Seems like everybody is going to San Francisco these days. When people ask me what they should see when they travel in the Bay Area (around San Francisco), I can’t seem to shut up. Ideas of things to see and do just flow out of my mind. But if anybody asks me the same about Montreal and its surroundings, I go blank. Get to the top of Mont-Royal? Hang out on St-Denis? Walk around the Mile-End and buy a bagel? I’m so out of ideas that it’s sad and a little pathetic.
When I lived in California, I spent my weekends exploring. I was hanging out with a bunch of expats. No one knew how long we would stay in the U.S. so there was a sense of urgency (un sentiment d’urgence – I’m not sure how to translate that), a desire to get to know California well before we moved back home. We would travel around, try out a new hiking spot, rent a chalet, take day trips. Even hanging out in a little-known neighborhood of the city was fun. ( I do have to admit that I explored less and less as the years passed.)
Now that I am back in my home province, I can’t seem to stimulate that desire for discovery. I get lazy about planning weekends away, about driving for 3 hours just to discover a new town. There’s always reading to do, movies to see, family to hang out with, projects around the house.
Yes, the highways are more boring here. Yes, hiking in bug free California is much more fun than in our mosquito infested woods. Yes, after the spectacular landscapes of the West Coast, a trip to Trois-Rivi�res can seem pretty dull. But after reading a blog like Cassandra Pages, I wish I could discover Montreal all over again and learn to love its surroundings more. After all, I’ve lived here for a shorter time than I lived in San Francisco. There is still a lot to see and do.
Then again, if I could move my family, my friends, my not-too-expensive house and my job to the Bay Area, maybe I’d be ready to leave again tomorrow morning. But only if they didn’t re-elect that crazy monkey-looking president. Rien n’est jamais parfait.
