Montreal! and ROW80 Update

ontreal!

This year is the 150th anniversary of Canada, and the 375th anniversary of the founding of Montreal. Also the 50th anniversary of Expo 67.

I was actually in Montreal for a long weekend last week, for a family celebration. I didn't venture far outside of my parents' neighbourhood, and didn't really see anything worth photographing, oddly enough. The weather was great, and the trees and flowers were budding with that fresh, bright green of spring. Lots of new shops and restaurants on the main street, and happy crowds, but also lots of shuttered store fronts and empty spaces to rent. Great food, and bagels, of course.

Most of my photos were from the plane!

Roses in our village, taken the morning I left

My gate!

This photo doesn't really mean anything, except that my sister-in-law did the trip in reverse, coming to Geneva for a long weekend while I was in Montreal -- I saw the first photo she shared on Facebook just as I got to my gate, so I sent her this photo back...

What an age we live in!

I was thinking about how, nearly 50 years ago, my great-aunt took a flight from Istanbul to Paris to travel, and later from Istanbul to Brussels, to live and work there for a year --

I kept wondering what she might have thought about and how she felt...

I suppose I was using a lot of sketchy airport wifi.

Facebook thought I was in Japan!

Swiss plane at Montreal airport!

39,000 feet up!

Views from the plane.

Way in the distance, St Joseph's Oratory is on the mountain on the far left, and the cluster of skyscrapers directly to its right is downtown Montreal.

The long flight was good for my ROW80 goal of getting ahead on my short story for submission!

I did some editing and wrote about 2,000 words. Since I've returned, I've added about 1,500 words, and now I'm at 8,500. I remember a scene I once wrote for Out of the Water, and decided to appropriate it for this story, but felt guilty at the same time (you know, in case Out of the Water ever finds a home...). How serendipitous to find that the scene was actually cut from the final version of Out of the Water, so now I'm free to use it! One more round of editing to go! I just realised that, while I have a photo of the main character in this short story, I don't seem to have shared it anywhere! Will try to get it off Scrivener and onto the blog soon.

Have you taken any short trips recently?

Is it spring or autumn where you are?