Saturday, May 14, 2011

Tales of an Urban Newbie: February 14 - 20, 2011


My week started out innocently enough, I was scheduled mostly nights, starting at 5 pm, and since I was expecting a very special foreign visitor I had the weekend off again.  It was my first full week on the phones and I was starting to get the hang of selling the wide variety of products that the call centre took orders for.  We had scripts for all of the products that automatically popped up on our screens, so the way I looked at it was if you could read you could do this job. 

Most of the calls I received were for a bra that women (and sometimes men) would call to order after seeing an infomercial on television hosted by some Australian lady who I know nothing about.  In training we were told that it was our job to make these bra’s out to be the best product on the face of the planet, which made my job extra entertaining when only a couple of weeks in I received a call from a lady who told me that she heard the fabric was designed by NASA.  Although I don’t know if this is true, I didn’t bother correcting her because, after all, the best bra on the planet should be designed by astronauts.

While at work, the evening shifts were mostly laid back.  Calls came in a lot less frequently than they did during the day and the evening staff was mostly young students, making the atmosphere even more casual.  In between calls the agents would work on homework or chat with each other and when people found out how new I was to the city, they all went out of their way to share their own personal “best of Montreal” with me.

In my first week I found out there is a bar that serves candy, aptly called CandyBar, and every drink has a candy at the bottom.  I learned about an all-you-can-eat Brazilian restaurant where the waiters shave meat right off a hot skewer and onto your plate.  There was a brunch joint close to Old Port with some of the most unique and delicious breakfast delicacies and espresso-based coffee.  And, I couldn’t forget about the always inexpensive, but always delicious, Thai cuisine that could be found at a hip little joint in Chinatown.

Being the foodie that I am, I was more than excited to experience all of these places in due time.  But first, there was work to be done.  It was also my first week writing for CollectivelyBeautiful.com and I’d chosen some really interesting, but rather challenging, articles to tackle in my first two weeks.

While most of the articles I’d chosen involved research or drawing from personal experiences, there was one that I thought could potentially be difficult for me, especially on a moral level:  I was going to be interviewing a friend of mine about her divorce.  I believe there comes a time in every writer’s life when he or she questions their own capacity to write about people whom they care about.

I consider myself lucky enough to have those people care equally for me, and embrace the opportunity to help me with my career, so when I asked Michelle for an interview she was more than pleased to shed some light on the topic.  And as it turned out, the interview helped her develop her own thoughts and further understand her experience, so in the end we really both benefited from the interview.

That Wednesday I was going to make another attempt at seeing some live music, this time for the Wild Nothing featuring Abe Vigoda at La Salla Rosa.  My roommate and I arrived in good time, not only catching the main features, but also the local band that opened the evening, though I couldn’t decide if I liked them or not.  My opinion wavered so much that I was changing my opinion as frequently as between verses and the chorus of individual songs.  In retrospect, if my perspective was faltering that much, they probably weren’t that good.

Abe Vigoda, on the other hand, took me by total surprised and seriously rocked the house.  These LA rockers had a ton of stage presence and energy and got even a hipster crowd moving (which is a feat, for anyone who’s familiar with the indie music scene which is full of shoe-gazers with their hands in their pockets).  After a full set with a nice mix of old and new songs, they welcomed the headliners, the Wild Nothing, to the stage for a great display of musical prowess and stamina.  They played all of my personal favourites, and even included some new material.  Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to shake the crowd from their corpse-like hipster state, even though it should have.  I know I got a little glisten on. 

We ended the night with some delicious Montreal smoked meat sandwiches and poutine, and though my appetite was satisfied, my mind and heart weren’t, suffering from the anticipation of having mere hours to wait before my reunion with whom I like to call my “foreign acquisition”, and whom Ms. Charles and I like to call my “non-boyfriend”.  Not because he isn’t, per se, or not because I’m a commitment-phobe, but because I’ve developed an aversion to the term after realizing that most people who call themselves by the title rarely live up to it.  Anyway, he can go by a variety of monikers, including my personal favourite, “The New Jersey Love Machine,” but his proper name is Matt.  He would be arriving first thing Friday morning and would be in Montreal for four days, so to say I was excited was an understatement.

And so I found myself at the Greyhound station at 8 am sharp (I hate lateness), only to find out that his bus was held up at the border with two “illegals” on board.  So I trudged to Second Cup for a coffee and to check out some local newspapers for things to do for the next few days.  When he finally arrived, we were both hungry and sleep-deprived, but relieved of our anticipation.

In the next three days our time was fully occupied with museum visits, restaurant trials, and more attempts at seeing live music.  Friday night we went to two separate venues for two separate bands and were brutally reject by both of them, sent back into the cold to suffer through blowing snow and icy conditions (I’m not being dramatic here – this is actually what happened!).  Due to the infamy of Schwartz’s Hebrew Deli, we decided to go, but this was my third visit in 2 weeks, and I was starting to tire of the routine.

We made our way around by Metro all weekend, checked out all of the restaurants I had in mind, including Le Milsa on Crescent where I had the most delicious, hot, fresh and, most importantly, unlimited quantity of spiced rotisserie meats.  Ten different varieties of meat were all served alongside a live show of what I presume was a Brazilian man who was wearing nothing but a fedora, pants and a vest, and a woman dressed very caribana, both shaking what their mama’s gave them to some really loud Brazilian music.  Nil Bleu, an Ethiopian restaurant on St. Denis was also a treat, with their sleek, hip interior including a glossy white mini grand piano; though their serving size and selection for their variety plates were slightly less appealing than the other Ethiopian places we had visited in Toronto, New York City, and Montclair, New Jersey.  And for brunch, we made sure to check out the Griffintown Cafe, which had the most delicious Americano I have ever tasted, and a unique, fresh, flavour-orgy inducing menu (I recommend the French toast, but also laid eyes on the most breathtaking eggs Benedict, possibly in all of human history).

During the day on Saturday we went to the Musee de Beaux Arts and marvelled especially at their contemporary exhibit on their lowest level – it was quite the treat for the eyes.  That night we made it to Il Motore for Akron/Family and New Jersey natives, Delicate Steve.  To say I was pleased with the instrumental openers who hailed from the dirty Jers’ was an understatement – they were phenomenal, but Akron/Family, who we had been listening to frequently in preparation for the show, decided to pull an interesting stunt that left me far from amused. 

Their spectacle included 15-20 minute long songs that didn’t resemble anything from their album, and included what I interpreted as desperate attempts to be unique, which included inaudible moanings into the microphone, which was being fully deep-throated by the lead singer, along with mutterings and gibberish that made me question whether I was at a live music venue or a Holy Rollers Convention.  Now, I’m all for a good stage show – but when Matt had seen them only the week before, they were nothing like this, which lead me to believe that they were probably hung-over and/or tired and/or too lazy and ungrateful for our attendance to play a full live set.  So, after waiting 15 minutes for the current song to end, we decided to leave.

We definitely made the most of our time together, even though we got lost a couple of times (on my account, as usual) and didn’t get to do everything or eat at every restaurant that we’d planned.  But, that just leaves more reason for him to come back for another visit soon.  He left Monday that on the midnight bus back to Newark, and so I returned to routine as well, taking calls for bras, writing, and experiencing more of this wonderful city.

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