are every so lovely (including my boss who is first generation Italian and has not yet come down from the clouds) and I really feel like I fit in tell. They have a laugh, take the piss (although they don't understand what that means) and love food. I have really been thrown in at the deep end, answering phone calls and helping people coming in, and have had to learn the standard speech on Quebec and Canadian visa and immigration issues. Things are definitely not as well organised here as in Nottingham, however hopefully that will give me a chance to come up with good ideas for improvements.

I have also started my French classes, two evenings each week. This week being week two we even have a test tonight! But the group of people seem nice, if a bit shy and talking in their own little original language groups. Most of them speak English though and if I had a penny (or cent) for every time someone says 'oh, I love your accent, it is so cute/quaint/sophisticated etc'...

Must get back to work, or rather get off to my class!

Love
Anna

Update from Anna

2006-06-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I am in Craig's office using his computer whilst he is at the Journal Club (which is this thing that they have on Fridays and today everyone has to tell the other what they are doing in only 2 minutes), so I don't have to pay for a internet cafe.

I am having a great time in Montreal (except for the cold that I have picked up this week). I have been very wifely, having made the dinners, ironed shirts etc, however Craig better not get to used to it. I have managed to get myself a summer job for two months at the International Student Services office here at McGill starting in July. It's only 4 days a week as the office is closed on Fridays in the summer and I will make in a month what Craig makes in a forthnight. However it will give me very valuable 'Canadian experience' to add to my CV and will give me some more time to learn French. I have joined a French course that also starts in July (they have put me at level 2 of 5, but said my understanding was higher but my grammar was terrible) at the YMCA and also the YMCA fitness centre, so I am trying to keep active.

Unlike Craig I have watched a few World Cup matches, but I have to watch them in a pub/bar, as they are not shown at the channels we have on our TV. Yesterdays match against Trinidad and Tobago was interesting, because for so long there was a very good atmosphere, as most people where not exactly supporting England and amused by the 0-0. Things turned less pretty at the end when England scored twice, however it is fun watching with people supporting so many different countries. Montreal has a large variety in it's immigrant community and there are so many different flags up everywhere. As there is no Canadian team in the World Cup everybody supports someone different.

Oh, the weather here is a complete mystery to me. It has been raining so much there last weeks that it may as well have been the UK in spring. We have had some days of nice weather, today is lovely at 28 degrees and sunshine, however it doesn't last, it is supposed to rain by tonight.

Other than that I am really enjoying Montreal. We have made some friends from Craig's lab and I have made some friends that I will be working with soon. There is so much going on in this city that we are having to watch our spending, we already have tickets for the Grand Prix, the Comedy Festival and are debating what concerts to go to as there are so many here in the summer. Oh, but we have accepted an offer on the house and things are moving along with the sale so we are not as worried about that, but we'll still need to watch spending in general.

Anyway, that was a long post from me really wasn't it, sorry about that.

Love
Anna

Animal army

2006-06-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

We had a major invasion of ants in our kitchen this week, and this being North America, they're proper big b*ggers. The previous tenants had left a leaking bottle of honey in the cupboard and the damn things were crawling out of the walls to get at it. It made me completely paranoid. I spent the rest of the evening with my eyes darting about the corners of the room to see what the blighters were up to. It didn't help that we were watching a particularly gruesome episode of CSI in which toffs were necking insects at a posh bug soirée. Suffice to say my sleep was a tad disturbed that night.
There's plenty of wildlife here, and I guess that's only going to increase as the summer kicks in. So far I've seen my first raccoon (it didn't look anything like Bert Raccoon - it wasn't wearing a hockey shirt) and a groundhog (I think), which merrily sauntered across my path like I didn't exist (or at least posed no threat). There's plenty of birds that I don't recognise. I'll have to get Mum and Dad on the case.
Meanwhile, its all gone miserable and cold again. I'm beginning to realise just what a typical Englishman I am. I'm obsessed with the bloody weather.

Phew, what a scorcher!

2006-06-02T06:51:00.000-07:00

The temperature has really shot up here. Damn the absence of an air-conditioning unit in my office. People here go on about the Lakes Effect, but I haven't yet established what Effect the Lakes are supposed to have. The usual course of events seems to be that after a swelteringly hot day without sight nor sound of a cloud, the environment celebrates with a thunderstorm. Invariably as I'm walking to the Metro without an umbrella. The weatherpersons on TV enjoy telling us gullible joe-publics that some of these t-storms "could be powerful enough to generate tornadoes!" [pause for dramatic effect] These never materialise.
Apparently there is some sort of 'soccer' thingy going on in the rest of the world... not that anybody from Montreal Impact will be participating.

Bonjour, tout le monde

2006-05-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

Comment ca va (oh no, no question mark on this keyboard)
A Montreal il pleut e c'est venteux.

So Montreal is wet, windy and miserably cold, but all else is well.
I have arrived safe and well to join Craig a week before an internatinal education conference, NAFSA, which is great timing and has allowed me to spend time getting to know the city.

I am definately struggeling with the whole Quebecois-French thing. I find I can understand much of what is being said to me, like 'do you want that coffee here or to go', 'that would look good with jeans (for the top I was trying on)' and so on, but every attempt on my part to say more than 'un espresso, s'il vous plait' gets a response in English or a blank stare. Today I tried to say 'soixante-quinze minutes de l'internet, s'il vous plait, in a place that sells internet access cards in 75 minute blocks, amongst other things. The lady looked at me funny and said that 'internet cards are $2.50 for 30 minutes or $5 for an hour and 15'. Bollocks!

