Day 1: London; Montréal – “When are you getting married?”By Lee

The second half of this trip takes ten minutes and I’m soon storing my PS3 and second guitar (my semi-acoustic Tanglewood) in my old bedroom. I’ve already archived away my Fender Strat over the weekend all because of my intangible and persistent fear being burglarised while I am away for three months. The fact that my folks could be just as likely broken into is irrelevant but the thought of their house going on fire does briefly flash across my irrational synapses.
My mother drops me back to the airport and the traffic preceivably lighter. I try to formulate some opaque metaphor of how the free moving streets away from the capital represents the antithesis of corporate Ireland. I quickly dispel the half-baked notion and focus on trying to remember all the things I’ve surely forgotten.
We park and I find Sheila along with her mother within seconds without cellular assistance, thanks to either Dublin Airport’s ergonomic design or sheer blind luck. After a short dalliance with the pleasant BMI employee, we electronically check in and part ways with 28kg of luggage we won’t see again until Montréal – if we see it ever again that is.
My caffeine alert system kicks in and reminds me that, just because I’m frayed at both ends and about to travel around the world, this is no time to neglect the essentials. Starbucks congenially serves up two coffees and two hot chocolates and myself and Sheila and our mothers talk about the trip. We also manage to cover such diverse topics as how O2 are a Machivellian bastard of a company and Beth – Sheila’s family dog who, after fifteen glorious years of digging when asked and dutiful stick retrieval, decided there were bigger holes to dig and more exciting sticks to chase on the other side. She’ll be missed and my thoughts can’t help turning to my own dog, Keena, the lovable (and demanding) scamp we’ve left with Sheila’s mom while we are away. Thankfully the coffee shocks me back to reality and staunches the tears, so I’m all good.
We part at the gate in that quaint and comical wave, walk three steps forward, turn, wave routine and I’m impressed how my mother holds herself together. Truth be told, I expected tears, but she’s pragmatic and genuinely pleased and what all great mothers are: supportive. Sheila’s mother asks me to take care of her eldest daughter and I ensure her I will only throw her out of airplanes and down assorted New Zealand hills in a giant zorbing ball upon her direct request.
We make our way through customs without serious incident though I admit to spending most of the time trying to keep an “I am not a cyber-terrorist” stoical expression on my face. The fear of a wily official wishing to investigate further into my carry-on bag wishing to know why I have enough electronics on my person to overpower the plane is
Sheila plays text ping-pong with her mother as John, the youngest of her siblings, in a somewhat ironic passing-ships-in-the-night kind of way, is flying in from Toronto after recording an album with The Halves. Sheila’s mother informs that he is, in fact, flying in to a gate right beside us. It’s impossible for us to get to him though as, in typical crowd control fashion, the airport wisely separates those of us ecstatic and almost beside ourselves with hope about to depart the festering mess that is Ireland with the condemned who have just returned to its NAMA ensnared shores.
We wait and eventually board to Heathrow.
The fifty minute flight to London is nondescript, if not for the gaggle of cackling girls in front of us who think everything is funny and need to repeat their pall observations across the cabin. I’m not even out of Irish air-space and I’m surpressing the urge to throttle someone.
Heathrow envelops us as it does each of its visitors, a sprawling impersonal beast hellbent on making what is never a pleasant experience as unpleasant as possible. We get our first look at the infamous Terminal 5. It’s apparent Heathrow is now a beast with a new shiny stomach, all the better to consume wayward travellers. Its design is minimalist with exposed elevators that move silently as they ascend into unseen catacombs like arterties while giant white skeletal girders arc skyward in patterns too eratic to be functional. And I feel like we are the beast’s circulation, forever scurrying around its labyrinthe corridors keeping the beast alive, destined to drop a boarding pass or get felt up by an over-zealous security worker. Airports are where lost souls go to dwell.
Time doesn’t necessarily slow in Heathrow but it does become a abundandtly evident; almost palatable. We wait and read and I doze in one of the chairs specifically designed to prevent people from sprawling out and getting some real sleep. When it’s time we make our way to a sterile and unremarkable gate and board for Montréal.
