Naya ghar...

...or new home.

I moved last week to a new small place on the Plateau, and have been observing people and the place at every moment I get. What can I say? It IS the chic bohemian (not high-collar Westmount) area of this city. The park is two blocks away, so people stroll about with light bags strung across their shoulders, on their way to a read by the pond. Young families trail their kids in colourful strollers and stop at Monsieur Pinchot (pain chaud) to eat Bilboquet ice cream. They give you a free taste of a new flavour each time you go there… Marché Mont-Royal has the cutest African violets, one of which is now in my living room.

The block of flats I’m in: so far I’ve seen a batty woman who wanted to show her ‘expensive’ earrings, two young missionaries, one cute gay guy, one cute non-gay guy, a young French girl, a scary tattooed man who held the door, a not so hypocondriac who warned me about the water and an old couple who live just below me. One guy practises jazzy trumpet on Sunday afternoons in the block of flats across the street.

There’s a regular mix of English and French-speaking people on the streets, with smiles at the ready. Then again, this is summer, a season totally unrepresentative of what this city is during the other nine months of the year. Summer is a hard season to give birth to. For now, it’s great fun.