Getting a sense of the city

Spent today doing jobhunting, like most days I've spent here so far. It looks like I've lucked out and will be starting work next week on Tuesday. There's quite a lot of jobs opening up with the students starting classes again.

I dropped into the main French university, UQAM, for a coffee. It seems like a pretty nice place, in that sort of hectic, underfunded public university sort of way. It's got the scattiness of the Sorbonne without being covered with graffiti and smelling of urine (sorry, but it's true!). I'd be interested to find out what the courses are like.

Meanwhile, I signed up to the main public library. Amazing. The place has five stories of books, CDs, DVDs... you name it. I was looking for some pretty specific writing on Oscar Wilde and found some pretty extraordinary tomes there. Given it's not a university library, the collection is outstanding. It's free, open till past 10pm on weeknights, and most of the weekend. The staff are pleasant, and actually know what they're talking about. This library is a good enough reason to want to move here in itself!

I sat outside to eat lunch, since the job searching office of my exchange programme was shut for a meeting, and read my books in the sunshine. It's not always warm here, but it's really bright. I'm constantly told the weather is terrible here, but I've yet to see it, despite being here in winter. Even then it was snowing in December, and I remember wanting to sit out in the sunshine.

I walked home from downtown, after the job interview. It took several hours, but it was worth it. Getting to know the city is a good enough reason in itself to walk it, even if the weather wasn't so good. But there's more to it than geography. Walking helps me think straighter, focus what I'm doing, question my own thinking, and really have time to mull things over. Right now, when I've got all the questions popping into mind which naturally ensue from such a huge move (What is the meaning of life? Where can a guy get some decent chips round here? How come Canadian squirrels are so gangster-like?), it's a huge help to have some thinking space. And by Jingo I'm getting good use of those shoes I bought before I left. If I wore off 1 euro per kilometer I've used those shoes, they'd be a shred by now.