The Path of Shalom
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Jul. 28, 2006
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First Day in Canada
 Welcome to Canada
We entered Canada the evening of June 6. We then started looking for a motel to stay in. We checked on a couple in Magog at the top of Lac Memphremagog. They were more expensive than we wanted to pay. Actually, who wants to stay in Magog anyway? The roads were more difficult to figure out than ours since they were in French and they don't have all the billboards that we have. We finally went to Granby because we were getting closer to Montreal and it was getting late. We stayed in Motel Granby. We found out later that Granby's claim to fame is its casinos. We still paid more than we wanted to stay but we were getting our introduction to how expensive it is to live in Canada.
We went onto Montreal in the morning. We arrived almost 2 hours before our appointment to meet the manager of the apartment complex so we could get in (they aren't open on weekends). I had to go to the bathroom so bad and we didn't know where anything was and everything was in French. We decided to start walking around the block and see if we could find a restroom. The first building we came to looked like a public building. It was actually a school of fine arts we were to find out. As we were going in the door a woman came in with us. It turned out she is the weekend receptionist/security and she directed us to the public restroom. She was very friendly and helpful, even allowing me to try and phone the apartment manager, Wendy, from the phone there. I was only able to leave a message and tell Wendy that I'd try to phone again later. Nataly told us how to get a map of the city by going to the Metro (the subway) and getting a map from them. We took off on a walk to explore our new surroundings since we had quite a bit of time to kill. We did find an entry to the Metro even though it wasn't the one Nataly had directed us to and got a map. That was very helpful and we about wore it out by the time we left Montreal. When we got back to the school of fine arts, Nataly said she had received a call for us. I phoned Wendy and she said as soon as she was done with her dinner, she would meet us.
We waited outside the apartment for what seemed forever. Rick checked the door and saw that Wendy had already arrived. She showed us our apartment that we had reserved. She seemed like she was hoping we wouldn't like it. It was really small. It had a room that was the livingroom/kitchen, a small bedroom with no door and a small bathroom. There was a loveseat and they had set up a rollaway twin sized bed in the livingroom in between the desk with the TV on it and the loveseat. The table was probably 2 foot by 3 foot, if that and there was one chair to it. There was another desk with 3 big drawers in it in the bedroom just like the one in the livingroom. It was really small, but we did not want to go looking for anything else and knew we could survive it, so we went ahead and rented it for the $850 Canadian that they were asking. Then we unloaded our stuff and worked on packing it away. We put the basket carrier out on the small balcony and the canvas bag with our camping stuff in it. The street light in the picture is right outside our bedroom window at the bottom of the window. We were on the second floor and on the corner of busy Rue Ste. Urbain and Rue Milton. We were on the edge of the downtown district. Our building was only 11 floors high and shorter than others in the area. Tha apartment goes from where the children are on the balcony over to the street light. You can see that it was very small.
Our Little Apartment
Rick had talked to someone about how to get to Walmart since we needed to get some food and things to eat it with. We were hoping to use our gift card that we had been using along the way on the trip. We still had some money on it. We found our way to Walmart, though it was a stressful experience driving in a city we did not know where everything is in a different language. The directions weren't the best, but we did make it there. It was as busy as any Walmart in the states on a Sunday afternoon. There was a Wendy's nearby, so we opted out to eat first since we were all starving by then. The Walmart was not a SuperWalmart (they don't have any there) but we were able to get some basic food stuffs and some plates and bowls to eat on. Since there were not enough dishes in the apartment and I didn't know if I could get any more, even though Wendy said give her a list of what we needed, I got some of those heavier plastic disposable plates and bowls. I could reuse them and throw them away when they got in bad shape. (One package of each lasted for our whole time in Montreal.) We saw Arabs, Hasidic Jews and other nationalities while in Walmart. We also got introduced to the high prices we would be paying for food. We weren't able to use our US Walmart gift card because of the exchange rate.
When we got back to the apartment, we worked on finishing settling and figuring out how to arrange it better so we could get all 3 children in the livingroom. It was supposed to have a hide-a-bed, but only had the loveseat. That became Izak's bed. Gaelyn got the rollaway and Jared got the twin-sized airmattress on the floor in between the loveseat and desk. (We moved the desk/chest of drawer thing down so we had room for the rollaway against the wall the next day. Then it was wall-to-wall bed when we had it all set up at night.) Our first day in Montreal was ended and we were done in and all "hit the hay."
Love and shalom,
Serena
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• Jul. 31, 2006 - *waves*
Love, Natasha