I SAW MY DOG BUT HE'D SEEN THE LIGHT
So, yes, I'm back in Pittsburgh again again. This time it's for real for real. I still haven't really hung out with any of my school friends because I was really only back from PGSA for a week before driving 700 miles north to Montreal, vacation city of chilly late-summer North America. Well, I didn't drive. My parents did all of it, with me controlling the CD player and trying not to chainsmoke.
It was actually not so bad, if only it hadn't been such a long way. The first night we stopped in Buffalo (we started off after Mom got off work) at a charming place called the Tally Ho-tel. (I wish I had grabbed a coaster or a matchbook or something.) We got to Montreal about 5:00 the next day in very heavy traffic. There is something very different about the city (more European, or so they say); lots of window boxes with red geraniums and big swan-like lamposts at the train stations. I don't think I was fully prepared for the culture shock of finding yourself rather suddenly in a place where you don't speak the language, but I think I adapted pretty well.
There's always a little tension involved when traveling with your parents-- you want to seem like an autonomous world citizen, but you have to remember that you're also somebody's daughter and it's really not very nice to walk twenty feet in front of them the whole time. At least that's the way it's been with us, although I suspect that the fact that I live in a city has made me a little bit more comfortable being myself in other cities, even when that somebody has some curmudgeonly 50-somethings in tow, looking at maps such. (I say these things with love.) Anyway, this was the first family vacation in the history of the Smith family that hasn't been punctuated by at least one major family meltdown. I might attribute this to the fact that I've grown up a lot in the last year, but it's much more likely a product of my parents' acceptance of my nasty smoking habit, as well as my liberty to light up at will in the hotel bathroom, on the street, in the restaurant, and, heavens, in the rental car!
The highlights of the trip were mainly small things about the city itself. I loved Montreal. I want to move there. It seemed so calm and well-reasoned and interesting. McGill looked like a wonderful place to study (perhaps to get one's degree in Library Science?), and, maybe best of all, there were photobooths in almost every metro station, in color and black and white. It's not so much the photobooths themselves that impressed me, but what they signify, perhaps an unfairly romantic Amelie-esque desire to, well, be Amelie. Whatever. It made me happy. There was also a wonderful Jean Cocteau exhibit at the museum, a nice surprise. Of course we ate very well the whole time-- going out to dinner every night is a luxury I can hardly make sense of, but I had some great fillet mignon, salmon, and quiche.
And now I'm in Pittsburgh. This time it's on. No fooling around, no leaving after a week. No. I'm here. See you around.
So, yes, I'm back in Pittsburgh again again. This time it's for real for real. I still haven't really hung out with any of my school friends because I was really only back from PGSA for a week before driving 700 miles north to Montreal, vacation city of chilly late-summer North America. Well, I didn't drive. My parents did all of it, with me controlling the CD player and trying not to chainsmoke.
It was actually not so bad, if only it hadn't been such a long way. The first night we stopped in Buffalo (we started off after Mom got off work) at a charming place called the Tally Ho-tel. (I wish I had grabbed a coaster or a matchbook or something.) We got to Montreal about 5:00 the next day in very heavy traffic. There is something very different about the city (more European, or so they say); lots of window boxes with red geraniums and big swan-like lamposts at the train stations. I don't think I was fully prepared for the culture shock of finding yourself rather suddenly in a place where you don't speak the language, but I think I adapted pretty well.
There's always a little tension involved when traveling with your parents-- you want to seem like an autonomous world citizen, but you have to remember that you're also somebody's daughter and it's really not very nice to walk twenty feet in front of them the whole time. At least that's the way it's been with us, although I suspect that the fact that I live in a city has made me a little bit more comfortable being myself in other cities, even when that somebody has some curmudgeonly 50-somethings in tow, looking at maps such. (I say these things with love.) Anyway, this was the first family vacation in the history of the Smith family that hasn't been punctuated by at least one major family meltdown. I might attribute this to the fact that I've grown up a lot in the last year, but it's much more likely a product of my parents' acceptance of my nasty smoking habit, as well as my liberty to light up at will in the hotel bathroom, on the street, in the restaurant, and, heavens, in the rental car!
The highlights of the trip were mainly small things about the city itself. I loved Montreal. I want to move there. It seemed so calm and well-reasoned and interesting. McGill looked like a wonderful place to study (perhaps to get one's degree in Library Science?), and, maybe best of all, there were photobooths in almost every metro station, in color and black and white. It's not so much the photobooths themselves that impressed me, but what they signify, perhaps an unfairly romantic Amelie-esque desire to, well, be Amelie. Whatever. It made me happy. There was also a wonderful Jean Cocteau exhibit at the museum, a nice surprise. Of course we ate very well the whole time-- going out to dinner every night is a luxury I can hardly make sense of, but I had some great fillet mignon, salmon, and quiche.
And now I'm in Pittsburgh. This time it's on. No fooling around, no leaving after a week. No. I'm here. See you around.
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