Au revoir, Montreal ....

The most amazing five months ....

Our time in Montreal is coming to a close and we are preparing to leave. Packing up to leave Montreal is significantly easier than packing to leave Australia! Still, we have acquired a significant amount of "stuff" and working out what to do with it now is the challenge .... four boxes have been sent home already!

I don't think I could cope with this scene and these
temps every winter!

So as we prepare to leave, we have been thinking about what we've gained from this experience.

Some thoughts ...

The things that we gained from this experience .....

- the opportunity to participate in another culture and live as locals do has been invaluable;

Farewelling some of our lovely neighbours

- meeting locals and make new friends. In particular, our neighbours have been so kind and generous to us. They've invited us to their houses, to their winter cottages, lent us bikes, collected mail and looked after bins - and all this, barely knowing us. Our little part of Chemin Laval was a great community. Farewelling them was hard!

- experiencing an extremely cold winter and learn how people continue with their daily lives surrounded by so much snow and when it is freezing cold. We loved watching the snow clearers; learning about the process; realising that snow didn't just disappear and physically had to be removed; all things you don't realise when you visit for a short time;

- the privilege of being able to do so much skiing and really improve our skiing abilities;

- learning that I don't want to live in an extreme winter environment for any extended time again (only to visit for skiing trips!);

- spending so much time together as a family - we feel very much a "tight unit" from this;

- furthering our skills in a second language;

- exploring another city, away from the tourist traps - to really explore the side streets and find new and fun cafes.

- watching the change of seasons has been fascinating. There is so much moisture in the ground, so there only needs to be one day of sunshine and warmth and the amount of growth is phenomenal!

- a new appreciation of the Saeco coffee machine that is in the Dostaler's house ... we will miss that! Tony and I look forward to our coffee each morning. We started visiting the local cafes around but then decided that we love our coffee at home just as much!

Love the coffee machine!

- learning about the French Canadian culture. The Quebecoise (as the people from Quebec province call themselves) are so proud of their French heritage and see themselves as different to the rest of Canada. Maintaining the French language is very important to them.

- tasting new foods and then learning to cook them at home! The cheeses...... and maple butter ...yum!

- experiencing living in a city much bigger than Canberra. We are all very comfortable and familiar with the metro; and Tony and I have a pretty good sense of where everything is in the city.

- an appreciation of so many things back in Australia. These range from people firstly; to our house, to some of our belongings and the ease in which we can do things in Australia. All of us have missed people - both family and friends - and we all have new appreciation of people in our lives. As Australians, we have so much to be grateful for and so many opportunities.

- school in Australia. The children have loved their school experience here in Canada but it has been challenging at times and they now appreciate their school community in Canberra even more.

- being forced out of our comfort zone. It takes guts to do it. We've all had our weak moments, but gosh, it's good for us and changes and challenges do make you stronger! There have been many occasions for all of us where we've taken big deep breaths and told ourselves that "we can do this", even if our heart wasn't quite believing our brain!

- the opportunities offered through house exchange. Isabelle and Pascale have been so generous to share their house with us, and in many ways, their lives. We've become friends with their friends, used their belongings and made ourselves at home in their home. We've become great friends and hopefully our paths will cross again ... if not ours; perhaps our children's paths will cross in the future. This was the hardest goodbye of all!

The "before" photo - January...

... and the "after" photo - July.

Things that we haven't really liked or found challenging ....

- the weather. It has been the biggest accomplishment but also the biggest challenge ... and we survived! For the weather not to go into positive numbers for a month was unbelievable ... and to hover around -18 for most of the day, for weeks on end, was equally unbelievable! But we managed.

- it has been hard to meet people. We didn't meet as many people through the school environment as we had hoped;

- with lack of familiarity to a city, things are hard. So often we would comment that ... "in Canberra we would just go/do ..... ". But to work these things out here has been challenging at times. This has become easier as time passed, but simple daily tasks like buying school clothes and shopping were huge challenges, with the snow also, back in January.

Ice on my boots ... ice defrosts and falls off but you are left
with salt stains. Good boots do not get worn in the snow!

- driving on the right hand side of the road. I'm still terrible with giving the correct left/right direction. Tony knows to follow the hand which is usually pointing the correct way!

- the salt that lingers on shoes, after walking on the snowy footpaths;


So the positives certainly outweigh the negatives! We are so lucky to have had this opportunity. We are thankful to our work places for giving us the time off, to the bank for help with finances and to the Dostaler family for agreeing to swap houses with us! This is an experience we would highly recommend to others. We probably won't do a long term exchange again for a while, as we want the children to have long term stability for high school. But as for the longer term future, Tony and I see it as a fantastic way to travel and get to know a place. In the short term, we see it as a great way to have cheap holidays and we will be looking at holidaying around Australia using house exchange locations.

