Back from two weeks in a forest in Normandy, Montreal seems so noisy. I have to shout more than usual to hold a "normal" conversation. At 3:30 am on Sunday, some "kids" in the parking lot were yelling for someone and beeping their car horn. Downtown, music blare from shops, in the kitchens, cooks bang their pots, and I wake up to the periodical drone of machinery (I think it's the generator) in the building just behind mine, and for the last half an hour, a tractor has been busily rolling backwards and forwards, beeping occasionally. Rather different from the chirping of birds, the knocks of the woodpecker, the buzz of bugs, bees and bluebottle flies, and the occasional unseen gazelle. It doesn't help that jetlag feels like a hangover that won't go away.
Apart from the noise level, I'm glad to be back. Montreal has a young zest of life that even the most grey, wet weather can't dampen — like mobile boom-boxes cars blasting music rolling down Sainte-Catherine ... ok, I stop. ;)
I haven't done very much, except I caught "La Grande Séduction" last night — a most cleverly written and wonderfully humorous film, even as it addresses a serious problem in country towns all over the world today. I tried out shopping on Ikea online, and can't help thinking that the experience was so much like playing The Sims.
Posted by sniffles at August 11, 2003 07:29 AM