The area of town that we are living in, Little Italy or Petite Italie, is wonderful (but you'd expect me to say that). We are temporary just north of Petite Italie, but will move inte the middle of it at the end of next week. The local shops have French, English and Italian signs in the windows and great Italian food. Petite Italie also has the famous (or at least in Montreal) Jean Talon
market, which has the most wonderful displays of fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread and flowers. It apparently gets great sesonal products in the summer, so we'll look forward to that.

The people in the lab that Craig works in are really friendly. Most are non-Quebecois, but hopefully we'll meet some of those as well once our French impoves. We are going out with some of the British guys from the lab tonight, even though we also had mid-week drinks on Wednesday with them.

I am not really agressivly job-hunting just yet. The conference I am both attending and volunteering for starts tomorrow and lasts until next Friday. I am hoping I will get some leads there from networking, but if not I will be a full-time jobseeker and French student after it is finished.

Well, time really is money at internet cafes, so I'd better finish off (we are planning to get internet access and possibly Skype at home organised once we've moved).

Love
Anna

Dangerous (Range Rover) Sports

2006-05-09T06:16:00.001-07:00

Its a funny old country, this. Like the US, Canada seems to have an irrational fear of pedestrians. 'Jaywalking', crossing the road anywhere apart from at an intersection, is apparently "dangerous". Funny, because sailing through red lights in your pickup/SUV whilst talking on your mobile is apparently "not dangerous"... at least in Montreal. Whilst both of these issues are being hotly discussed in the media, it appears to the casual observer (me) that they are being given equal weight. I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time that a Dodge Caliber was horrificly crushed when a jaywalking pedestrian slammed into it. As a European Community-funded project (http://www.shared-space.org/) is discovering, segragating pedestrians from motorists and motorists from cyclists simply makes motorists, pedestrians and cyclists lazy when it comes to thinking about other road users. If a driver doesn't expect a pedestrian to cross halfway down a street, then they won't bother looking for one. Similarly, cyclepaths encourage less attentive cycling. European cities are now (re)introducing the concept of "shared space". No boundaries or fences or kerbs to separate drivers from pedestrians and pedestrians from cyclists. A recipe for disaster? Nope. It just makes everybody behave more carefully.Find out more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space

Some of us are still in the UK, don't you know?

2006-05-05T07:27:00.000-07:00

Well, a little post from me would probably not be surprising at this stage.

I have finished work and accessing the internet from a cafe, so life is not bad. The weather in Nottingham/Derby is very nice and I am being very well looked after by Linds and Matt. Their new house is gorgeous, although I feel a bit like walking on eggshells as it is so new and clean and white at the moment (Well, not walking on eggshells in fact, as it may scratch the new, expensice wooden floor).

I still have some packing to do at the house, but I am not living there anymore. It does look and feel strangley empty, but is getting organised. The shipping company will hopefully come on Tuesday next week to pick up our stuff and then I'm off to a few days later.

I will not be a lady of leisure for long, as I will be attending and volunteering for the NAFSA conference (international education) once I get to Montreal, so will be very busy.

Anyway, time really is money at internet cafes, so I'll leave it at that.

Love
Anna

List of annoyances so far...

2006-05-05T06:47:00.000-07:00

1) The Quebecois seem incapable of forming an orderly queue. For God's sake even the cheeky Cubans can handle the concept of the people who arrive first getting served first!
2) Quebec lads' hair. The current trend, amongst lads of a studenty/Bohemian persuasion, is to tie their hair up in a bun on top of their head. Making them look like fifty-year-old Librarians. This must stop - immediately.
3) Whiteboards. They're supposed to be white, right? The longer you leave the pen on, the harder it is to rub off...

Happy Birthday Me!

2006-05-05T05:57:00.000-07:00

Well it's my birthday today and the lab is completely bl**dy empty! Guess I'll just have to go to the cinema tonight or something. Thanks for the prezzie, Linds and Matt. Was most welcome! Oh, a squirrel has just ran past my window - I thought they had black ones here, but the only ones I've seen have been boring grey. Blimey, I sound like Geoffrey Boycott ("Good Lord, a Cabbage White has just flown past our commentary box! It was a Cabbage White, wasn't it, Ian?" "Yes, Geoff, I believe it was..."). Anyway, here's a picture of where I work: The Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal.

First post from Montreal

2006-05-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Well, thanks to a broken air conditioning unit on our flight from Amsterdam, i arrived in Montreal very late on April 27th 2006. Manon, Caroline and Germain have been extraordinarily helpful, sorting me out with kitchen appliances and supplying me with breakfast on my first day. Germain (my landlord) is a composer, which means i get to hear him playing piano all day. No bad thing, thanks to the poor quality of Canadian TV. Its the playoffs which means that CBC (one of the two English channels i get) it showing wall to wall Ice Hockey.
The area we are currently living in is very nice, very quiet. About a half hour from my front door into my office via the metro.
Still haven't got my social insurance number thanks to a nightclub fire in downtown cutting the power to the immigration offices. Medicare sorted and bank account opened. Everybody in my research group seems very nice. Unfortunately they're all b*ggering off to VSS in Florida on Friday, so I'll be a bit lonely for my 29th birthday. Boo.
On the bright side, my office computer is great. Programs all working okay. Time to get on with some research, i guess.

Bonjour

2006-03-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

Je m'appelle Craig. Parlez-vous anglais? Good, because I don't speak a word of French. Better get learning if I'm to survive in Quebec. Welcome to our blog. We're busy trying to empty our house ahead of the move so if you need any furniture and can pick it up from Nottiingham, check back here soon! Cheers.

First post

2006-02-24T04:21:00.000-08:00

Hello there!
As we are going to Montreal soon I thought this was a way to post pictures etc. for all to see. This is just the setting up attempt so I can figure out how it works and see what it looks like. There might not actually be much here until we get there!
I have nicked this blogger idea from the Dransfields in San Fransisco, so I hope they take it as a compliment.
Love
Anna