Camping at Oka

Friday - drive to Oka National Park

Months ago, my friend Marie-Julie invited us to camp with her family plus two other families on this weekend, at Oka National Park. At that stage we had no plans for late June, so we eagerly accepted. Despite making a long day of driving from Baie St Paul, it was well worth it!

After a relaxed and calm morning, we left Baie St Paul mid morning. The children were all tired after a bike ride and hike on successive days, as well as very late nights. With the sun setting about 9.30pm, it is hard to get them to bed! Once we got underway, they promptly fell asleep.  The drive took us back down south, basically to Montreal. We skirted around the outside of Montreal and arrived at Oka National Park - about 6 hours of travelling. 

Marie-Julie, Julie and myself ... and a mutual love of champagne

As soon as we arrived and met the other families, we knew we were in for a great weekend. Marie-Julie and her husband Vido, Julie and her American husband Bruce (which meant another of us who spoke only English, so all communication was in English), then Manon and her husband Yann. We had nine children in total and the other six are completely bilingual - even the 4 year old! It is a marvel to watch these children switch between English and French without even thinking - their brains just know that if they are addressed in French they respond on French; also they just learn to whom they speak French and to whom they speak English - they don’t even think about it.

The other three families actually had on-site tents, which meant they had mattresses and basic kitchen equipment supplied, but not many other comforts. There was a gas cooker supplied, but no running water, no sink or no bathroom. Bertha as parked in a separate part of the campground, so our bikes proved extremely useful and moving between our site and the other families. We based ourselves in front of M-J’s site and that was were we all shared meals for the weekend. We had an awesome three days and all the families were great fun. 

Oka is a national park and is situated on the Lake of Two Mountains, right at the southern tip of Montreal island. It is a beautiful location and the closest thing resembling a beach around Montreal, which makes it very popular with day-trippers out of Montreal. This weekend is also a long weekend for many people. Canada Day falls on Tuesday, 1 July, but it is a movable public holiday - businesses and individuals can discuss when they wish to take the day off: thus many people are taking it on Monday 20 June. The campground was packed and certainly the fullest of any park we’ve seen in the last week. The “beach” resembled Bondi in popularity: but in no other way! We all had a square metre of sand and happily eavesdropped on conversations around us! The kids loved the water … the adults were a little more suspicious. It has been extremely hot and it was very warm in the middle of the day on the beach.

The campground is within the national park and there are many walking and cycling tracks around the area. It is heavily wooded … the image of Canadian woods is exactly what it is like. Great paths to run along! Unfortunately I didn’t take my phone out with me so couldn’t take any photos. Raccoons are a public nuisance … think possums when you are out camping … same thing happens and we had to put everything away each night. Even while we were sitting around the fire, raccoons came up close to explore and try to find food. We heard stories about raccoons eating anything - munching through plastic containers, managing to open sealed packets of food and even destroying toothbrushes! 

The only disadvantage to this park was the mosquitos. Mosquitos have been a problem everywhere we’ve been, but Oka was extreme. As soon as I got out of Bertha to help Tony reverse in, I was attacked - hours before dusk. Eau de repellent (it does sound impressive … roll those r’s and say with a french accent - and don’t pronounce the t at the end of repellent) was the fragrance of the weekend. It was applied as soon as we stepped out of the showers in the morning and reapplied regularly throughout the day. 

The weekend involved great food, with everyone contributing. Life revolved around eating; drinking; sitting around and relaxing; great conversations about Quebec, USA and Australia, including solutions to the medical systems of all three countries/province; children causing havoc/fun with fires; a trip to the beach; more food; more drinking … fun times. Very late nights but well worth the trip back down to Montreal to meet these great families and share the weekend with them. We hope to see them in Australia in the near (or distant) future!

From Oka, we headed into Ontario province, towards Ottawa - only about 90 minutes from Oka. 

M-J would quite like Olivia and Sophie to go to uni in Montreal ... they can live with her!

The last day at Parkdale Elementary School

Walking to school in the last week of school. 

One of the best decisions we made during our time here in Montreal was to send the children to school. Despite many administrative challenges last year, prior to coming, it all worked and they have attended Parkdale Elementary School for five months. Parkdale is considered an inner city school with an extremely diverse student population.

Lach and Ms Jennifer

Lach, with Mansva, Assim and Awias. A multicultural bunch!

The children have all loved their time at school. They have all had challenges along the way but we have no doubt these have made them better people for it! There have been some friendship issues, many gaps in knowledge, some cultural differences as well as the big one, some climatic differences. Many of these involved tears at home, but ultimately, the children have approached each challenge positively and been open minded. Never have they complained about going to school - in fact the opposite - there have been times when they haven't wanted to stay home or miss a particular activity. The children all have a couple of special friends to farewell in this last week. I don't know whether these will be friends for life, but for five months, they have been great supports and great company for our children. And, with social media, email and the world getting smaller, you can never predict whether their paths may cross again in the future. 

