Bonne nouvelle annee!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had holidays as wonderful as mine. I had a great time visiting family--Chris's mom, my dad, my mom (at whose house we saw my grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousins), and my grandma. Chris's mom was kind enough to lend us her car, and so we drove it back to her house on Dec. 28 and hopped on the last bus out of town with literally only moments to spare, getting back to our apartment in time to go to bed and get up at 5 a.m. for--

a trip to Montreal!

This was one of my presents from Chris, who loves Christmas so much that he goes totally overboard and spoils me a lot more than anyone deserves. We arrived at 9 a.m. on Saturday and left around 7 or 8 p.m. on New Year's Day. It was a glorious trip. We stayed at the cutest little hotel in Old (Vieux) Montreal, with a mini library/bar in its lobby and the softest sheets imaginable (on the bed, not in the lobby. Obviously). On Saturday we walked around the Quartier Latin and other parts of the city and visited the museum of contemporary art, which was fabulous. On Sunday we walked around a lot more and went to the Cinerobotheque, which is run by the National Film Board of Canada and includes a free viewing room where you can browse and watch any of the 9,000 films in their archives at personal viewing stations. We watched about an hour's worth of short films, including The Danish Poet, which was so sweet.

That night we took the subway out to what was supposed to be a hip neighborhood, Mile End, but whether due to the snow or the holiday nothing seemed to be open except for the one cool brew pub we'd stumbled across, so after trooping around deserted blocks in some icy sleet for a half hour we reentered that pub and warmed our bones with "hydromel," which turned out to be mead with a flavor that resembled cherry cough syrup (which, luckily, I like).

On New Year's Eve we went to the Parc, which is located on the slopes of the mountain, and we went ice skating and sledding, and it was SO FUN! That evening we went out to dinner around the corner and then holed up in our room with a bottle of champagne, Carson Daly, and the ball dropping. I think I went to sleep at 12:01. I'm the life of the party, folks! But it was relaxing and wonderful. And on New Year's Day we tried to go to the Musee des Beaux Arts in a snowstorm, but it was closed, so we saw Sweeney Todd because it was playing soonest and we were dripping snow down our backs, but I wouldn't recommend it because it was REALLY bloody and gruesome and otherwise kind of boring, actually. The popcorn was delicious, however. When we emerged, it was snowing harder than ever so we went to the airport a bit early. Our flight was delayed about an hour total, which seemed miraculous to me because of what seemed to me to be a blizzard going on outside, but apparently the delay was caused in JFK anyway, where it was NOT snowing, and not on the Canadian end.

We got home about 11:30 to the unpleasant realization that we had no heat or hot water, but it seemed a small price to pay for such a great holiday vacation. So here's to a fantastic 2008--I hope it brings great things for each one of you! Except you, you unpleasant spamming commenters.