Hello!

I am not really in the mood to write so I will try and keep it brief.

Yesterday was a really miserable wet and windy day in Quebec... not ideal for sightseeing. Instead I went to the aquarium with my Welsh room mate Emma to see the polar bears... yes I cheated a bit but it was the only way I'd see polar bears in Canada!! Unfortunately, half of the aquarium is based outside anyway so we didn't manage to avoid the wind and rain.

After the aquarium, we went for dinner and then wandered down to the Lower Old Town. It was very pretty with all the Christmas lights along the cobbled streets. We took the funicular up to the Upper Old Town to take in the views and were lucky to witness the passing of the Olympic flame... it took several attempts because of the wind and it was freezing cold to stand and watch but at least we got a Vancouver 2010 pin!

In the evening I met up with Alex, flatmate in Italy, and his girlfriend for a few drinks in a cosy wee bar down a random street. It was really nice to catch up with him, even more so because he had an exam the following morning at 9am! Hopefully he will eventually visit Scotland (as promised 2 years ago!) and we'll get to catch up for a bit longer when he's not under the stress of exams. Apparently he was toning down the Canadian accent for me... His girlfriend on the other hand, I struggled to understand. They tried to teach me some French Canadian expressions but don't think I remember any today. I blame the jagermeister!

This morning I got up bright and early to go to Montreal. I do not like Montreal. It is so big and sparse and grubby looking. I started off on the wrong foot anyway as I am not in a very nice hostel, in what appears to be a dodgy end of town, with only guys in the hostel as far as I can see and I have a room to myself with no lock on it (at least my suitcase is quite heavy to block the door instead) the bathroom is so disgusting that I don't think I'd get any cleaner by using it and the owner seems a bit weird. I probably should have changed hostels but my bags are so heavy, and not a single person offered to help me carry them up and down stairs on the metro ( except for a beggar, but I didn't let him after previous experiences of letting beggars help me with bags!) They just all stared and if anything got annoyed that I was being so slow!

Anyway, I went for a walk into town, which is actually really quite far away, and was thinking how ugly the place is when I came across Urban Outfitters! My favourite shop only found in Glasgow and London in the UK. This was enough to keep me happy and smiley for a little while :-) When I eventually reached the old town which is admittedly slightly prettier and compact, it started to rain... gutted. To top it off all the old buildings to see and photograph were having bulding work done on them and around them, so cranes feature in all of my photos here so far! I wandered down the port to go up a clock tower to see the view of the nearby islands... but it was closed. Really not my day! So then I went for dinner and had some delicious chips with peppercorn sauce and cheese and a glass of Merlot and decided I'd cheer myself up by going to the planetarium here as it's a quarter of the price of the one in London and I love planetariums and stars :-) It was quite nice except I couldn't understand why they were still talking to us like we were children, despite the fact it was a 7pm show with only adults...

Anyway, as you can probably tell I really am not a fan of Montreal and glad I'm only here the one night. It is the least safe I have felt the whole trip and I'm feeling constantly on edge, checking my bag and checking behind me. This is mainly due to the amount of people/weirdos that just stare (I'm sure my bright green ski jacket is the cause) and the amount of beggars coming up to you in the street and the random drunks wandering around at 1pm.

Montreal has one day to prove me wrong on all of this. I will head to the park tomorrow and see if it's any nicer. If not, it's straight to the shops! The only good thing about Montreal so far was the street full of shops which reminded me a lot of Oxford Street in London... although this is not a great way to spend an afternoon when funds are running so low!!!

I am looking forward to the bus to Ottawa tomorrow afternoon/evening, where I will be staying with a friend of Katharina's called Kevin. An actual flat... with locks and hopefully a clean bathroom :-D

Hope your weekend is off to a better start than mine!

Elodie XxX