The teachers have all been very special and have all made our children feel welcome and supported.

Sophie with Ms Karin and her class - a total of 11 students!

Olivia and the girls from her class. 

Goodbye Montreal and Hello RV world

Heading North ... to explore Quebec province a little more.

Our time in Montreal has come to an end. The Dostaler family have returned home and we’ve caught up with them several times. We’ve shared many stories and they loved their time in Australia. They loved Canberra and wanted to thank all our friends who showed hospitality towards them. Isabelle particularly loved running around Canberra - the paths and the smell of eucalyptus were significant memories. Pascale loved the opportunities for bike riding and the hills; on one day, rode 120km. They thought there was no traffic in Canberra! Now that we know Montreal, we can confirm that the bike and walking tracks in Canberra are unique; also Montreal is so flat that we can understand that Pascale loved the mountains to ride up and down; and yes, the traffic is shocking in Montreal! They have visited every museum and gallery that Canberra has to offer and loved how many were free. They found the distances in Australia are bigger than they expected and the prices dearer than Canada but overall, loved their experience. 

So we are back into an RV and off exploring. RV has been named Bertha, as Tony equates it to driving a tractor on the farm at Moonamby (Mudgee). After using an RV when we visited the Grand Canyon and finding it rather challenging, we feel much more prepared this time. Coming straight from a house, we were able to bring a significant amount of food with us. We have borrowed a small, 2 burner gas cooker from the Dostaler family, which allows us to cook outside, as well as camping chairs and the all important stove-top coffee maker! With much warmer weather, we are able to cook and eat outside. 

The children are very comfortable at a table as we drive Bertha around, usually making “loom bracelets”, drawing, writing or playing on the iPads. One person can stretch out on the bed behind the front passenger, buckled in and sleep quite well. Tony is very comfortable driving Bertha and happily drives up and down roads with 18% gradients. On the other hand, I’m in the front requesting more use of the brakes. The children change sleeping locations each night but all are comfortable. 

We are making our own lunches each day, having coffee in the van at a local park somewhere each morning and most importantly, we can have ice-cream whenever we need a break! 

We have also lit a fire each evening, which does nothing more than provide something comforting to sit around! It is not cold, nor dark, so really… no need for a fire. But who doesn’t love a fire! Unfortunately our BBQ grill hasn’t fitted across the fire sites thus far; so last night instead we did the trick of bananas with chocolate, wrapped in foil and toasted. With a dollop of ice-cream, it is a whole lot of bad but a whole lot of yumminess!

Visit from Mum and Dad

Over the last three weeks, we've had Mum and Dad visit the eastern provinces of Canada. They came to us for 10 days prior to their conducted tour; then hung out with us on the days the tour was in Montreal; then returned for 4 days of relaxation (actually normal family life after living it up on a cruise ship) prior to returning to Australia.

We all loved having them with us. We've eaten lunch out many times; drunk lots of alcohol; toured the sites of Montreal, including the Old Port; Notre Dame Basilica; Mont-Royal; St Joseph's Oratory (another church, but we kept it at two); the shopping areas including the underground shopping centre of Montreal (Dad loved this .......) ; mastered the Metro system; celebrated my birthday; went to Ottawa to run; and visited the Botanical Gardens. Add that to normal family life of kids off to school, meals to cook and cleaning to do and its been a hectic, fun time. Really though, looking through the photos, all we did was eat and drink! Dad's goal was to have beer at lunch time every day ... I think he managed every day except one, when he was with us!

Lunch time drinks ...

As the Dostaler family have now returned to Montreal (and wanted their house back .... fancy that!), we needed to find alternative accommodation. We found a lovely self contained cottage with a studio room downstairs, then an internal connecting staircase to a two bedroom self contained unit upstairs. It is not far from where we've been living, as the children are still at school. We've all been very comfortable together and not too squeezy. The children have all had turns having sleep overs with Gran and Pa and will be very sorry to see them go.

Having spent so much time with us, Mum and Dad are now quite familiar with our neighbourhood and our daily routines. Its been great to share stories with them and for them to be able to visualize exactly what we are talking about. They have met school teachers, friends, the Dostaler family and seen where we walk, where we shop and where we live. They understand some of the things that have frustrated us; as well as the many things that make us laugh and make Montreal such an interesting city to explore. Its been such a thrill to share the small day to day details with them.

Afternoon drinks while waiting for
 the children to finish their french lesson

Hot chocolates this time!

Cuddles ....

Airport farewell .....