Still Here...

I've been out of touch for a few days because the free internet at the hostel is, well, pretty much what you'd expect from free internet. Nonetheless, after just two hours of walking and metro-riding, I found an internet cafe that was actually open. So here I am!

Life at Le Sous-bois hasn't been a picnic these last two days. For one thing, there was a heat wave, which just ended last night. It was 90/90 (90 degrees, 90 percent humidity) Thursday and yesterday, which would have been miserable even if I'd had an air-conditioned room to go back to. I didn't. The rubber mattresses didn't help the situation any. Secondly, there seems to be a bit of a problem with FLEAS. Thankfully, they haven't made it to my end of the building yet, but the other side of the place is infested, and the people sleeping there are miserable. Last but not least (wait til you hear this), the place has no COLD water. I've been bathing, brushing my teeth, and washing my face with scalding hot water. Something tells me that in the winter, when it's bitterly cold, there's no hot water. It would only be fair wouldn't it.

But there's good stuff, too. Thursday started out as somewhat of a disappointment. I slept in, then took the bus to Little Italy and walked around for an hour or so until it became so oppressively hot that I decided to head back. I napped for an hour or so, got up and went out for a walk. For dinner I had an over-priced ham and cheese crepe and an even more over-priced bottle of Quebcois beer (which was excellent, by the way). Things got MUCH more interesting, though, when I returned to the hostel. The NEW group of Aussie girls (not nearly as friendly as the first group) had left for the bars (makeup applied, big hair and halter tops in place), and I was left with a small, eccentric group who had stayed behind either because they weren't interested in the club scene or because they had no money.

So I spent the evening sipping beers on the patio with Roy, a middle-aged Canadian who was born "overseas" and lived in the U.S. for many years. He's hoping to go back as soon as he "clears some things up". We were later joined by David, a native of Quebec City who's just found work in Montreal and is staying at the hostel while he looks for an apartment. David moves furniture for a living, but he's only doing that until he can save enough money to fulfill his life-long dream of producing a film about human encounters with extraterrestrial beings. He thinks he has absolute proof of alien life and wants to share such proof with the people of Canada. His film would never be shown in the States, he insists, because "the government wouldn't allow it." Finally, we were joined by two college students from Mexico named Luis and Cristian--two charming, polite boys who a) speak very little English, and b) have camera-phone footage of their best friend's encounter with an alien. Don't think for a moment that I'm making this up, or even that I'm exaggerating. I was awake until after 2am translating--it had been years since I'd had a lengthy conversation in Spanish, and suddenly I was having to come up with translations for terms like "magnetic field" and "government conspiracy"! But all is well: the three have exchanged contact information and David has promised to give them a cut of any profit he makes from his film. (side note: the video was, I have to admit, pretty damn creepy; Luis is going to e-mail it to me when he gets back to Mexico).

Yesterday I had lunch with Abby from Philadelphia at a mediocre burger place on Rue St. Paul. After lunch, we sought refuge in the air-conditioned Museum of Modern Art, and later in an air-conditioned coffee shop while sipping American-sized iced beverages. After that, we took the Metro back down to Atwater Market to buy ingredients for the dinner I was planning to prepare with Luis and Cristian later that night. The meal (penne with baby eggplant, baby zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't resist buying at the market) turned out great, and since there was so much left, several other guys from the hostel (who had been outside smoking their "special cigarettes") offered five dollars a plate for it. I agreed, mostly because I hadn't been able to find an ATM that would accept my card and I thought the cash would come in handy (Mom: this problem has been resolved; we won't have to resort to Western Union).

NEXT INSTALLMENT: ME, ROY, TWO DRUNKEN IRISH GIRLS AND QUIET WELSHMAN ON MONT ROYAL.