A trip down to the canal

This year is coming to an end and due to a dental surgery, I will not celebrate it with anything sparkly or glamourous. It will more likely be with some rest, certain amount of pain and some akward eating.
This is the second surgery within two months and the last time for a long long time I hope.
I'm sitting here with a poor night of sleep, feeling a bit sorry for myself, therefore I will go back a few weeks and write about our trip to Panama city. We went there for a family event. It's not a place we had on our list to see. As I had a busy autumn with school and work, I had not thought of looking up things to see or visit, except for one thing and that was Casco Viejo.
It ended up being my prefered spot in the city by far.

It's a world heritage site since 1997 and it was built in 1673 due to the fact that Panama City founded in 1519 was burned down by none other than pirates. Most of the old buildings are just facades with nothing on the inside and no roof. I really enjoyed our walks here. Usually the old parts of cities tend to be a bit more touristy and so is even Casco Vejo. In my opinion it's mostly just a positive thing as you actually see people smiling and wanting to serve you here. Something that is a rare event elsewhere in the city.

Like this barber we found.

He did a really nice job and did't charged much for it so he ended up very happy with a 100% tip.

A restaurant I really liked, that is a hotel as well, was Tantalo.

It is a place recommeded by Tripadvisor, so again pretty touristy. However when we went there around lunchtime and I felt it was a bit more local people discussing work or if they were tourists they were other latin americans, because I could only hear spanish around. I had a bit of a feeling that this could be a place in Buenos Aires. Lovely indeed.

Another spot I enjoyed was Punte de la Américas, a bridge taking you over the Panama Canal built by Americans in 1962. 

 We found ourselves a nice local beach on the other side of the bridge in the village of Vera Cruz.

                                   

We got to enjoy some really great fresh seafood at a restaurant by the beach called El Pulpo Loco. I had my life's greatest Mojito there as well. Made with chinola. Yammie.

The fried plantaines are a specialty that my Sweetie makes the best, there is a reason I call him the the king of plantaines (El rei del platanos). So it came to no surprise that I didn't much like the Patacones (Panamanian name for the fried plantaines) in Panama. I switched to rice after a few tries.

I might get to the more family part of the trip next time around. Now it's time to make porridge for my beloved who just woke up and prepare for a snowstorm coming our way.

perfectly good

It's in moments like this when too many things have happened that I find it hard to figure out where to start. So I decided to start by getting out of the bed and make myself some breakfast. A nice Finnish breakfast.

The bread is dark and very much made and brought from Finland, being Olulainen and the greatest bread in the world. The porridge is not Elovena but it's still perfectly fine oat. Coffee bought in Panama but served from Arabia's wonderful design and the spoon is Iittala, another wonderful Finnish design. We are such product patriots in our country. It is in a very lovely way and very much in honor of family tradition. This is what my breakfast would look like in Finland, except that the cheese would be Valio's mustaleima and about a thousand times better tasting that the mozzarella cheese I just ate. None the less, a very good breakfast indeed and ever since we got back from our trip to Panama, we have been eating oatmeal porridge in the morning. The first time I made my sweetie some, he takes a spoon in the mouth and then spells out my mother's name in a very satisfied way. I didn't find it weird in any way as my thoughts were in my parents' kitchen just as well. It's always my mother who would make us the porridge. The rest of the day it would be my father making the kitchen his battle field. Mom's morning porridge has a hint of magic in all its simplicity. The funny part about it is that every time she serves it she would have something bad to say about it. Either it was too thick or too thin or lacking salt or something else that every family member would close their ears to, as we knew it would be perfectly good. I realized I did exactly the same thing when serving it to my sweetie the first time, I said "it's not as good as mom's". Then I decided that, yes it is. With a little bit of rasberries and maple syrup and it's perfectly good.    
Yesterday we went skiing for the second time in a week. It's the first time I ski before Christmas here in Canada.
We tried out a new place, called Saint-Saveur. It's about 70 km from Montreal, so more or less the same as Bromont that we normally go to.
A cute place indeed and the tempretaure was nice and mild. What gave me an extra little feel of welcome was the Finnish flag, first in the row. I enjoy when people prepare for my arrival. I'm obviously kidding and I willing to admit that the Swedish and Norwigian flag wasn't far. 

