Weekend's Highlights!

I had quite the weekend! Which means another link-heavy post (It doesn't mean it was expensive and that I had to buy a shitload, just that I did a lot. More on the price later)

Went to the Festival Montréal en Lumières / Montreal Highlights Festival main and closing event this Saturday; La Nuit Blanche (The All-Nighter in English). Here's a brief story of my night:

-7PM: Dinner at a Veggie Thai restaurant, the Chu Chai.

-10PM: Visit at the Planetarium, where we could see the Southern Hemisphere skies.

-11:30PM: We went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts for the The Luxury and Enlightenment of Catherine The Great exposition. It was stunning! The accumulation of wealth, palaces, art and litterature Catherine accumulated was amazing, despite being vulgar: Her people was suffering and still one foot, if not both in the middle-ages. It has been more than a year since my last visit to the museum. I used to live a block away when I was with Amy. I missed the Vodka shooters though!

-2AM: Comedy time at the Club Soda cabaret for a show with students and recent alumnis of Québec's National School of Humour (Yes, we have a comedy school in Montréal, showing the place humour have in Québec's showbusiness!). We were there for the last show, a "speed-dating" style stand-up where the comedians had 3 minutes to "seduce" the ladies in the crowd...Hilarious! I guess the late hour helped! The host, Stéphane Fallu was really good, as usual.

-3:30AM: Tea tasting at the Camellia Sinensis tea house. We had an incredible Chai up there! Too bad it was crowded, but I promised myself to go back there!

-4:30AM: Still awake? Why not a little Salsa lesson at the San Tropez dance school? We had a great time there, and I learned a few dance moves too!

-6AM: Nothing better than a Convivial Breakfast at the Complexe Desjardins to finish the exhausting night with a full stomach!

As you can see in the All-Nighter program, there is a lot of stuff we missed, we had planned to do more but it was simply impossible if we wanted to truly enjoy the activities. There was nothing in that night I didn't enjoy and I have to say the free shuttle service between the various activities spread over Montréal's downtown was efficient, a good thing since it was quite a cold night (About -30 celsius with windchill)!

Cost of the night: $35 for two meals at the restaurant, $7.50 for the museum, $10 for two beers. Everything else was free. Total for 12 hours of great times: $52.50!!!
It's cheaper than a dinner for two and a night at the movies, which usually last 4 hours at most!

Of course, I was not alone, I went there with a date, Jessica, introduced to me by Jee and his girlfriend Cynthia. We had lots of fun, laughs and great discussions. The girl is great, but I have a lingering feeling that I shouldn't get into a relationship. When she was about to kiss me, after I drove her home, I was able to kiss her subtly (I say that, maybe it wasn't at all!) on both cheeks instead. I feel shitty about it, but it might be a blend of the fact that I don't want a relationship, I'm not ready for one and that I'm happy as a single. As Jee said though, you don't meet a girl fitting so much with you every day! True, but I can't force it upon myself if I don't feel it! I guess if a girl would really be THE one, I wouldn't hesitate, right? I'm a little fucked up...

And I learned and promised myself not to hurt a girl anymore, so instead of doing things I don't want to do or would regret, and later hurt the girl, I prefer taking my time and not lead the girl on false pretenses and/or hopes. I did nothing bad, I didn't go too far. Let's see where it'll lead!

As for my Sunday, didn't sleep too much (finally went to bed at 10AM, woke up at 2PM) and went to play Hockey Cosom (Hockey in a Gymnasium) with friends that needed replacement in their league. We were only six in our team, the "Bruns Poudres" (the Powder Browns) and had to play four against four (plus the goalie), so we didn't have a lot of guys taking a break on the bench (One, actually)! The other team was the other extreme. They had more than two lines, meaning about 6 guys on the bench...Guess it kept them cold because we won the game 5-3! Vive les Bruns Poudres!

after the game, I stopped in a pub to see a few friends I met in Banff and didn't see in months. First time I went to the St-Ciboire (The name is playing with the fact that a lot of pubs in that area have Saints names, as per old french-canadian customs, but it's actually a swear word) and I have to say it looks like a place to look out for, great atmosphere!

Had more stuff to talk about, but it's been a long enough post and the other stuff can wait 'til tomorrow.

Time to go wait 'til tomorrow...