In about 10 minutes we will be off for our first holiday in a year. Tomorrow I will see the sea again for the first time since May last year and I can't wait. Then we will be off to see the desert and that will be my first time ever also. It will also be my first time in mainland USA!
So itinerary is a couple of days in Boston, then off to Phoenix for a night, then off to Flagstaff for about a week to do that whole area including the Grand Canyon! After that it's off to Page/Lake Powell for a couple of days for Antelope Canyone etc, then off to Bryce Canyon for a night and day, then off to Vegas for a night and day, then back to Phoenix to rest for 4 days. Phew!
Is that action packed or what! And we'll have lots of lovely photos to share with all of you.
When I come back it will be my last 5 days in Montreal and indeed Canada, and I will be scooting off to Paris. So that's the itinerary. Bon voyage!!

*31 today
I'm 31 today!
Hei-ho the dairy-o I'm 31 today!*

Wow, D-day is very fast approaching. Tonight I met up with my buddy Lorraine to have dinner and say our farewells. I met her at my first job in Montreal, the one that almost caused me a nervous breakdown. She's amazing. She remembers all sorts of crazy things like the exact date I started, the exact date I left, the exact date of my first week when they found me almost comatose in the ladies toilets and I had to be rushed to hospital with extremely severe food poisoning. It was August 16th and that was my first Friday there so I must have started on the Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. One thing is for sure I left the job on Friday, October 22nd. I rang the agency and yelled at them that I was never going back to that place, that they couldn't make me and that they were all crazy. AND I DO MEAN CRAZY!
Anyway, weirdly enough today Lorraine told me about all the re-shuffling that's been happening over there. How the president and two VPs left after the company was bought by a bunch of Californians, and it took till then for this piece of information to come to light... that they had very much valued me and were very sorry that I had left and they blamed it all on Gaby. Apparently they all liked me very much. You'd never bloody tell! Weird how this stuff can pop up out of the blue nine months after you left the place, and especially out the mouth of some guy who has never even met you. Oh well, good luck to them.
I'll tell you something, good help is VERY hard to find. I need to listen to Remi more when he reminds me of what I'm worth because it's true, diplomas or not I am worth much more than I give myself credit for and it's quite amusing right now being submerged in expressions of my true value in the workforce. I need to remember this in Toulouse. It's VERY important that I remember this. France might be tough, so I need to be also.
I'm 31 in 6 days! I'm off to Boston in 12 days!
The heatwave is persisting here. It's unrelenting. The last couple of days a 70% humidity factor have brought the temps up to 41 and our flat is like an oven.
I'm going to take a shower now and curl up in bed with Harry Potter. Remi has gone to the movies to see War of the Worlds since I deserted him for dinner with a girlfriend.
Tomorrow night it's the fireworks festival again and maybe the Cajun music fest first, but really not sure about that last bit.
Thursday is happy hour in town with a couple of the guys and gals from work. Friday Remi gets his last 2 wisdom teeth pulled so we'll have to wait and see how he's feeling before we really make any plans for the weekend!

Yesterday we had a work summer party at my boss' place (see house in the background of this picture). We ate quite a bit, talked quite a bit, swam in the pool, went out on the boat, some drank quite a bit and the more daring got dragged out on the Seadoo! For more photos, click here.
And I hope you do realise that since I am able to provide you with an actual link to a photo album today, it means I am quite a few steps closer to publishing the rest of my albums in the same way! so stay tuned...
After today I will have not quite two weekends left in Montreal and so it's a mad dash to do everything and see everyone. Today we're off to see our friend Lydia. It was supposed to be a picnic in the park, followed by "beach" volleyball for the boys and lots of chatting for the girls. Unfortunately it's raining so we're retreating indoors to their place for some food and frollicking in the pool once again. Yes, the Montreal heatwave persists and our best fan broke last night :(
In other news, Harry Potter 6 was out yesterday so I have snapped up a copy and will try to sneak some time here and there to submerge myself in it. I have also re-started my Spanish lessons and am really loving it.
Right! I best go and get dressed! :)

It's a rainy day here in Montreal and I've done not much of anything really. I was so exhausted last night that I woke up at 11.30 this morning. I managed to sleep 12 hours straight without waking up. Usually I guess that would be oversleeping and I would feel sluggish all day, but today I reckon I needed it and now I feel pretty good. I've done a bit of reading; an excellent writer from Toronto, Ann-Marie Macdonald. The book is called "Fall on your knees" and I am loving it. Quite bleak in parts, but the characters are rich and invite affection.
Just before that I read Marian Key's "The other side of the story". Her books are always enjoyable and perfect for a good summer light read.
On July 16th it will be Harry Potter 6 :)
And on July 25th it will be my 31st birthday. It's creeping me out. I'll be on the other side of the hill :/
And around the 30th we'll be heading to Boston, Massachussets for the first leg of our most exciting adventure to Arizona (including a very small part of Utah and Nevada). The one that has been somewhat shrouded in secrecy.
It had to be so while we figured out the next steps... how, where, when, etc.
I have a total of about 4 weeks left in Montreal: 3 in July and 1 at the end of August. Next week I should be announcing this officially to certain people here (sorry, another shroud of secrecy).
I finally got a letter from Quebec immigration stating that if I was unable to supply them with a copy of a valid worker's visa, they would not be able to continue with my file. Well, of course, they dragged their feet just enough for my worker's visa to expire and so now I don't have another one to supply them.
So life stumbles along its merry way in its usual fashion. Remi is wanted in Toulouse, France. He has been selected for a PhD thesis over there, so that's where we are going to go.
He will stay in Montreal till the end of September and the Center in Toulouse will pay his airfare and put us up temporarily in a studio apartment over there, while we find ourselves somewhere to live and set ourselves up. Because my Canadian visa expires on August 27th, I will be leaving Montreal for Paris on the 26th. I guess I will then get a train to Lyon and stay with Remi's mum while I take care of the administrative stuff and adjust to the new surroundings.
I'm a little nervous. Living in Montreal you don't hear such positive stuff about France. Understandable, the French here have emigrated because they weren't happy over there. Anyway, we'll see. I'm sure it will work out and as much as I'm nervous I'm also looking forward to it.
Last night we had a slapdash picnic in the park with a bunch of friends. It was very enjoyable if you edit out the mosquitoes from the experience. They were there in droves and we got eaten alive. In fact, I'm the only one who survived to tell the tale. Just kidding.
I am trying to motivate myself right now to get some albums together online. It's been a while since I put any pictures up.
I'll update on the Arizona itinerary another time.