It wasn't a very windy evening, something that was bad for the visual of the flag in the picture but good for our skiing. 

It feels good to be back to the cold and fresh air. I'm willing to say that now, in a few degrees of minus. I was feeling less enthusiastic when it was showing -20°c a few days ago. It's not easy for the heart, mind and soul to go from +35°c to -20°c. The day after we got back I had a doctor's appoinment and entered a hospital that is situated in an older beautiful building. That morning it was -20°c and I was feeling a bit groggy from the traveling. When I enter the building, I look up on the wall and read the text "Tervetuloa". For a moment I was standing there feeling completely confused, then I zoomed out my blurry lince and saw words meaning welcome in plenty other languges. 
I can't however help but feel that Qubec is trying to welcome me back from my crankiness I was going through this autumn. It is kindly wispering to me "hey girl, we are not that bad, we are just a bit different and yes believe it or not but we are happy to have you here".

right kind of romantic

This weekend we did a roundtrip to Niagara Falls. It's a seven hour drive and a bit rough to do it with only a one night stay, but absolutely worth it. I have been to this place once before and remembered it being okay but nothing special. It's amazing how the right company can change how you feel about the surroundings.

The place is very touristy and you do feel that you're in the US and not Canada but the water falls are really powerful and with your beloved in your arms it all adds up to being pretty romantic.

The reason for our trip was actually to meet family. I have a cousin who tours the world on her figure skates with her dear husband in her arms and we were very excited to meet up with them and see their show.

We got to enjoy a splendid performance. It's a happy christmas show but due to the fact that the ice is so small and the speed high, it becomes very much filled with action and almost scary at times. Absolutely fantastic however and we both walked out feeling excited about the upcoming christmas.
We got to spend some nice family time both after the show and the next morning. Me and my Dominican were as well able to squeeze in some romantic alone time in the hotel room enjoying a wonderful view. Room service seemed liked the thing to do.

It was a very short and sweet trip, perfect to celebrate the fact that cheered up my November....

The fact being that my beloved got down on his knee on a roof top terrace in Montreal. It was up on the 44th floor and I need not to point out that the night was amazing along with the view of the city. I have been through a lot in my life but it was the first time a man was on his knee in front of me. When I saw him slipping on the sweetest diamond ring, I have ever seen, my eyes fill up with tears, my heart with happiness and my mouth with a thousand " yes sweetie, I do want to marry you".

bright traveling light

November was a month with poor sleep, lots of pressure and heavy conversation. It's started at work, then spread to my team work at the university and finally continued its ugly dance in our beloved living room. It was eating on my brain and sucking the juice out of my body. At one point I thought I would fall to the floor, or maybe I was secretly hoping it would happen, so I would finally get some rest. 
Something happened however to change all of that in one second. A candle was lit, in a darkness that felt too heavy to handle.

I will spread some light over this positive event a little later but first I need to try to sort out that draining feeling of stress.
I admire people who can fall asleep at night no matter how awful, corrupt or frightful their day has been. I say corrupt because that's a word that often comes to my mind when driving in Montreal. This city is beautiful in so many ways with unique wall paintings and cosy restaurants, but under the surface of the ridiculously poorly made asphalt hides corrupt politics. I know that it is a fact in many other countries and cities but I'm in Montreal and it's here the construction work is laughing in the face of hard working tax payers.  
Stress feeds on negative feelings, it's amazing how negative you can get when you let it happen. The secret is not to let it happen. What you should do, is to put a pair of shoes on and go out for a walk. Breathe out the negativity and breathe in the positive fresh thoughts. That's what I did, one fine evening when the first snow fell on the poor quality asphalt of this city...

I had Leonard Cohen playing from my iPod. 

"my once so bright, my fallen star
...
goodnight goodnight

My fallen star
I guess you’re right
You always are

I know you’re right
About the blues
You live some life
You’d never choose

I’m just a fool
A dreamer who
Forgot to dream

Of the me and you" 

Absolutely beautiful music and lyrics. For me it's describing my complicated relationship with this city. I chose this city. Not once but twice. Once 4.5 years ago when I moved here from Finland, then 2.5 years ago when I couldn't handle one more minute in the country side. Actually I guess I should go back even further, because when I was a 17 year old exchange student I chose this city as well. The silver lining being, I wanted this, I chose this. Why am I complaining?

