An Extra Month of Summer

So, what happened when I got back from the Great not-so-white North? Well, there was a weekend of debrief, where all counsellors from the Fronteir College summer camps came back together at the Lakehead campus. It seemed strange, as if we hadn’t left yet, and we were just back in training, but now had a summer of wonderful experiences behind us. The highlights of the weekend included running into a camper from Kingfisher while we were in the Sioux Lookout airport, and walking to a movie theatre to see Dark Knight – a month after it came out! It was wonderful.

I returned home to Chatham for a few days, doing everything that you do in Chatham – seeing friends, going to the Nest on Wednesday, River Rock Friday, watching movies and visiting with my parents and grandparents. It was great to be home for a while, although the time was short.

Labour Day weekend arrived and I was off for Toronto. Having secured a promotional job for the Saturday and Sunday, I had to leave Chatham a day earlier than expected, but thankfully Jessica was ready for me! I moved into Toronto, where there was a pull out couch and an empty set of drawers waiting for me. The change from being in Webequie one Friday to Toronto the next was strange to say the least – Northern lights versus city lights, but both with their shares of friendly faces and people on welfare. Toronto brought me back into my whirlwind of fun – working 10:30am-5pm on Saturday and Sunday, but with my 10:30pm-5am stint at Guvernment tossed in the middle of that. Thankfully I’m not working during the week anymore, and Jess is around to convince me to keep my sleeping patterns regular throughout the week. The weekdays off allowed me to visit some friends in Toronto, go to the Beaches and Toronto Islands, and get my details sorted out for exchange, which is coming up quickly!

The past three days I’ve spent in Montreal. I’d never been before, so when the offer came up to visit friends, I jumped at the chance. I figure that if this is my year of exploration,I shouldn’t limit it to exploration outside my own country! Coach Canada’s amazing deals for Toronto-Montreal travel really aided my decision. Check out the deals! I’m not even being paid to promote them – it’s just that good of a deal! If you’re one of the first to book it only costs $10 each way, and even if you’re later than that it’s no more than $55 each way!! Montreal was beautiful – everything I’d heard about it being “so European” and actually having character turned out to be true. I had cheap tacos and beer, great smoked meat at Schwartz’s, explored an amazing park on Parc, and decided that McGill is by far my favourite campus I’ve seen yet. After baking cookies late into the night last night, today I went to Chinatown (where Fromstein impressed me with his Mandarin) and old Montreal for more exploration, met up with one of my longest friends, Amy, and then jumped on the bus back to Toronto!

Next stop on my trip is a night in the Hammer – I’ve got a lot of visiting to do in a short amount of time, and no cell phone to aid in the process, but I’m sure it will all work out somehow. Now it’s time to try sleeping a bit more on the bus. I’ll be arriving in Toronto at 3am and have plans to be in Hamilton in time to show up in a 9:30am Eastern Thought class, so sleep is likely an important stage in this journey.

Keep Smiling!

–V.