places you'll go

I've become a fan of podcasts. Yes, I'm about 5 years late to that party.
Doomhouse is a new podcast by Twitter/Etsy pal Tinaseamonster and two her friends. A random topic is presented with a story by one of the hosts or a listener. The second episode's topic regarded which country do you love other than your own. It made me think...

In September of 2007 I went to Montreal with my cousin. We only stayed overnight but I fell in love. I even blogged about it when I came back. I don't speak French at all. I'm not a huge fan of living further north than Connecticut (where I currently live). But Montreal calls to me. It was a milestone trip for me: first time out of the country, first time on a trip without parents or older people because...we are adults now. That revelation was both cool and empowering with dashes of 'Holy Hannah! Say what?!'

Our intention was to go the clubs, another first for homebody me. That was kind of a fail. But I just enjoyed looking around and seeing new things, riding in a minivan taxi, listening the French conversations I didn't understand, taking the metro and eating one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever had in my life. (at Cafe L'etranger)

It's not a I-hate-America-I'm-going-Canada thing. The city has a sort of old-world/new-world vibe that isn't as present in America...at least not the parts I've visited. So maybe it was that foreign-ness, the bilingual-ness of it all that intrigued me. Or maybe it was that moment of magic when I was standing in the Notre Dame Cathedral. I had put together a jigsaw puzzle of the same view that I now saw for myself. I was in a photograph. It cemented for me that the places I see in magazines, pictures and movies do really exist, people really do live there just as normally as I live in Connecticut. Going there changed my perspective a little, widen it, grew me up.

I'm not sure if I would move to Montreal. Again...you know, the whole cold temperature thing. But I want desperately to go back. I want take my mom and my camera since both had to stay home on that first trip. (So I have only memories, a coffee mug and a keychain to remember the trip.) She's an artist and knows French and I know we'd have a good time. I want to see if it still feels culturally different but in a sort of welcoming way. Until then, I will content myself with loving it from afar.