wanderlust consumed her; foreign hearts and exotic minds compelled her. she had a gypsy soul and a vibrant hope for the unknown
This weekend some internationals went international; we headed to Canada! Because you know, when you live somewhere other than Australia, a weekend in another country is easy peasy. And the fact that Burlington is only about an hour from the Canadian border helps too. So on Friday we unleashed 19 college students on poor, unsuspecting Montreal. Half of the group left during the afternoon and the rest of us left that night, eventually. Our bus was scheduled to leave at 7.10pm so we got to the stop (on the side of the road outside a church with absolutely no shelter) just before 7pm and continued to wait there for the next three hours until the bus showed up. During that time, food was ordered and delivered to us, a trip to the bottle-o was made and beer was bought, and I almost had a nap. Our side of the road party came to an end when we finally got on the bus and left Burlington at 10.10pm.
 |
| Bus Stop Party! |
We finally arrived in Montreal at 1am and then had the fun task of finding our hostel, and believe me, we went the long way about it. Saturday morning was a well deserved sleep in before waking up to a rainy day. Half of us decided it was a good day for indoor activities so we made our way to the Biodome which has been converted to a little indoor zoo type thing after being used for the olympics. We spent a few hours in there looking at all of the animals and staying dry.
We decided that another fun indoor activity would be going to the underground city and doing some shopping. We found the subway station no problem but took the wrong exit and ended up outside walking around for blocks and blocks trying to find the place, only to stumble across it by accident after we had given up! Turns out you can walk directly from the subway station into the shopping centre... But oh well, we explored above ground a bit more. And we did come across a nice church on our little detour.
Once at the shopping centre, the girls split from the guys and we went shopping for an hour before meeting back up and heading back to the hostel. We stayed in the basement of our hostel and it had three separate rooms down there. When we got back, my room decided that we would have a communal siesta, and it was the greatest thing. As soon as the lights were turned off, no one said a word until our alarm went off half an hour later. A couple of the others actually thought that we had left because we were so quiet (and we had the most people in our room). Some of us then went to dinner at a sushi and tapas restaurant and it was really good (and yes, I was the last one to get my meal, karma by association apparently)! Such a nice change from dining hall food!!
On Sunday 10 of us went to Notre Dame and was the day we did continuous head counts to make sure we had everybody. I still cannot get over how beautiful and intricate places like that are. We sat in the church for a while before heading out to explore Old Montreal.
During our walk is when we found the most beautiful trees and we turned into real tourists. I've said it so many times but I'll say it again, I just cannot get over how beautiful the autumn colours are here! Australia you're seriously missing out! I absolutely love the pictures of us playing in the leaves because we look so incredibly happy, just like little children, without a care in the world.
 |
| <3 |
Our next adventure was walking up Mount Royal to see the view of Montreal, and it was much more of a hike than I anticipated it to be. It was already well worth it by a quarter of the way up though because we saw a wild raccoon! Some of the group decided it would be quicker getting to the top by going cross country and straying from the path, which is where we came across our squirrel friend who came up to all of us and then continued to follow us for a while. We seemed to be climbing up for a very long time on our non-path path. Eventually though we made it to the lookout area and it did not disappoint.
Our trek down was a hell of a lot quicker than going up. This may have been in part to taking another short cut that was a little less than desirable in the shoes I was wearing. We decided that we should have a Canadian dinner so we went on the hunt for poutines. We waited in the line outside for half an hour and then the line inside for another half an hour, but, they were worth it.
On Monday morning, four of us decided to go to the botanical gardens after we checked out. It was peaceful, it was quiet, it was sunny, and it was almost perfect just walking around. A lot of the time we really had no idea where we were, but that was okay.
After the gardens we figured that we would grab some lunch before we caught the bus back to Burlington. That was all well and good until we turned up at the hostel to pick up our luggage 15 minutes before the bus left and it was a 10 minute walk to the bus station providing we didn't get lost. It was a very fast walk to the bus station and we stepped on the bus with two minutes to go before our scheduled departure time. We were the last four of our group on the bus and got the looks of 'cutting it a bit close guys' when we sat down. But hey, we were just making the most of our time in Montreal!
So our long weekend came to an end and reality set in when I still had homework to finish and then an 8.30am class the morning after we got back. It seems to be that each week I spend my time catching up and being up to date on Friday, only to be behind again by Monday. I wouldn't have it any other way though because I'd rather be out there making memories than stuck behind a desk.
Until next post.
Adios Amigos.
Tyarna xx