Well I think we all are aloud to feel home sick and have the blues. It's okay to question your decisions from time to time and analyze them. That's how you figure out the future strategy. As long as you know where you have your feelings and keep your facts straight. 
As for stress, I'm not the person who takes it lightly and falls asleep. I'm the one who stays up all night, sinking deeper and deeper into it. It sucks the energy from me and uses it to make a circle around me. This circle then keeps me from enjoying human contact and wonderful things in life. It keeps me from properly speaking any languages and putting priority in things that matter. I tend to avoid friends and family in times like this, which is really easy to do in this part of the world. To avoid a person you love and adore and share your bed with, is a bit harder. 
So what did I do? 
... well it wasn't so much what I did but more what he did. It is however this kind of a beautiful thing that deserve a blog text of it's own, so I will bring it to light in my next blog moment.

honoring the unprivileged self

My beautiful walk in Westmount honoring the memory of L.Cohen, turned into a short story, one could have given the name "the lost Finn in Westmount". I took my boyfriends car, as he had taken mine to a check-up. Already driving his car instead of mine makes me feel like walking around in somebody else's shoes that are clearly too big for me. I feel like driving around in my father's Volvo, even if the car is way smaller than that. Kinda like driving a boat on narrow streets instead of a car. 
So there I was driving in beautiful Wesmount, without any clue of where exactly I wanted to go and why. I started talking out-loud to myself "what on earth are you doing here?" And as often happens with conversations to myself I then tell me to show myself some respect and speak in my mother tongue. So then I go like "Nåjo, vad skall jag nu säga... vad fan gör jag här egentligen?".

When I read L.Cohen's description of Wesmount 

“Westmount is a collection of large stone houses and lush

trees arranged on the top of the mountain especially to humiliate the underprivileged.”

I thought it was his sarcastic funny way of putting it. I understood to my horror how accurate and painfully true it was. I honestly thought the police would stop me and tell me to go back to the part of the island I belong. So that is what I did, while yelling at my gps for not choosing an uglier route. 

I'm sorry not to back up my story with proper pictures. I have made a note to myself to dress up fancy, borrow a nice looking dog from somebody, go back and take some nice pictures. This time I will do it, to honor myself.

"godfather of gloom"

On the 30th of September 2014, I wrote my first text in this blog. I wrote that my love affair with Montreal had just started and maybe Leonard Cohen was the reason for moving here. Now Leonard Cohen is dead and the sparkle for this city is slowly turning darker. Maybe it's just a bad moment, it is November and gloomy. No honeymoon lasts forever. Reality tends to catch up on us sooner or later and a two year love affair is a pretty good accomplisment with buildings, streets and bridges. The light could have burned out sooner.

I heard about Leonard Cohen's death while in traffic driving to work. I started crying, I'm still crying. Listening to his music and crying. To me he was the greatest man who ever lived. I lost my hero and Montreal lost a significant spark. He was a great musician and poet and I felt he was walking around with the ultimate truth in his heart. Like a Gandalf of our time. I love and adore him. 

It's really powerful to listen to his new album that came out only a few weeks before his death. He clearly knew his minutes were counted. Knowing he came back to this city to record choir music from his childhood synagogue makes it even more powerful.

"I'm leaving the table, I'm out of the game"

He makes it sounds so freaking good, I'm jealous of him. He who got to leave. To reach his wisdom, I know I have a lot of time still to serve and I'm not sure I used my time wisely in my past, so the remaining one might not be enough. But hey, we can't all be poetic heroes. "Satan in Westmount" was Cohen's first published poem. Funny man. I often walk in Montreal and get thrilled to think he has walked the same streets, I should take a little pilgrim walk in Westmount area this weekend where Cohen grew up. 

