have you found the keys to my apartment yet?
It has been a long journey. We’ve been thinking and talking about moving somewhere for a very long time, and we finally did it. We moved to Edmonton in 1996 with the plan that we would move to “Mars or Montreal” by 2001. It’s a bit late, and it sounds like Mars is in need of a few renovations (such as water, oxygen, food, infrastructure etc.) before it’s ready for possession, so here we are in Montreal.
The moving company came to pack everything on January 6th. Well, actually, one person came (late by 3 hours, I might add) and barely managed to finish packing everything. On January 7th the actual movers came and loaded everything in a rather oversized truck. Given that our stuff took up so little space (everything fit quite comfortably in the passenger-side glove compartment, excluding Dan’s 88-key keyboard), they went to Grand Prarie after our place to load someone else’s stuff as well. This process was rather interesting, as the poor lady who packed us seemed woefully underprepared and the one of the movers seemed a little tipsy.
Dan left Edmonton on the 10th and was pampered by his family in Red Deer, Calgary, and Carstairs, receiving a very fond farewell. His flight was on the 13th at 6:45 AM. His mom and dad saw him off at the airport. Dan’s carry-on was just under the weight limit (due to the presence of an external hard drive and books) and almost wasn’t allowed due to size. The flight went well and Dan arrived to some rather chilly weather in Montreal about 6 hours later. Unfortunately for Dan, Montreal was going through its centennial “cold snap” which included temperatures around the -30 mark (day and night) and 60 km/h frostbite-inducing winds. Welcome to Montreal, Dan!
Dan camped out at Karen’s future employer’s house on the West Island for a couple of days.
The movers came January 17th. 24 hours later, Dan spent his first night in the new apartment armed with a roll of toilet paper and a can of comet.
Dan endured a rather lonely week waiting for Karen to arrive, which didn’t happen until the 24th. Karen had, in the meantime finished work on Jan 19th and spent the following days with her mom and dad. Karen was just as glad to see Dan and was very excited to see the new place. It was much nicer than the image that was in her head previously.
Sunday: culture shock hits Karen hard. Are we the only ones who need to buy a weekly metro pass? Store clerks frown in disbelief and insist that we are mistaken, there is no metro in Montreal.
Then there was the issue of keys. The number of keys didn’t add up with the number of people+the number of required locks to be opened. Karen was feeling a little snubbed by the fact that she only received one of three necessary keys.
… Level up 1: Karen receives all keys.
Karen can now open the door to the building and the apartment! Success!
For pictures of our apartment, see our apartment in Montreal album