Due to some cataclysmic cock-up (probably of our own design) myself and Sheila are not sitting together on the plane. I spy the mostcordial looking air hostess/sky steward/cabin angel — whatever they’re calling themselves these days — inquiring if the plane is full and if reuniting with my partner would be at all possible. To sweeten my request, I help an innumerable amount of people with their baggage as a sign of goodwill. Serendipitously I have also managed to locate the one Irish cabin crew member and she gives me that knowing glance Irish people share with one another when one can (usually illegally) help the other. “I’ll see what I can do.” Ten minutes later and myself and Sheila are sitting at the very back of the plane in our own section with extra space and relative comfort. I almost feel like free champagne will appear but we settle for the choice of chicken or beef.
We settle in for our six and a half hour flight across the Atlantic and I drearily pass a third of this time with a chubby and hirsuit Russell Crowe who insists in assaulting me with one of the most boring tales I can remember. State of Play is actually about journalism. You’d think I would have lapped it up. I also finish Dexter in the Dark, Jeff Lindsey’s third outing in the popular Now-a-hit-show-on-Showtime series. If you thought the third season of the TV version was weak, stay away from the novels. The first was quaint as you keep tabs on what’s different to the TV show, the second a little disconcerting with where things were headed while the latest is downright silly. I read a hundred pages of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods afterwards in what could be described as the equivalent to literary palate cleansing. Then I sleep and wake up in Canada.
The immirgration official asks what I do for a living and I instinctually blurt out I work in IT. Obviously declaring oneself as a freelance journalist to anybody in uniform is not something I have subconciously become comfortable with yet. Sheila works in IT, too so he won’t ask where we met. I restrain myself from telling him “The circus” or “In jail”. He asks us when we’re getting married and it’s only later I realise that there is nothing on the form that states we’re not already legally bethroved. And it’s not like I’m not wearing a wearing ring; or at least what accounts for a wedding ring in some cultures. He’s obviously picked up on the fact that we have different surnames and put deux et deux together. Considering Sheila has already made it categorically clear that she has no intention of relinqiushing her birthname for my noteworthy and conversation-starting last name, I wonder if married people who keep their respective names are greeted with such similar assumptions in their daily lives. I tell him next year, in a castle, lots of people, €500 a plate, he’s even invited. He finishes with the obligatory quip about my last name, the very name Sheila won’t be taking, and bienvenues us to Canada.
After unsuccessfully trying to bribe a bus driver to take us to our destination with a $20CAD note, we opt for the express (and more expensive) shuttle into the city. It’s here we get our first taste of the dichotomy of Montréal. It looks like the US, with its green highway signs and garrish advertising hugging the main roads, but there’s something decidingly different. Something a little askew. And of course it’s the fact that everything is in French. And kilometers. And the dollar sign is placed at the end of the amount like they do in some European countries. I’ll discuss this linguistic and cultural yin-yang again but it’s a particular trait of Montréal that is both alluring and bewildering. I will say this now, however: Montréal prides itself on being one of the only true bilingual cities in the world. This is not true. Montréal is a French city and is unashamedly so. And thank God for that.
On the bus a friendly local spots us doing that telltale tourist trick of rotating an alien map until is magically starts to make sense and pretty much directs us to our hotel win pin-point accuracy.
We disembark and get the first taste of what it’s like to cart three month’s worth of supplies on our backs. Thankfully the hotel is only fifteen minutes away. Or twenty, when you take into account walking in the wrong direction at first. We find the hotel smack bang in the middle of the red light district, continuing our grand tradition of congregating with the seedier inhabitants of any city we stay in. It’s not quite like staying behind Hooters in Vegas but I’m pretty sure the woman and two gentlemen in front of us wishing to avail of a room are only interested in living there for a number of hours and not days.
Our room is functional insomuch that it has a bed and a fan. Sleep takes me under fast. We’ve reached destination one of dozens alive and as well as can be expected.

