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I frelling hate doing the laundry.

This is not an overstatement. I think it is the worst thing I have to do on a regular basis.

When we lived in Vanier House in Edmonton, we had a proper laundry room on the top floor of the building. There were 42 units in the building and 5 washing machines and 4 dryers. It got busy on saturdays, but you could get all your loads washed at once by using several washing machines. The dryers were large and could do 2 loads at once. We had a table where we could fold our clothing if we wanted. Best of all it cost 75 cents to wash and 50 cents to dry.

When we lived in our house in Edmonton, we had a washer and dryer in the basement which we could access any time we wanted and it was great.

Here in our Montreal apartment, thngs are a bit different. The price for 1 load of washing or drying is $1.25. There is one washer and 1 dryer for all 15 apartments and they are always busy. They are in a nastly little room in the basement with a dirty floor (it probably gets cleaned once a year) and very poor lighting. The dryer sucks and it takes 2 turns (1 hour each time) to dry one load of washing.

Every 2 weeks I force myself to go into this horrible little room and try to get stain remover on our clothes without letting them touch the ground but without the use of a table (or anything, for that matter) to put them on and very poor lighting too. It takes about 3 and a half hours to get all the laundry done and I have to go down every half an hour to take loads of washing out or put more money in the dryer.

As if all of this were not enough, the cost of a load of laundry is so high and the use of the machines so limited that I usually do two loads, one “darks” and one with light colours, cleaning cloths, whites and linty things. I do this because if I put anything linty (e.g. Dan’s socks) in with the darks then everything is covered with grey lint. Of course this is not good for the whites, but I don’t have much of a choice. Nvertheless, there are still white detergent stains and lint all over my darks which are very difficult to get out.

Next apartment, I am going to be a little more selective when it comes to the laundry facilities.

Can’t fit your work shoes and lunch in your $200 Luis Vuitton handbag? Don’t worry, complete your ensemble by grabbing the nearest celophane grocery store or shopping bag and stuff everything in it. Yes, now you’re in style here in Montreal.

When I take the bus and metro I find it quite amusing to see a large number of people (probably greater than 50%) carrying carefully preserved shopping, grocery store, or gift bags to carry their extra belongings that don’t quite fit in their backpacks or handbags. This is a new phenomenon for me, as I am used to the tattered cloth bag/backpack/suitcase look from Edmonton. While I admit that once in a while I have a bit of extra junk to carry with me, I certainly don’t use one every day. I’m not quite sure what everyone is carrying in those bags, but ether a lot of people are carrying a lot of unexpected stuff, or these bags are being used every day for lunches, scarves, books, etc. The irony is that everyone also has a stylish bag of some sort, so I am a a bit of a loss to see how the expensive handbag/IGA bag go together. It is quite funny to see a tought looking guy get on the bus with a “La Senza Girl” bag (from his daughter, I hope).

Hmm.

Today I went downtown to the underground city to go shopping for formal work clothes and the necessary shoes. We are on the orange line and have to switch to the green line at Lionel-Groulx station. While we were waiting for the train to come, I was struck by the oddness of the people around me, and yet how unsurprising and very Montreal it was. On our left was a guy who looked like a cross between Fidel Castro and Captain Highliner and on the other side a Hatian Muslim metrosexual. The busker of the day was a guy who put on a glittery jacket & fedora, and moonwalked to “Billy Jean”. I know other large cities have their quirks and unique people, but today it felt like any other day in this crazy place I live.

Today it has been a year since I started work at my current workplace. I am very happy with my job. It is challenging (but not impossibly so) and I am always doing something different. To celebrate I wanted to draw a picture of myself behind bars where the bars would be DNA strands, but alas, I do not have the time or skill to produce such a thing.

I am taking french lessons at McGill university and I am learning a lot. We started learning the subjunctive tense and although its a bit hard, I feel like I can say a lot more now. Il faut que je l’apprenne.

Someone was in a car accident on our street last night and died after hitting a light post. When I came home from french class the street was blocked by police cars and the bus took a detour. People speed down our street a lot, and I am not surprised but still sad to know it happened.

Dan has started school and is super busy. This kind of sucks, but the plus side is that I have plenty of time to work on my own french homework!

Loving the weather right now (-2C).