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Showing posts from 2017

December Retrospective, and a Welcome to 2018!

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A lot has happened in recent weeks, so a brief rundown is in order for this last post of 2017. At the end of the previous post, we were preparing to pack for another trip across the US, for another short-term (one month) rental in California.  This winter trip came about fairly quickly because my (that is, Julie's) mother is undergoing some medical treatments, and it seemed like a good use of our sabbatical time to help out and provide moral support while also getting a chance to be around the LA contingent for the holidays. Because we were a bit concerned about winter driving conditions over the Rockies, we decided to take the southern route this time--through Oklahoma and New Mexico--as opposed to through Kansas and Colorado.  Since we started from Chicago and ended up in Los Angeles, we essentially drove along the entire Historic Route 66 (and were reminded about this every few miles or so...). A few years ago, we read about a couple who decided to retire to Latin Ameri

Leaving, Returning, Packing, Leaving, Returning, Packing, Leaving...

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We left Montreal right before Thanksgiving, in the first real snow fall of the season.  As we were packing up the car for the drive out of Montreal, we marveled at how the first flakes came on so thick and heavy right outside our living room window (pictured above). By the time we were on the highway right outside Montreal, it was fast becoming a winter wonderland.  Watching the alternately bleak and gloriously snow-blanketed Quebec landscape (pictured right below), we were simultaneously relieved that we were leaving Montreal "just in the nick of time" (before really hitting the blizzard season) and a bit sad that we wouldn't be able to experience (just briefly!) what real winter weather would be like.  After all, if we are seriously contemplating returning here to live, it seems to us necessary to know just how much worse Montreal winters are over the Chicago winters we were already familiar with. It didn't take us long to miss not hearing French being spo

Tour of "Typical" French-Belgian-Quebecois Foods around Montreal

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Confession: We'll move from (pseudo-) breakfast to lunch and then to bar snack food, so we're actually going to make a liar out of the title of this post by starting off with the Cronut, which was officially first produced in New York City .  However, seeing that it is based off of croissant dough, we think it qualifies to be in this round-up... In any case, here is your itinerary for a Montreal French-y food tour. Start with a not-very breakfast-y donut in Plateau Mont Royal neighborhood. We've consumed several different kinds of cronuts before, but this is hands-down the very best thing we've ever eaten in that category.  It wasn't cheap, mind you, but its large size (easily the largest cronut we've had), and quality, and the amount of custard filling, and, well, the currency conversion, makes this hybrid between croissant and donut worth its otherwise exorbitant price tag. Can you see the amount of custard filling (in the picture below)?  Wh

Montreal Cafes: Owls, Sparrows, and Cats, Oh My!

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I hate to sound like I'm giving up, but I decided not to continue with French classes.  Perhaps it is the teacher in me, but the brutal unvarnished truth is that the homework was really beginning to get on my nerves.  (I know, "Do as I say, not as I do," right?) I started to resent Will happily poring over different uses for etre vs. avoir , eagerly responding to a few questions or writing a 60-word paragraph, while I found myself chafing as I went through more subjunctive use cases than I'm ever likely to confront while ordering steak frites at a Parisian bistro (the real reason we were learning French in the first place), complete exercises 1-4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, write a 300-word essay on environmental gaspillage (with me comically re-counting all words after each sentence--even though I, of course, knew that the sentence I just wrote could not possibly have fulfilled the need for another 170 words...).  Often all this work was in addition to preparing f

Autumn Leaves and Country Charm!

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In the past two Saturdays, we took advantage of spectacular autumnal weather here in Quebec province. Last year, we took the opportunity of my university's first ever "Fall Break" to take a long weekend trip to Asheville, North Carolina.  All it all, the trip was fabulous, packed with amazing food, great microbreweries, and scenic hikes.  One thing that we were slightly disappointed in: Fall colors had yet to materialize in their full glory in the first week of October.  We could see just how spectacular the colors would be, but alas that promise was not quite enough.  We were a week too early. We thought that this year we would be too late to see the fall colors.  Two weekends ago, after our first 4-week session of French classes were completed, I made the executive decision that we needed a break from French grammar.  (Will was as happy as a clam in his false beginner class, but I was in the "Intermediate" level, and I think anyone who had to deal

Back in the (French Canadian) Saddle Again...

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Yep, we're trying out French again, back in Montreal. We've been woefully behind in our posts, but hopefully there will be several posts in the next few weeks to fill in some gaps.  There will be further posts about Quebec City (back in June!), what we did in Chicago (August/September), experiencing fall colors in tiny little Quebec towns bordering Vermont (last weekend), reviews of Montreal restaurants and a retrospective on my new mission to try out all the best coffee shops within a mile's walk (ongoing). But first, our new neighborhood needs an introduction. We should start with how we ended up in Montreal again.  We were just about ready to reserve our seats on flights to Europe for a 6-week trip through France and Portugal when we started hesitating.  We would miss Katie too much... It would be a hassle to take the little Ryannair flights to Lisbon (and travel from there to the Algarve and then back to France)...  We were already starting to lose the French w