Hot creamy deliciousness

Wednesdays are my favorite... it means my school week is almost over and there's a Bible study at church, which gives me an excuse to go to second cup for a couple of hours. I usually get a tea at most coffee shops (I have a strong dislike of coffee... I know, I'm a horrible person :P) but today, I decided for hot chocolate and let her know not to be shy with the syrup. And it was the BEST hot chocolate ever. Perfect for a rainy afternoon... Cheers!

Le Petit Maghreb

One thing I really enjoy about my classes is that I'm continually learning everyday. Which, I suppose, is a good thing since I'm going there to learn. But I learned last week that the mayor of Montreal named a "cultural sector" called "Le Petit Maghreb".
What is Maghreb and where is it? I'm so glad you asked! Maghreb is a name given to North African countries, specifically Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. In class, we were told that I lied right smack in the middle of what the teacher described to be this cultural hub, but after having my doubts (since most of my neighbours are Haitien) I researched it and found out that it's really a few streets north of me. But nevertheless, I've been watching. I've noticed more Maghrebian stores and restaurants - one in particular on the corner of my street always has a gathering of 6 or 7 men in front of it... I think it's funny because it's a tea house and these men look pretty macho. But the fact that they're sitting in front of a store/restaurant that sells dainty desserts and small cups of tea - it makes them significantly less intimidating, in my opinion.

Smoke alarms & edible cookies

Every time I bake the smoke detector goes off. Honestly. EVERY time... maybe I'm not used to it because in my old house we neither had a fan or a smoke detector, so the idea that the house may burn down because of my attempts to make gluten-free chocolate chip cookies didn't even cross my mind. Nevertheless, the trusty smoke alarm was there to remind me my cookies were burning - which they weren't by the way. They taste alright. Not spectacular.
I was lazy though, I only used ingredients I had because it's raining and cold and I'm in jogging pants and don't particularily want to go back outside. So I substituted baking soda for baking powder (mistake #1) and didn't put in any vanilla (mistake #2). So now I have puffy, tasteless cookies that cook faster on the bottom than anywhere else. BUT lets not forget the silver lining in all of this: I have cookies!!!

Not so candid camera...

The advantage to having a MacBook is that you get Photobooth... And then you get hilarious and embarassing pictures of people to put on your blog. Thank you Apple.

One life, one month, many changes.

I should be going to bed right now... I have a full day of classes and then a 3 hour shift at work tomorrow. My bed will never feel so loved at the end of the day. However, amidst going to church, going out for lunch, shopping, sitting in the metro, talking on Skype, doing two hours of homework, cooking two lunches, cleaning & organizing my room, getting my notes for school in order and playing around on Google Earth (for classes, of course!) I decided that I needed to take two minutes and breathe before I fell asleep...
There are a few words in there that have been fairly uncommon in my vocabulary over the past four years, at least... homework, notes, classes and cooking. Yes, these are now part of my everyday life and it's not the easiest of adjustments - especially the last one.
I moved from tranquil Chertsey to Montreal to go school and study tourism. So far, I love the classes! I also needed to eat and pay for my apartment, so I decided to find a job. So I'm going to school 32 hours per week and working another 16-20 and doing about two hours of homework per night... I don't like to call myself over-ambitious, but I think I might be.
So, I've put some pictures that represent some life changes over the past month and they're all pretty significant :)

Chertsey, Quebec... home for the past two years. Tranquil (sometimes a little too quiet...)

Montreal, Quebec... home for the next few months (at least). Not quiet at all.

My new room... nice and peaceful with huge windows over-looking a local park. This is in contrast to my room in Chertsey that I could see nothing but leaves, smell nothing but compost (especially on 30 degree summer days) and hear nothing but the McLean children at 7:00am.
My new nightly activity (so far) of coloring and labeling maps... I just finished this one. I just want to say I'm really thankful we only had to do the regions of the USA and not all 50 states... I might have gotten dizzy. Let's just say its good practise before I conquer the southeast Asia map.
After church with 400 people this morning (huge change from the small Mennonite church of 8 people in Rawdon where I attended last yer) we went for Mexican today and had really good virgin daquiris (come on, it was lunch... we at least included the Bible in the picture to show we remembered we attended church before consuimg the really good cocktails and
endulging in some tasty nachos.)
Meet Matthias... You've maybe seen the Facebook status change. He's an incredible person I met at Capernwray this summer. We're going for the non-easy route with long distance but since when do I do things the easy way? Why change now?! That, and he's back in Germany at school and there's not many other options at this point... lol.
But he's also part of these recent changes, so I figured I'd include him in the list as well. :)

There it is... the summary of my life this past month. After having sparatic classes and much appreciated visitors and friends staying over and visiting, I'm really looking forward to a routine. Ahh... routine.

Blog, sweet blog.

Looking at my last update, it seems that I've abandoned the world of blogging altogether. I did not bid it adieu, I've just found myself to be extremely busy and it didn't come to the forefront on my prioritization list. Okay, there is no list... but we just got the internet connected in my apartment on Tuesday. So, finally, I have internet and a lot of things to blog about.
However, tonight isn't the night. Oh no, no. Tonight, I'm going to sit in front of the tv with ice cream and a Smirnoff. Sugar overload indeed...