Oh, didn’t I think I was such a clever little thing? “Avoiding the winter” by traveling to Vancouver for the month of February, followed by NYC and Halifax in March. And save for one or two intensely cold days in NYC and some fierce Halifax winds, I really did succeed in my avoidance of the cold reality that is winter in Toronto. But smugness gets you nowhere kids. Or rather, smugness gets you driving a lemon of a rental car through April snowstorms to visit your best friend in Burlington, Vermont. Where there is more snow. And it is cold. It is April, but it might as well be February. Brrrrrrrrrrrr!
Other than the chill in the air, I must say it is truly fabulous to be here. I spent the day yesterday driving from Oakville, Ontario to Burlington, Vermont with my other best friend from high school, Sarah. She had flown to Toronto from Vancouver at the beginning of this week and Tuesday night was spent visiting Robin (the now-Burlington best friend)’s parents in Oakville. As far as spending about 12 hours in a car with someone you really haven’t spent any quality time with since approximately 2002, while driving a rental car that drives like a golf cart with poor alignment, in inclement weather through the back roads of the province of Quebec goes… I would say yesterday was a smashing success!
Sarah and I may have grown a little more into our differences (her boyfriend gave her a subscription to The Economist for her birthday last year, meanwhile I make the bulk of my living working in the non-profit sector, either as an artist or educator…), but I found that as long as we avoided political/ethical conversations to the best of our abilities, we were fine. We still have some overlapping tastes in music, and the fact of the matter is, she has a very, very good heart and a generally open spirit. So the best-friendship still works! We made it to Montreal just in time to spend a good hour or so sitting in rush-hour traffic, which was totally unnecessary, but we had decided that we wanted to have our meal for the day in downtown Montreal. And we are so glad that we did.
Upon completing our tasty meal of shared frites and mayo, plus salad for me and soup for Sarah (accompanied of course by une verre de biere locale – mais oui!), we asked our server if she could help point us in the right direction to get on the Autoroute 20, in order to get on our way to the U.S. of A. Unfortunately, she wasn’t a driver herself, but kindly took the googlemaps printout out of my hands and walked over to some regulars, sitting at the bar and posed our question to them. One friendly gentleman came over to help us, and although he realized immediately that we were Anglophones, he ended up giving us directions pretty much entirely en Francais, because we were doing such a good job of communicating with him in his mother tongue!
Apparently, the fact that we were Anglophones even bothering to make an effort to speak French in Montreal was cause for major recognition – I almost thought he was going to call Lucien Bouchard to tell him about these two young anomalies! In any case, we both felt very grateful for the helpful directions and flattered by the gratitude of this man, Regent, as well as our server, Karine. We left Montreal with a slight bounce in our step, and definitely a sense of pride in ourselves and our good efforts.
We arrived, finally, after a rather brutal 2-hour drive through the dark and snowy back-country roads of Quebec and Vermont, at the quaintest little house on Woodlawn Road in Burlington… Robin and Ethan’s house! It is totally adorable, and they were waiting with bottle of red wine already opened. I, of course, managed to spill copious amounts of red wine on their white futon couch within an hour of my arrival, but they assured me that it’s no big deal. What gracious hosts. Perhaps I’ll need to take a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond while I’m here and buy them some sort of replacement sofa cover… Oh, I am a class act, no?
Alright, well, Robin and Ethan have gone to school for the morning (those dedicated little PhD students!) so it is my responsibility to wake Princess Sarah this morning. It’s almost 9:30 and I think it’s time for her to wakey-wakey soon…
Looking forward to a lovely (albeit snowy) Vermont day today!
PS – still haven’t got the UK work visa sorted out yet, looks like my summer plans may be shifting… stay tuned!!!
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1 comment:
i was doing fine until i got to the fries and mayo.
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