Just over a week has passed since we landed in the Montreal Pierre Trudeau Airport, red-eyed and highly anticipating a good night sleep. While we are still waiting for that good night sleep, the jet-lag-red eyes have almost entirely faded and it's been a good week.
Have we accepted a job offer? Nope. Though with 2 offers on the table that we need to make a decision on by the end of the week, that should hopefully be squared away soon. Our life is full of pro/con lists lately..
Have we found a place to live? Nope. That's pretty dependent on the job since the locations are quite different on each and will affect where we look to live. Again, our life is full of pro/con lists...
With out those 2 items in place there is still some pretty high stress since there is a lot that revolves around making those decisions. With that aside though, we have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Montreal just a little bit. It's a great city.
I feel like we had a pretty awesome advantage in moving here in that we already knew quite a few people living here. As such, the kids already had some friends in place to look forward to play dates and birthday parties with. Not to mention, we had a great source of tips and ideas on places to live, resources for families and the best ways to get around. It's been so incredible! And we have met a ton of new people as well. Just lots of wonderful people around here!
And, as always, we have a great church community. Our first Sunday went really well, both kids warmed up better than I expected each of them to. After only a few minutes in nursery, Milayla was ready to stay on her own with her new friends (though I don't think that she left her seat on this little rocking horse for the entire time that she was there!). And Atticus reported that he liked Primary very much! It's a great ward, one that certainly doesn't lack diversity, which is something we like. That said, depending on where we end up living, this may not end up being our congregation. It would be great if it was, and if it isn't, I'm sure whatever congregation we do end up will be great as well. I must admit though, it was really strange to be at church and not have a calling. It was even stranger to attend Relief Society and Sunday school (my callings have kept me in other places for nearly the last 4 years). And it got even stranger that it was all in english! The bishop visited us this week; I guess we'll see how long we remain without callings. As for the english; I don't even know where to begin on that one.
Aside from church, it's been fun to see what kind of things the kids are noticing. I posted some of my thoughts on facebook about things like the size of the roads (their HUGE) or the large size of our vehicle and how I am quite enjoying the vibrancy, diversity, randomness and energy of the city. Well, some of the things that are catching the childrens' attention (and some of Jason's) are:
- That they can both sit in the same cart at the grocery store - and they have to wear seat belts in them.
- how many playgrounds there are. And that they are so clean. Atticus exclaimed during our first trip to the play ground, "Mommy, I don't see ANY broken bottles!" (
I know this make it sound like we lived in the ghetto in Germany. We didn't, we just had some very poorly cared for parks in our vicinity with cigarette butts, bottles and graffiti a plenty. Needless to say - we did not go to those parks and we thankfully had some very beautiful parks in our area as well that we went to often.)
- both kids get pretty excited that we get to travel up and down so much here. In other words, their are hills, they aren't particularly big hills but they do go up and down :). That says a lot about the flat cities that we have lived in!
- Milayla is over the moon about the little fact that the door handles are lower here so her ability to open and close doors has been sped up significantly. It was all pretty fun and cute until the kids locked the bathroom door and closed it this morning with us all on the outside (which meant there was no one on the inside to open it). Thankfully we had a screwdriver because it was not a lock that could be picked.
- since our family is a little cheese-loving family, the cheese shops are a BIG hit. Not to mention the wide availability of cheese curds (that little fact makes Jason smile - definitely a canadian thing)
- the wide range of languages has really stood out to all of us. Atticus is always asking us what language someone at the playground is speaking. On any given trip to the playground there have been around 3 or 4 different languages being spoken in ADDITION to french and english. It's pretty awesome. The diversity here is incredible.
- we are all a little shell-shocked by the enormity of the stores here. Our first trip into a store here had both kids remarking on how big it was. Atticus even asked why it was so big and if we could find a smaller store!
- After seeing their FIRST american football players (in a school yard that we walked passed) the kids had plenty of questions about why people were wearing such big clothes and running into each other. We don't watch a lot of sports around here, so after living in the land of (european) football, the massive padding was quite the surprise.
- the veggie selection. Tomatoes can be other colors than red!?
- some of the unique garden decorating choices around here. No garden gnomes. Just giant megablock ducks.
- the colorful markets have won us all over. So much selection. So much goodness. The fruit here is to DIE for. The last time I had melon this good was the last time I was out at my grandparents orchard (which was TOO long ago!). We were pretty lucky to have Axel and Rani show us around market; the great stalls, the cheese stores, fresh crepes and a lovely gf bakery.
There is so much more, but I am out of time. Honestly, this last week has felt like sensory overload. Montreal is a massive city, I don't even know where to begin. It's easy to feel overwhelmed and impossible to be bored. There is an energy here that is so difficult to describe or quantify. I love it. I love stepping out our front door and feeling that there is so much to explore and discover. We haven't been able to do much exploring yet as we try to make sure some other important details are worked out first, but hopefully that will all be worked out soon. I have plenty of things on my list of field trips to take the kids on.
For those who are wanting our current contact information, please send me an email or facebook message. We have a landline (but aren't here very often). No cell phones yet. When we are home, facetime and skype are always options as well. Looking forward to visitors!
