Montréal: Best. City. Ever.

Montréal is the best city ever and I love it and I'm going to marry it and have its babies.

Probably not that last bit; birthing city-babies would sting.

In any case, this city is awesome. For those of you from Edmonton, picture Whyte Avenue. Now picture it being eight times as long. Oh, and there's two dozen Whyte Avenues, each hipper than the last. In fact, it's fair to say that this city is probably the hippest city on the face of the planet.

I could be wrong on that last statement, though; I've never been to Abu Dhabi, and I hear the ladies there get FREAKY underneath their robes. But I might just be starting rumours again.

I rolled in on Thursday; I spent the evening walking around Le Plateau and being awestruck by the sheer hipness. It takes a couple of days, but most people get over it.

Friday I went for a run on Mont-Royal; I'm most likely going to go again today. Nice spot for a jog. After, my friend Sofi, who's donated a bed in her apartment, hosted a party. Sofi throws great partys; let's just say it took me less than 36 hours to accomplish, in Montreal, more than I have in two years of living in Edmonton. Did I mention I love this city?

Saturday I slept most of the day, (and read Breakfast of Champions) but Sofi 'dragged' me to go see By Divine Right, who rock the motherfuck out. Yeah. Top 10 shows ever, man.

Sunday I went for sandwiches at Santropol (great restaurant); it's kind of neat how in Montreal everybody switches languages four or five times during the course of ordering a meal. You judge how well the other person is understanding you, and switch between English and French accordingly. There's no rhyme or reason; just people muddling through their Activities of Daily Living as best they can. After that we went to go see Les Tamtam, which is this crazy hippie remnant where a bunch of people go hang out on the slopes of Mont-Royal and play the bongos and smoke weed. You kids and your hippie shit. It kind of loses its counterculture credibility by being scheduled 'every Sunday.' Oh, and Vice has some good pictures of this. We saw the "Zurich-looking motherfucker" there. He didn't have any pants on.

After that, we went to go check out the Jazz Festival. They've blocked off a bunch of streets near Place-Des-Arts and put on a bunch of free concerts. Unfortunately, the only thing going on was the Cirque du Soleil production, and we couldn't get in to find seats, so we had to stand outside and watch it on TV. After it ended, I saw a bit of actual jazz, but I left early because it was 11:15 and my feet hurt and I had a 40-minute walk ahead of me.

Today I'm going to go check out the old city, and buy a hunk of meat from Schwartz's, and go see Los Straitjackets, who dress in Mexican wrestling masks and play surf music. Wicked-awesome.

God, I hope McGill doesn't have stupid Quebec red-tape nonsense. I'd love to come here for residency.