Montreal in a Weekend

Owie! Zowie! – as my husband would say! We have had a busy fall, to say the least. If you remember, in one of the last posts I was insisting that it’s still summer … Well … I kind of feel like, with everything that went on this fall, I missed the season entirely, almost altogether!

In the end of September, we flew up to Montreal where my mom was visiting my sister and her family, so we can spend her 60^th birthday with her. Visiting Montreal is always a gift to us – it’s half family trip, half sightseeing (when we get enough time). Although still in North America, Montreal feels “foreign” and cosmopolitan and like a trip of a lifetime, really. 

The fleurs-de-lis everywhere reminds you constantly that you're not in just North America anymore.

In the past couple of trips up there, we went up for family “stuff” and we always went in a hurry. We had no time to see the city or to savor the local foods. This time, the days were few again, but somehow my sister managed to squeeze some “touristy” time in the 2 full days we stayed there. And what a treat it was!

On a Friday (when the kids are in school, still), all of the adults went to Old Port/ Montreal and had lunch at this very chic Japanese bar and then walked about the city. 

We had lunch at Kyo, a Japanese bar. The food was traditional Japanese and delicious. This place was all rice, fish and ... wood. The bamboo slab you read the name of the restaurant on is actually the back of our menus. And the sake came enclosed in this tiny wooden box.

 

Just gawking at cobble stone streets and stone walls can make my pastime enjoyable. For some reason, I have always loved cities with a waterfront: Charleston, Wilmington, Savannah, New Orleans, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Quebec City and … Montreal. There is something timeless about a city’s old buildings strung together, like priceless beads, along a river front … You can see the history, its happy times, and its dark times, all along the water… The walls start talking, telling tales of good and bad, rich and poor, bloody and fair. 

Nothing says "old European city" than streets lined with statues and piazzas full of pigeons! 

 Walking along the Saint Laurent River, in Vieux Port of Montreal

I love taking in the smell of street foods on these old streets, peeking at artists creating, oblivious at the carefree passersby, watching perky pups pulling onto their owners, happy to be “out”; I love hearing the sound of the old tram horns or the horses’ feet, clip-clopping over the cobbles; I love eating random treats while trying really hard not to trip, and trying to figure out what is a better spending of my time: opening my own eyes and really enjoying every second of this, or grabbing my camera and trying to capture as much of this rich spectacle for posterity?! I have never been able to prioritize in such situations.    

Taking in the Old City: artists, beautiful flower arrangements on street patios and boutiques - lots of them.

This was my first trip to the Old Port with my husband – so, this will remain in our family album as our first discovering the maple ice-cream and cookies, our first visiting the Notre-Dame Basilica, our first shooting The Port, together. 

What can possibly say "Montreal" more loudly than poutine and maple?! Sorry, America can keep its claim of perfecting mashed potatoes and gravy, but fries and gravy belongs to the Quebecois, people! Hands down! When in Old Port, make sure you visit the Maple Museum in the basement of the Maple Delights store.

If you ever wander around those parts, please do remember to do two things: visit the artists’ corner, of the Old Port. The jewelry and paintings you’ll find are some of the most affordable and beautifully original art I have seen anywhere! And, secondly, pay the $10 (or … so) to visit the Notre-Dame Basilica. A replica of the famous French church, it is a breathtaking Gothic structure that will leave you gasping! The art inside is old and awe inspiring, and done in a manner obsessing with perfection and detail. Not one stroke of painting or chisel is at random. And simply put: they don’t build churches like this anymore! 

 The Notre-Dame Basilica, outside and in

The rest of the time up there was spent in the family, chasing around my nephews, cooking out and talking, eating and drinking too much. My mom almost had a heart attack on her birthday, when my dad showed up at the door, to wish her Happy Birthday. This is a 24 hour, 5000 mi trip, in case you were wondering. He flew totally unannounced and unplanned to surprise her. 

Maybe the last grill of the season

All I can say is: thank God for family, and thank God for love!

This is how you say "cheese" in my family: my whole family reunited, at last! Do you know how rare this moment is?! Thinking about it makes me cry! Thanks to dad's adventuresomeness, we are all together again. Click on this last picture to see the whole album from this trip.

Proving Up

I am reading this book now that collects a number of accounts by women who settled in the Montana region at the beginning of the 20^th century. The way it worked is this: they came from all over the nation (and even across the Ocean and Canada) to “lease” a piece of land (300 acres or less) from the government, build a “shack” on it, and start to either cultivate the land, or raise animals on it.

After three years of living here, more or less continuously (without hiatuses longer than a few months) and after proving they are earning a living off the land, they were allowed to file for ownership on their plot, and at that point in time, the land was theirs. They would receive papers that showed they are the owners. After three years, they would “prove up” that this is indeed their home and the government would title the property to them. And this is how The West was settled.

What I find the most interesting in this book is not necessarily the account of all the hardships, or the wicked hard life that a lone woman would encounter in the middle of nothing, or the description of the really gruesome winters, with ruthless prairie winds and unforgiving blizzards, blowing through the cracks of the shacks with no insulation at all; or the tough long years of severe drought when they had no crops at all, and no hope left. I find the most interesting their difficulty in feeling at home here; their longing for the places they left behind. After all, they picked to move across the continent. They seemingly were ready for a new life and hard work. But there is always something left behind, some anchor, that kept pulling them to their roots.

