Festival International des Montgolfières à St. Jean-sur-Richelieu

Due to my vague knowledge of Montréal’s bustling summertime music scene, I had hoped to come here and see some free/cheap concerts during several of Montréal’s music festivals in the humid company of hundreds of other sweaty locals and tourists. Standing on the dark, closed off streets downtown between well known architectural landmarks such as the Desjardins skyscraper emblazoned with its glowing green logo, and the bold “UQÀM” marked edifice, I had the fortune of listening to some lesser known bands (e.g. Franklin Electric @ the Montréal International Jazz Festival), as well as witnessing a humourous and spectacular performance by Les Trois Accords, who were accompanied by the OSM (Orchèstre Symphonique de Montréal) during the Just for Laughs festival.  On St. Jean-Baptiste’s Day, the national holiday of the Québec province, there was a free concert at the Parc Olympique as well, featuring Jérôme Couture, a finalist in the first season of La Voix, the French Canadian version of The Voice. While I thoroughly enjoyed seeing these live performers, they were not the “music festival” experience I had been seeking.

Voilà, the Festival International des Montgolfières, a two week long hot air balloon festival featuring several live performances each night after the daily flight of 30+ hot air balloons. Taking place in St. Jean-sur-Richelieu, a city approximately 45 minutes by overheated car from Montréal, this festival is more of a family zone during the day, with inflatable games and bouncy castle type stations. We really tried to play amongst the toddlers and their siblings, but witness a couple of twenty somethings taking frisbees and soccer balls away from children, and you will immediately see a lose-lose situation. What we were really there for was the main concert at the end of the night, an event we had purchased a $30 day pass to see. This was the first day of the festival, and Meghan Trainor was going to grace us with her glittery blonde presence at the end of the night! But first, we had to make sure we didn’t miss the launching of the hot air balloons.

It was my first time being so close to so many hot air balloons, so I was more than excited to watch as the multitude of billowing mounds took on their respective shapes and colours on the field before us, eventually rising into the bright blue sky, gradually drifting, receding away on the horizon towards the sunset. There were several balloons that amused the crowd, in particular, those in the form of animals. We saw a bear, a frog, a giraffe, a hen (that never took off…proving that chickens cannot fly), a black sheep, a trio of Brazilian birds, even a seahorse! If only I’d had $200 in spare change lying around (and the muscle power to carry that weight in change) for a vertiginous 30 minute trajectory above the town.

To really feel like I was having a “music festival” experience, we bought overpriced and incompetently assembled dinner from one of the food tents and dined out of cardboard on a spare plot of uneven grass in the lengthening shadows of the evening. But none of that mattered, we were getting closer towards the appearance of the M-Train! The outdoor stage loomed large in our vision against the background of a brilliantly setting sun, and the night of musical revelry began with Life of Dillon, an English band whose ginger-bearded guitarist made the first few front rows of screaming girls quite slippery with his beautiful British accent. They were quite good, but as with all bands I discover whilst they are performing live…they are less awesome when not.

The next performer completely erased visions of British sugar daddies from my mind with his soulful and slightly-less-croony-than-Sam-Smith vocals delivered in harmony with his retro-pop piano playing. My pre-concert query, “Who is Charlie Puth?” now became, “WHO IS CHARLIE PUTH, AND WHERE HAS HE BEEN ALL MY LIFE!?” Agh, those imperfect eyebrows, that too-long gelled hair that flopped apart during a song, and that total frat boy with unbuttoned button-up shirt look that I have never been attracted to…UNTIL NOW. It must be his golden boy voice. Or, perhaps the adorably awkward demeanour that surfaces when he recounts the stories behind his songs. And who can resist a cute guy when he sings, “Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on”? And who can do a decent cover of Sia’s “Chandelier”? Not to mention, he sings the song “See You Again” at the end of the Fast and Furious 7 movie in remembrance of Paul Walker. Sure, the lyrics are the stuff of a fourth grader’s poetry homework assignment, but he says he wrote it in five minutes, so let’s give him some credit, those five minutes of effort are evident.

Finalement, a curvaceous silhouette bedecked in sparkly sequins sashayed out onto the darkened stage and launched immediately into a rendition of my favourite melody (but not message), “Dear Future Husband.” The M-Train had arrived and it was stirring up some real energy in the crowd with her upbeat tunes and vivacious vibe. After Charlie Puth’s calmer piano ballads, Meghan Trainor’s thumping bass tracks seemed louder and more overwhelming by comparison. She just had so much energy! There were back up dancers, video projections, and tiny costume changes; she played a glittery purple ukulele for two of her songs, and even strode through the spectators as she sang “Close Your Eyes,” reaching out and touching the hands of joyfully crying, screaming fans. Meghan Trainor was just a couple of feet away from where we stood! An hour of live music never passed so quickly before. A duet with Charlie Puth on his song “Marvin Gaye” made the night extra special and she ended the night with two new songs. BUT – WHERE WAS THE BASS!? Fortunately, Meghan knew that we were “all about that bass” and came back with it for the encore.

And after that? Boy, did we run through the festival grounds for the fields where the cars were parked in an effort to beat the crowd and traffic out of town! All in all, a terrific first “music festival” experience, well worth the day pass price! Just try to invite a friend who owns a car ;)

“À quoi ça sert d’écrire sur les murs?”

