Cheering up! - March 2, 05

1442 days ago

Even if they stress me out at the job and I fell on the ice on one of the Montreal side walks! And that's because some of my dear friends put comments under my pictures and notes! Thank you, Ioana, Carla and Max, I know you're right, life has been good to me so far.

What's new? Well, after falling on Friday evening, and getting a nice lump on my elbow (that became a blue fore-arm after two days, down to the wrist), I went to a cinematography student party. Four people celebrating their new house: Faisal, who has some Bangladesh roots (that country in Asia, close to India and Pakistan, mostly Muslim), Tara, his Canadian girlfriend, Gabi from Germany and Emery, half Canadian, half Mexican. Most of the guest were their colleagues, so it was a very artistic gathering. I got to talk to a couple that were product designers, she designs funerary urns for instance. There was another long haired bearded guy who's brother is a musician and we spent time talking about Beatles, Jim Morrison, Pink Floyd.

Getting in the music mood, I continued in a jazz bar, with a couple of Romanian girls, one studied at the same faculty as me and is doing a PhD in Communication here. The music was very classic, main stream jazz, soft and cool, I was watching the fish in the aquarium, dreaming about the times I used to swim with them in the sea. The pianist is a friend of a friend of mine, Michael Bates, a jazz musician from the ships, so I talked to him at the end of the concert. Pretty cool guy, too bad jazz is not a big thing in Montreal, I miss my jazzy nights at sea.

Saturday there was the Montreal all-nighter - a lot of events, most of them free, all over the city. I first had coffee with a Romanian friend, then dinner with a Swedish one. Together with my Internet group of friends, like 25, we went to the Brasilian music show, about 9pm (at the plaza of a big mall) and to the City Hall Ball - where about a 100 people were taught some simple steps and then would try them on music, the Mayor of Montreal swinging with us at some point. From there, to a museum of the Quebec glorious past, in a historical building and to a lake were people were skating. Next to it we admired some igloos, the innuit (eskimo) winter shelters, cause you can't call them houses. Some people were tucked inside and it was warmer than I expected. The small entrance gave me an uncomfortable feeling though.

From there, back to the Brasilian party, around 1AM, where I watched a capoeira show (a very gracious martial art, that we owe to the former African slaves brought to Brasil, I saw on Internet that now there are Capoeira clubs even in Poland and Czech Republic). I was "sambing" disregarding my aching arm until Miguel, who has Spanish background and Wendy, his better Canadian half, decided to go to the Spanish Social Club. There was not much going on there, except people dancing salsa in a small space and eating free garlic soup - sopa de ajo. I shaked a bit more and got home about 3.30.