After an uneasy night’s sleep – partially thanks to the stress of the big trip literally only hours away but also due to a neighbour’s house alarm wailing through-out the night – we get up early and finish off the remainder of the frantic last-minute tasks. Breakfast being first on the agenda.

With that persistent and niggling feeling of “I know I’m forgetting something”, the house is locked down, the car is loaded and I drive to the airport which, luckily, is pretty much right on my doorstep. So why is it taking forever to get there? The radio news bulletin informs us that the crash on the airport roundabout has now been cleared but to “expect delays”.

I manoeuvre around rubber-neckers and distressed commuters and make it to the set-down area unscathed and only slightly behind schedule. I leave Sheila and our rucksacks stranded by the side of the road and race back out of the airport toward my parent’s house to drop off my car and some other precious cargo.

The second half of this trip takes ten minutes and I’m soon storing my PS3 and second guitar (my semi-acoustic Tanglewood) in my old bedroom. I’ve already archived away my Fender Strat over the weekend all because of an intangible and persistent fear I have of being burglarised while I am away for three months. The fact that my folks could be just as likely broken into is irrelevant but the thought of their house going on fire does briefly flash across my irrational synapses.

My mother drops me back to the airport and the traffic is notably lighter. I try to formulate some opaque metaphor of how the free moving streets away from the capital represents the antithesis of corporate Ireland. I quickly dispel this half-baked notion and focus on trying to remember all the things I’ve surely forgotten.

We park and I find Sheila along with her mother within seconds without cellular assistance thanks to either Dublin Airport’s ergonomic design or sheer blind luck. After a short dalliance with the pleasant BMI employee, we electronically check in and part ways with 28kg of luggage we won’t see again until Montréal – if we see it at all.

My caffeine alert system kicks in and reminds me that, just because I’m frayed at both ends and about to travel around the world, this is no time to neglect the essentials. Starbucks congenially serves up two coffees and two hot chocolates and myself and Sheila and our mothers talk about the trip. We also manage to cover such diverse topics as how O2 are a Machiavellian bastard of a company and Beth – Sheila’s family dog who, after fifteen glorious years of digging when asked and dutiful stick retrieval, decided there were bigger holes to dig and more exciting sticks to chase on the other side. She’ll be missed, and my thoughts can’t help turning to my own dog, Keena, the lovable (and demanding) scamp we’ve left with Sheila’s Mom while we are away. Thankfully the coffee shocks me back to reality and staunches the tears, so I’m all good.

Sheila’s mother asks me to take care of her eldest daughter and I ensure her that I will only throw Sheila out of airplanes and down assorted New Zealand hills in a giant zorbing ball upon her direct request.We part at the gate and go through the quaint and comical wave, walk three steps forward, turn, wave routine and I’m impressed how well my mother is. Truth be told, I expected tears, but she’s pragmatic and genuinely pleased and what all great mothers are: supportive.

We make our way through customs without serious incident though I admit to spending most of the time trying to keep an “I am not a cyber-terrorist” stoical expression on my face. The fear of a wily official wishing to delve into my carry-on bag and wanting to know why I have enough electronics on my person to overpower the plane is something I try hard to keep in check.

Sheila plays text ping-pong with her mother as John, the youngest of her siblings, in a somewhat ironic passing-ships-in-the-night kind of way, is flying in from Toronto after recording an album with The Halves. Sheila’s mother informs that he is, in fact, flying in to a gate right beside us. It’s impossible for us to get to him though as, in typical crowd control fashion, the airport have wisely separated those of us ecstatic and almost beside ourselves with hope about to depart the festering mess that is Ireland from  the returning condemned who now must live on its NAMA ensnared shores.

We wait and eventually board for Heathrow.

The fifty minute flight to London is nondescript, if not for the gaggle of cackling girls in front of us who think everything is funny and need to repeat their pall observations across the cabin. I’m not even out of Irish air-space and I’m suppressing the urge to throttle someone.

Heathrow envelops us as it does each of its visitors, a sprawling impersonal beast hellbent on making what is never a pleasant experience as unpleasant as possible. We get our first look at the infamous Terminal 5 and it’s apparent Heathrow is now a burgeoning creature with a new shiny stomach, all the better to consume a larger number of wayward travellers. Its design is minimalist with exposed elevators moving silently into unseen catacombs above like metallic arterties ferrying blood to some unseen brain while giant skeletal girders arc skyward in patterns too eratic to be functional. And I feel like we are the beast’s circulation, forever scurrying around its labyrinthine corridors keeping the beast alive, destined to drop a boarding pass or get felt up by an over-zealous security worker. Airports are where lost souls go to dwell and haunt the rest of us who must unwillingly gather there from time to time.

Time doesn’t necessarily slow in Heathrow but it does become abundantly evident; almost palatable. We wait and read and I doze in one of the chairs specifically designed to prevent people from sprawling out and getting some real sleep. When it’s our time to leave the beast, we make our way to a sterile and unremarkable gate and board for Montréal.