Some of them went back in the long winters, so they can retreat to calmer weather in California, or The South; some just gave up and moved back “home” before their proving up time was up. And yet some of them stayed, but wrote in the journals I am reading now how they missed their old land.

I have felt much the same way in the past three years of my life, without the actual complications of waiting for the government to call me an owner. For three years, my former house in North Carolina has been mine, and for one reason or another I could not sell it. For three years, it kept pulling me back, albeit just in thought and worry. For three years, although I have lived a new married life, I have found a better job that I had in NC, I have travelled places speechlessly beautiful out here, in the West, I have fought rough winters and planted my own gardens, I have buried my beloved cat in this land, I have also hung on to Greensboro as to my true “home”.

I visited just once, but every time life was tough here, I would always go back to my “safe” (and worrisome) zone in my heart. I was always telling myself that I can see myself going back. It was safe, it was friends, it was what I knew …

Until yesterday! Yesterday, my old place finally sold. Finally, I lost my anchor. I am still in a state of shock, for many reasons, but mostly because I never thought it could really be completely gone from my life. And now, for the first time in three years, I realize that I am fully moved. Finally.  

The other day, a colleague asked me what I miss about North Carolina. My goodness, what don’t I miss?! The weather, the honey liquid air in the middle of summer, the green, huge oak trees lining the streets, the food, the mountains and Asheville and Blowing Rock in particular, the loud, noisy, beautiful sandy beaches, only a few hours away. And more than anything, I miss the people. Friends and strangers alike – just the Southern hospitality and drawl!

A piece of my heart will definitely forever be buried in The Carolinas, just like another piece is left in Romania. But now, a true new life can begin. No more dreaming about going back, as there is no physical place to go back to. After three years of a torn heart, hard winters, trying to understand this new culture and feeling uprooted and isolated, and after always, daily, feeling pulled behind … I have finally proved up.

Sunset

When the breath goes, there will just be light ...

 

There is one thing I have not gotten tired of since I moved to Utah. Well, there are several, but one thing is a constant – and that is the largeness of the sky, its varied colors and ability to change in seconds, it seems, and create new ethereal celestial landscapes right above our head … For a weather that is pretty even and boring for long days on end, the sky definitely has tons of personality, here!

Just like the Eskimo language has tens of words for “white” or  “snow” the Rockies dialect of American English should have that many for “orange”, “red” and “blue” just to define what we see every day.

I always love the views from my back yard, in any weather, but the sunset is by far my favorite. It’s always new, and always leaves me speechless… And since we don’t have those many words yet, I am letting the pictures speak:

 

This is the Mount Timpanogos (first) and its little "baby brother" to its left, exactly across from my dining room patio. They are exactly at the North position in The Valley, so they don't get drenched in the sunset light . They are the more muted fixtures of this land.

 

The sun was completely set in this shot. I have no clue what that big, round spotlight is in the sky, but the sun it is not it! 

 

This is the view onto The West, right where the sun sets, over Utah Lake which you can see in some of the pictures.  Again, you see that spot of light in one of the shots (before last) which I have no clue how to define ...

A Quiet Labor Day Hike

We never plan to camp on holiday weekends, as we always believe the campsites will be overflowing, loud, messy, kid and young adult playgrounds – a venue that is not typically our cup-a-joe.

But we would chance a ride through a campsite just for the day on a holiday weekend,  just to look at the scenery. Today was the time for such a ride, through the Diamond Fork Canyon, South of Spanish Fork.

There was something eerily quiet about today – maybe the fact that everyone was indeed out of town. But where? Because the campsites were not indeed full, like you would expect.

I am not sure whether it was the rainy forecast for this weekend, or the roaming, low, gray clouds of today, but there were not many people around the canyon.

After a slow ride through the mountains, we picked a trail accompanying the Diamond Fork river, and we took in the silence, the chirping of the stream, the swishing of the aspen leaves, and the beautiful flora outlining our path.

It did sprinkle almost throughout our entire walk, but it was still nice to get out and recharge through the beauty of these parts and the smells and the sounds of the land.

Here’s a small window into our wanderings of today, through the lens of our Canons:

 

No one but us, our truck and the mountains! 

 

There was this bizarre, taken apart door in one of the spots along the river. Very out of place, as there were no buildings around. Just wilderness. A weird trace of humans gone by ...

 

The Diamond Fork river was the fullest I have seen it at the end of the summer, in three years of living in Utah! And we did not, in fact, have a very rainy summer!

 

There was something viscerally painful-looking about this scarred tree ... Just so beautiful and raw!   

 

When you see standing water in Utah's high desert, you know it's been raining - for a while! 

 

 

Trail and river, mirroring each other ... 

 

Hanging on to summer - wild flowers. 

 

River vegetation: this very green stalk looked like corn, in the middle of nothing but wilderness.   

 

Some sort of mountain berries, shriveled up in the sun. 

 

Fallen tree with fungus. 

 

Oak leaves and rain drops. 

 

The whisper of another season coming up, despite our best efforts to delay it. Click on the last picture, to see our entire album.