Westmount is a collection of large stone houses and lush trees arranged on the top of the mountain especially to humiliate the underprivileged

Words from the man himself. On that note I will get back to my crying and enjoying his album.

calm down, your brain is boiling

I went from having my studies at McGill on my daily schedule, to having a new challenging job and my studies squeezed in the same schedule. People told me to take it easy and concentrate on my studies, I told myself not to start looking for a job but to enjoy and absorb the new knowledge I was given. 
Did I listen? ... No
When one makes decisions out of fear for a possible future outcome, one is possible making a wrong decision or at least a decision based on the wrong reasons. 
Did I do that? ... future will tell.
I have recently had to concentrate so carefully and push so much new knowledge in my brain that I am feeling that my brain is boiling. Small tasks started to feel hard. Listening to normal conversation felt hard. Talking felt hard.
I went to the pharmacy to get myself a facial cleanser, stood there looking at the different products wondering how I ever would be able to make a decision on what product to buy. I miss the Finnish pharmacies, small cute places with 3 or 4 options. Canadian pharmacies are huge, bigger than most supermarkets in Finland and the options are endless. So there I was half panicked about my upcoming purchase when a staff member walks up to me and asks me if she could assist me in anyway. I was just too tired and couldn't see myself explaining the situation, especially not in my 4th language, so I answered "no".  
My University studies are in English, that's my 3rd language. My previous jobs have all been bilingual as in French and English, in other words in my 3rd and 4th language. I recently went on a government web page of Sweden and read some information and was amazed how well I understood it. How easy it was to read. Well dah! It's in my mother tongue. 
At that moment I realized something.
Was I not feeling smart enough because I sometimes had to read a text a few times to really understand what I was reading? Or because I couldn't phrase myself sophisticatedly enough? ...Yes 
Should I instead use my energy being proud of how far I have come and think about all the things I am able to do in my repertoire of 5 languages and not feel inferior? ... Probably
That evening at the pharmacy, my boyfriend comes to my rescue. He walks up to me pretending to be part of the staff and asks me how he can help me. I tell him in a complaining voice that I need a liquid to wash my face with, because it's not good to use soap at my age. This thing of avoiding wrinkles or at least trying to avoid them. So he walks up to the the same woman I wasn't able to talk to and explains what was needed. She comes towards me and shows me a few options. I turn to my boyfriend feeling overwhelmed asking him what I should buy. After all he was the one who introduced me to the mascara I nowadays use, another surprising and weird store moment in my life, so maybe he was the best one to make this judgment on how to remove this same mascara off my face? He had no problem making the decision, neither dealing with the payment. I felt relieved and grateful to have my challenge over and done with and a few minutes later we crashed in bed. 
One pushes and pushes and pushes. Asking oneself to be faster, smarter, more creative more social, more this and more that. Feeling bad because you're not as great as you would want to be or living up to some weird standard you have created in your head. Or even worse, that somebody else has created in your head. 
I went from having plenty of time on my hands to read and study, enjoying fresh air and cooking good food for my beloved, to feeling bad at work for not being on top of it, feeling bad not to have time to study enough and then feeling bad for not being able to be the loving and cooking girlfriend I had been. I was given the gift of time but I ended up refusing it and chose running around like a headless chicken instead. Smart? No, not so much.
When my computer at work refused to recognize my last name as it is and instead try to suggest that my name is Boiling, I broke down and started laughing. I felt that it was universe's way of sending me a message "calm down, your brain is boiling".

a stolen chair

Today is a rainy autumn day, a perfect day to sit down on a chair and write a little. We had dinner guests from Belgium over yesterday evening, so I'm in the fortunate position of being able to have a mimosa from left over Cava we served and chocolate from our desert. Not a bad start to a rainy Sunday. 

Yesterday was a sunny Saturday, so we swopped the gym for a walk outside, around our precious Parc Lafontaine.

I had received a message from my "godmother-in-law" and decided it was a great idea to send her a picture of her godson enjoying a sunny day at the park, so we sat down on the funny chairs at the Léo Ayotte viewpoint.

Underneath each chair there is an object, a pair of shoes, a lunch bag, a folded newspaper, a book or a ball. All equally made in metal and permanently stuck to the ground. I like this spot, it's the second part of a sculpture group designed by Michel Goulet. The first part can be found at another lovely spot only a few steps away from the park, at Place Roy. This piece of art called "les lecons singulières" was not at all well received back in the 90's when it was installed. People got angry, because you were not able to sit on the chairs. The chairs got vandalized several times and one even stolen, so they had to remove them and the place was empty for a year.
   

