So here we are. Well, here I am, I guess. I’m trying my best to practice good grammar, capitalizing all the right things, trying not to use msn/internet language.

Montreal is beautiful. So far, much of it reminds me of home. The weather is very similar, except the crisp wind and leaves. Right now, I’m living in an apartment on the north end of the city. Everything thing is made of brick. The apartment is older than most of the buildings back home. Everything creaks and moves under our feet. It reminds me of the DeGroot’s home. I love that place. Even the smell is similar.

I’m actually moving into a different, newer apartment today. Originally, there was supposed to be two apartments, one for the guys and one for the girls. But we have a family with us, Denny, Lauren and Dennis, and they decided to live in the “girls” apartment. And one of the women, Beatrix, is from France, and only speaks en Francaise, so Johnathan, a volunteer who also only speaks French, is living there too. I’ll be living with Thomas (pronounced to-Ma), a staff member and my mentor for the DTS, and Obadias from Brazil, if he can make it. He’s having issues with getting the proper visa. Other than that, we have Julia from Germany, who learned English and French in school, Evelyn, Miss Administration and Pierre, Mr. Head of Everything. He is a saint in every way.

These first few days have been mostly introductory, moving in, meeting everyone, and having everything explained. I came in knowing almost nothing, so it’s been very helpful. The internships are very open. Pretty much, they have contacts for a pile of different things to be part of in the city, and we rummage through them to see what we want to do. The structure that comes from most DTS programs isn’t here. Other than a couple of field trips, we have free range of the city.

My head hurts from the French, Evelyn. I’ve been trying to understand everything, and have understood almost nothing. It’s getting better, though. I’ve been getting better at following the conversations.

No one cuts the grass here, Reuben and Nate. Everything is overgrown. At first we thought it was a sign that we weren’t living in the best neighbourhood, but it’s the same everywhere we go. Even the commercial grass is folding over itself. I almost let it get to me.

I’m eating well, Mom and Dad. It took a day or so for us all to realize that the food in the cupboards was ours. But we settled in and found the pots and pans. Don’t worry about it.

To everyone else, keep the good times rolling back home. The first podcast I’ll try to get on here tomorrow. I had a playlist all set out, but with the plane ride and life here, I think I’ll change a few things. Darrell’s working on a better theme, just in case you were wondering about the whole “Detour” business. Hopefully it’ll be up soon.

bye for now.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Montreal, etc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.