[Paris] “Smile, Laugh, Breathe”

It’s hard to believe that two months have passed since I left France and stepped foot on Canadian soil again. I’ve already spent 6-7 weeks in Montréal as a full time summer au pair, and will resume my position with the family at the end of August for the next school year. As excited as I was to start on yet another new venture, I had a hard time settling in, and accepting the fact that I had to leave behind the country that represented the culmination of all my previous hopes and dreams – of living abroad, speaking a foreign language, and immersing in an exciting, inspiring culture. In fact, I think I hated Montréal for the first two weeks that I was here, it was as big, dirty, noisy, and lacking in charm as I had feared. After time spent in the French countryside, the weather in Montréal seemed dreadful, the humidity was awful and stifling, the pollution was detestable. Even now, I can’t help often comparing everything to “how it is in France.” But it’s not fair to compare, I know I arrived in France with stars in my eyes, France has always been a glowing pinnacle on the towers of my castle in the clouds. So I try to look at Montréal through rose-tinted (sun)glasses and try to be content with being Canadian again.

Recently, I met up again with some friends who had been on exchange in France at the same time, and we couldn’t help but chat over drinks about the things we missed about France – the pâtisseries, the trains, the food, the wine (and wine prices!!), the charm of historical buildings, or the accessibility of travel to other countries…and I started looking through the huge collection of photos taken in France/Italy that I still refuse to delete off my iPhone (hence why I have no memory space for photos in Montréal…). I came across several images of graffiti, street art, window displays or vandalism that had delighted me at the point of their discovery, whether it had been with the brazenness or with the wisdom of their messages, and thought that I would make a post of them, as a way of remembering yet another aspect of France qui me manque.

[Cahors] One of the first photos I took in my first days in Cahors. Shoes thrown over a wire is a common sight back home, and this image made me smile as I realized that some things don’t change just because you cross an ocean and leave one country for another.

[Rue des Soubirous, Cahors] “In your mouth, idiot.” Down the street from where I lived in Cahors, an abandoned medieval structure was boarded up and scrawled upon by some lycéens. The French vocab reminded me at the time of how I was well and truly living in a foreign place.

[Cahors] This one made me realize the extent of English that my potential students would have! (And of their typical teenage mindsets.)

[belated blog post] “sun is in the sky, oh why, oh why, would i wanna be anywhere else?”

What does one usually do on their last day in Paris? If my trip had begun with an extremely fast blister-raising pace and a prepared list of sights to see, then it ended with a more aimless and the slowest of strolls.

I began my last day with a visit in the afternoon to the Père Lachaise cimetière. A cemetery? Sounds depressing, until you see how mystically beautiful overgrown and cobwebbed family chapels, shrines, and embellished tombstones can be in the springtime. Père Lachaise is the biggest cemetery in Paris, and comes with maps that vendors at the entrance will try to sell to you for 2,50€. I decided to forego this paid option, and found a map on a board inside, with a directory for the gravesites of famous actors, composers, political leaders, singers, writers, which are indicated by their corresponding number on the map. It is also such a big cemetery that it is organised into 97 divisions by numerous avenues and chemins, and includes a chapel, a crematorium, and a roundabout. Grabbing my mini Moleskine cahier, I scribbled down several notable names and their numbers and division sites, took a photo of the map with my iPhone, and set off down the sun-spotted, tree-lined paths.

a week of WWOOFing: a city mouse in a country house

If someone had told me a week ago that I would be waking up at 8 every morning in eager anticipation of hoe-ing, planting, blisters, back pain, overexposure to sun and weeding, I would’ve told them to be quiet, because the next episode rerun of my Criminal Minds marathon was starting. But here we are, and here I am, in Lieu-dit-Brouillac, near Sarrazac, France, still in the Midi-Pyrénées. Brouillac is a small “place” nestled amongst sprawling hillside fields and woods, with five houses. The nearest village, as I discovered on a long, meandering walk on my second day, is L’Hôpital St. Jean, whose single church bell echoes over the hills across all neighbouring “lieux” and whose École Primaire has exactly 24 students, one of them being the younger daughter of my WWOOFing host.

The house my host and her family live in is a former sheep stable built of stone, with an even bigger stone barn next to it. A wooden gate hung with a cowbell and the herbal scent of the rosemary bush in the front garden greets the newcomer. Their bedrooms are up a narrow flight of wooden stairs in the main building and have square skylight windows. The guest bedroom where I sleep is in the new extension to the house, with double glass doors that overlook verdure and a stable that is home to two female donkeys, Lilou and Oasis. Every morning I wake up before my alarm clock from the sun’s intense rays shining into my room, and every night I go to sleep listening to the steady chirp of crickets that serves as nature’s soundtrack to planting vegetables all day long. They have three cats (one of whom startled the merde out of me just now by appearing out of the darkness outside, pressing its paws suddenly against the window), several black hens and two black roosters who crow nearly non-stop before nightfall and lead the hens like a clucking gang around the house, in the garden, or in the gravel driveway.

I am WWOOFing for the first time for a woman named Virginie Podevin, and her vegetable “farm” is called “Les Jardins de Virginie.”