In 1999 they came up with another way to attach the chairs to the ground and a copy was made of the stolen one and two more chairs were added so that people would be able to sit. I find this a funny story that gives a pretty good insight of how people think in the province of Quebec. Why just walk past these chairs and admire the mystery of them, when you can revolt against them and even steel one? 
The stolen chair was recovered twelve years later and it got placed in the Botanical garden as part of a work called "Un jardin à Soi". In other words a must see chair in Montreal and now on my to do list for my next visit to the Botanical garden. 
To Michel Goulet a chair is "the pretext for meeting new people, sharing and communicating" and so it inspired him in his sculptural work.

We ended our walk by getting cupcakes from a bakery and walking back to the park. It was pretty crowded at the park and each time we saw an empty bench we rushed over to it in vain to see somebody else steel it right in front of us. We ended up sitting down on a stone eating the cupcakes. Equally comfortable however. 

After these cute but a little too sweet cupcakes we rushed home to prepare the dinner for our Belgium friends. Later in the evening we all sat down at the dinner table sharing, laughing and talking. We tried to figure out the last time some of us had met and came to the conclusion it was 6 years ago, around a dinner table sitting on chairs in Finland. It is true that chairs play a central role in bringing us humans together, I had never really thought about it before.

a secret garden

Yesterday was another beautifully sunny day. As it's getting colder and picnic days are coming to an end, I decided to close our season and serve one last one for my beloved. We normally tend to go to a park close by, called Parc Lafontaine along with a lot of other humans, dogs and squirrels. 
This time I decided to make it more intimate and romantic and take my beloved over the bridge to the Island of Sainte-Hélène. The walk there is less romantic thanks to cars and moody people on bikes but the view is spectacular.

On the island you can see a brick tower and just below it, is our romantic spot. 

The tower, called tour de Lévis, is a water tower built in 1936. Unfortunately nothing more romantic than that but it apparently has a breathtaking view of the city and its surroundings if you are lucky enough to get access to the inside and walk up the 157 steps. We have not been that lucky yet.

Our picnic spot we got to share with a duck and two squirrels and thankfully no moody humans. It's such a wonderfully quiet place, at least this time a year. It feels somewhat abandoned and therefore a bit secretive.

We sat down close to the pond that I assume is a man built one. We put on some nice Dominican music, Fernando Villalona, to be more precise. I'm in a period of being absolutely crazy about his more romantically sad boleros and cha-cha-chá rhythms.  For a woman in the fashion industry, a bolero is a piece of clothing or then the classical music piece of Ravel. I'm however expanding my horizons and so I learned that bolero is as well a slow tempo music with roots in both Spain and Cuba. By listening to Fernando Villalona one gets to enjoy the Cuban version spiced up in a Dominican way. 

We got to enjoy the company of the duck the entire time. Apparently it's not only us who enjoys the more quiet spots of Montreal, because this duck was completely alone with no friends or family in sight but none the less in a very descretly social mood. 

 When the sky slowly started to turn off its light in our secret garden, we packed our bags, said goodbye to the duck and walked back up to the Jacques Cartier bridge. The view was just as spectacular after sunset but the humans unfortunately not any less moody. 

shades and shadows

Fall is here and the colors are softly and slowly sneaking into the trees of our city. It's such a beautiful feeling to be surrounded by these different shades of yellow, orange and red.

I have been given the gift of time. It's a difficult but oh so wonderful gift to consume. I decided to take some time off work and return to the school bench. To wake up in the morning knowing you have nothing but pages of a book to read is a bit scary when you're a person who is raised to work hard to make a living. My steps could be light and joyful but unfortunately I have a shadow of bad conscious following me around.

The weather has been absolutely gorgeous in both September and October. Sunny and warm.

Montreal is such a bohemian beauty. I love this city and the feeling I get when walking down its streets. Especially in the area of Plateau Mont Royal.

  

It's not clean, nor clear, not classic. It's not fancy, not luxurious, not glamorous. 

It's cozy, cute and clever in it's own way. It's bohemian, warm and welcoming. It's artsy, funky and funny. It's really easy to feel at home here. Love love love you Montreal, especially this time a year when you dress up to impress in your colorful gowns and detailed accessories. You're a unique beauty.

 I'm happy to embrace another Fall in your arms, let you whisper your secrets in my ears 

and chase away any dark shadows that might disturb us.