Due to some cataclysmic cock-up (probably of our own design) myself and Sheila are not sitting together on the plane. I spy the most cordial looking air hostess/sky steward/cabin angel — whatever they’re calling themselves these days — inquiring if the plane is full and if reuniting with my partner would be at all possible. To sweeten my request, I help an innumerable amount of people with their baggage as a sign of goodwill. Serendipitously I have managed to locate the one Irish cabin crew member and she gives me that knowing glance all Irish people share with one another when one can (usually illegally) help the other. “I’ll see what I can do.” Ten minutes later and myself and Sheila are sitting at the very back of the plane in our own section with ample space and in relative comfort. I almost feel like free champagne will appear or perhaps a cock-pit visit is on the cards but we settle for the choice of chicken or beef.

We entrench ourselves in for the six and a half hour flight across the Atlantic and I drearily pass a third of this time with a chubby and hirsute Russell Crowe who insists in assaulting me with one of the most boring tales I can remember. State of Play is actually about journalism. You’d think I would have lapped it up. Not so. I also finish Dexter in the Dark, Jeff Lindsey’s third outing in the popular Now-a-hit-show-on-Showtime series. If you thought the third season of the TV version was weak, stay away from the novels. The first was quaint as keeping tabs on what’s different to the TV show is almost like a game, the second a little disconcerting with where things are headed while the latest is downright silly and ill-conceived. I read a hundred pages of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods afterwards in what could be described as the equivalent to literary palate cleansing. Then I sleep and wake up in Canada.

The immigration official asks what I do for a living and I instinctively blurt out I work in IT. Obviously declaring oneself as a freelance journalist to anybody in uniform is not something I have subconsciously become comfortable with yet. Sheila works in IT too so he won’t ask where we met. I restrain myself from telling him “The circus” or “In jail” considering this person does in fact have the power to eject me from his country.

He asks me flat-out when we’re getting married and it’s only later I realise that there is nothing on the form that states we’re not already legally conjoined. And it’s not like I’m not wearing a wearing ring; or at least what accounts for a wedding ring in some cultures. He’s obviously picked up on the fact that we have different surnames and put deux et deux together. Considering Sheila has already made it categorically clear that she has no intention of relinquishing her birth-name for my noteworthy and conversation-starting last name, I wonder if married people who keep their respective names are greeted with such similar assumptions in their daily lives.

It looks like Officer Cúpid needs an answer so I tell him next year, in a castle, lots of people, €500 a plate, he’s even invited. He finishes with the obligatory quip about my last name, the very name Sheila won’t be taking, and bienvenues us to Canada.

After unsuccessfully trying to bribe a bus driver to take us to our destination with a $20 note, we opt for the express (and more expensive) shuttle into the city. It’s here we get our first taste of the dichotomy of Montréal. It looks like the US, with its green highway signs and garish advertising placards that hug the main roads, but there’s something decidedly different. Something a little askew. And of course it’s the fact that everything is in French. And in kilometers. And the dollar sign is placed at the end of the amount like they do in some European countries.

I’ll discuss this linguistic and cultural yin-yang again but it’s a particular trait of Montréal that is both alluring and bewildering. I will say this now, however: Montréal prides itself on being one of the only true bilingual cities in the world. This is not true. Sure, it’s hard enough to find someone who can’t managed to converse somewhat in English (though Sheila did manage to find such an oddball on the plane) but Montréal is a French city and is unashamedly so. And thank God for that.

On the bus a friendly local spots us doing that telltale tourist trick of rotating an alien map until it magically starts to make sense and pretty much directs us to our hotel with pin-point accuracy.

We disembark and get the first taste of what it’s like to cart three month’s worth of supplies on our backs. Thankfully the hotel is only fifteen minutes away. Or twenty, when you take into account walking in the wrong direction at first. We find the hotel smack bang in the middle of the red light district, continuing our grand tradition of only congregating with the seedier inhabitants of any city we stay in. It’s not quite like staying behind Hooters in Vegas but I’m pretty sure the woman and two gentlemen in front of us at check-in wishing to avail of a room are only interested in living there for a number of hours rather than days. In fact, the smaller of the guys looks a little angsty; he mightn’t even need an hour.

Our room is functional insomuch that it has a bed and a fan and sleep takes me under fast. We’ve reached destination one of dozens alive and as well as can be expected. Tomorrow … j’explorerai …

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Trip | No Comments | Permalink | Posted on : 4th September 2009

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