hello friends! today is the half-way mark of the montreal program although i still have a month minus 2 days until i arrive back in fair edmonton-ville. things are going quite well here and there`s definitely quite a bit to do in this city. the weather has fortunately been much cooler and there`s been lots of sweet thunderstorms in the evenings. time has been passing by much quicker and it`s strange to think that i will be home somewhat soon. what have i been up to lately, you ask? well, starting from last monday the 17th, the metric concert was cancelled due to some `scheduling error´ so in the evening i watched this movie in the residence called `les aimants´ which was quite a lovely movie about magnets and being in love (which are the two meanings of the word `aimant´). on tuesday after school, we went to the montreal biodome and the stade olympique. it was quite nifty and we went up this semi-elevator and saw a 360 view of montreal. the biodome was neat. i think i liked the penguins the best. that evening, we went to a movie - `la secret de ma mère´ which was quite funny but strange at the same time. later on that night in our residence, we watched capote on stephanie´s laptop and ate cookie dough. yum. delicious. wednesday was school and then in the evening i went to the montreal symphony orchestra in the notre-dame church where celine dion got married. it was beautiful inside. not too much happened on thursday - a lot of homework and studying and also met andrea`s uncle for dinner at this neat irish pub where i had the most delicious hamburger. eating in dorms definitely makes you appreciative of warm, non-microwave cooked meals. i`ve been eating so so much hummus, yogourt, pita bread and granny smith apples. there`s this brand of yogourt here called `liberté´ and it`s the most delicious yogourt i`ve ever tasted - especially their mocha flavoured yogourt. anyways, on friday after school i went to LaRonde - an amusement park that`s part of the six flags family. it was so so so much fun. they had crazy roller coasters: some where you stand up the whole time and others where you`re suspended from the top and a really really megatron huge wooden roller coaster. there were also a lot of other rides, one of which involved being spun around and upside down, rotating both clockwise and counter clockwise. that one was quite intense. after coming back from LaRonde, i bought harry potter, book 4 in french. it`s kinda weird because some names are a bit different, for example, hogwarts is called poudlard but some names remain in english, for exmaple little hangleton. strange. very strange. saturday some of the people in the program headed out to oka beach, which is an hour away from montreal. despite the fact that it was quite cloudy and rained for an hour, it was still quite fun to sit, read, play cards and hang out. after coming back to the dorms, we finished capote. i was extremely extremely impressed with philip seymour hoffman`s performance even though i`m not quite sure i totally enjoyed the movie. it was a bit of a downer. after the movie, we headed out to andrea`s uncle`s apartment. her uncle is a part owner of a hotel in old montreal and lives in a loft right next to the hotel. his loft was amazing - just like a neat loft you would see in the movies. anyways, the purpose of our visit to his place was to watch fireworks from his roof. during the month of july there are firewords every wednesday and saturday; a different country from around the world produces the fireworks for each wednesday and saturday. i believe france was the country that presented the fireworks on saturday. the view from her uncle`s roof was amazing and it was neat to look out around montreal. when we got back to our dorms that night, there was a party going down on our floor as it was someone`s birthday. we joined in and had cake and i also tried sangria for the first time. it`s actually quite delicious though somewhat potent. we went to sleep quite late so sleeping in was the order of business for sunday morning. the rest of the day i just hung around, went grocery shopping, went to the bank and did laundry. what fun! monday after school we ate an early supper while watching oprah and dr. phil. and then we had a arts and crafts evening. i made a layered candle. it was extremely amusing. the rest of the evening was spent talking and doing homework. yesterday (tuesday) after school, andrea and stefanie´s mom arrived for a few days. for supper we went to schwartz - a famous smoked meat shop. i had the BEST sandwhich that i have ever had in my life there. it was like 5 layers of smoked, seasoned meat on rye bread witha bit of mustard. delicious and amazing. after that we went walking around this street called rue st. laurent. after that we went to orange julep - apparently the original orange julius. it tasted very much like an orange julius only more pulp. but the building is a huge orange. and that was funny and exciting. after that we got more groceries (more mocha yogourt for me). for some reason everytime that i buy the mocha yogourt i sing songs by moka only. strange. andrea and stef`s mom bought us this weird pop called pinebeer. it`s like 7up but it tastes like a pine tree would smell. it was...an experience. tonight i`m off to the vetiver concert. i am very very very excited to see devendra banhart. hopefully this concert is not cancelled. it`s only 12 dollars too. hip hip!! i have my mega presentation tomorrow morning and then i have a test and a mega project due friday. i`m somewhat nervous. saturday i`m going to ottawa and the next saturday i`ll hopefully be going to quebec city. this has been a mega update. i hope everyone is doing well. i heard that it was mega hot in edmonton and that gas prices have gone way up. monday should be quite the day. in the evening, i´m going to see the movie C.R.A.Z.Y. in a huge park. that movie is very very popular here. and in the afternoon i get the next 300 dollars! yes!! no more microwave dinners or oatmeal for supper!! alrighty, i´m off to practice my speech. hope everything is going excellently at home. salut, nicole  ¶ 6:30 AM