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I'm back! After spending the most amazing 2 weeks exploring the cities of Montreal, New York and Toronto. Its shocking just how fast the holidays have flown over and now I'm back in London considerably poorer, extremely tired but so so happy I did it all.
We spent the first week of our travels in Montreal, a really beautiful city further North in Canada. There was 7 of us and we had booked a small apartment in the centre of the city to settle in and spend our first christmas away from home in. It was suprisingly smaller than we expected when we arrived but it actually turned out to be very cosy and it really did feel like home after a week. The owner informed us we had been upgraded to this apartment which had just been renovated and had a much better view. The view was stunning, you could see up the mountain in the city and some really pretty buildings, all made even better by the thick white snow! The snow we experienced over this week was exactly what we'd all been expecting from a 'real canadian winter', it was insane! On one of our last days we woke up to a complete blizzard that managed to cover cars completely!! I was unbeleivably grateful for my snowboots!
We spent the first few days exploring the city and mainly preparing for christmas. I completely understand now how much effort goes into making a christmas dinner, we must have been food shopping about 7 times and constantly making lists of things we needed to make it extra special. We all contributed christmas decorations and managed to make the flat look nice and christmassy, the owner had even left us a small tree that we put all our presents around. It was really cute.
On christmas day we all got up fairly early and had breakfast together, croissants and OJ (both huge luxuries to study abroaders) and then all sat in our pjs and opened the presents we had been sent over from our family back home and our secret santas! It was really bizarre not being at home, especially talking to the family when their day was basically over and we had only just put the chicken in! Yes chicken was much more manageable for us than turkey! We all had a really nice day though and actually made a surprisingly yummy meal! Somehow me and steph got put in charge of the meat, so we had cut off a chickens neck (and giblets? :S ) and prepare the big sausage pigs in blankets. Its something I'd prefer not to do every year! We all had our little jobs and everything was going well, until...the oven breaks!! It was about half an hour before the meal was ready and the entire little oven shut down, hobs and all. We think maybe it just couldnt handle so much use, it had been on since 9 in the morning with every hob and oven being used. Luckily the chicken was cooked just not as crispy as we'd have liked but then we had adapt and begin cooking everything in the microwave - vegetables, stuffing etcc. Also because we didnt have a kettle we amusingly had to make gravy using the coffee maker, in the bedroom, as the kitchen was too crowded! And we also had ben and cait mashing carrots and swede in the middle of the living room floor. It was all a bit manic at the this point but it actually ended up really well and we all really enjoyed it. We had every type of christmas food imaginable. With pate starters, cake and ice cream after and a cheese board later on it the night. It was all very civilised!
That was until later on when we started playing the obligatory name game and charades. It was a really good day, we compared it more to the student christmas' we have in Leeds rather than the normal family day but I'm so proud of us managing it!
The rest of the time in Montreal consisted of us visiting the Biodome, an attraction with 4 different habitats inside with animals aswell, the 1976 Olympic Park with a tour, watching fireworks over the frozen lake, having a night out in the city which is known for good nightlife, visiting an underground jazz bar, the local market and exploring Old town Montreal. The old town was really beautiful and we also went inside the huge cathedral, Notre-dame Basilica and found a maple syrup shop that had the most incredible maple muffins and a maple syrup musuem downstairs. It was a very Canadian week. One night when we were there the temperature reached -22 degrees!! So hundreds of layers and thermals were always necessary.
On boxing day we also climbed the small mountain in Montreal, (in knee deep snow!) and got to see the view across all of the city. It was really impressive!
I loved Montreal as a city and the snow made it all the prettier. I was actually surprised by how french the place was though, all signs and menus were in french and it seemed to be most peoples first language. In London where I live its a law that all signs must be in English and then French but in Montreal it seems just to be french. We managed pretty easily though as they do all speak good english and a few of us have a decent understanding of french.
After the week in Montreal we were all a little more rested after the busy exam period and ready to head off to what we were sure would be manic New York City....
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