Cafe Olympico

Remember one of my earlier posts in october about ads on the telly? If not, check --> here <--

Well, yesterday we met with other fellow Flemish Montrealers and one of them sometimes plays in the band of this Jean Beaudin (of the Greiche & Scaff song) aka Baptiste.

So we'll probably check out their gig on 2nd of Feb. (BTW: HP b-day then Jannes Pepijn), coz inside info learns they might be playing that Greiche & Scaff song. I think Baptiste sounds a bit like Tom McRae, Damien Rice (that might be the cello), Ben Christophers (especially the more intimate songs) - all happy fellas. But check out for urselves.

Besides that, I am painting, plastering and generally messing about in our flat. Hope to get everything done by the end of next week. Brigitte is gonna come and give us a hand with painting this weekend. Tinneke is working her ass off for Univ but at least she gets straight A's (even A+).

Oh and today it is REALLY COLD. Now 7am, it's -19 but count the windchill and you'll get to -27! I was cold in my bed and couldn't sleep because of it. But then again it might be my overdose of caffeine from the xcellent cappucino's and espresso's from Cafe Olympico on St Viateur.

Little Mosque On The Prairie - Episode 2

I guess you're all too lazy to google or youtube it down. (Is "to google" already a verb in the English language). Anyway here is the second episode of "Little Mosque on the Prairie".

Cold in Montreal

Well, I can definitely say it's cold in MTL! (Heck, I'm not complaining, if I wanted a subtropic winter, I could've stayed in Belgium ;-). The last couple of days we had 30cm of snow and highs of -15 degrees Celsius.
But I have a couple of items to explain/show how cold it really is:

First of all this Calvin & Hobbes cartoon.

My boogers are really freezing when I walk outside now.

Check out this song (and video) from the Montreal based band Malajube. U probably won't get the lyrics coz it's in Quebecois. But the title of the song is "-40degres a Montreal". Says it all, no?

And finally: I buy my beer from a Depanneur. When I come from outside, walking through the beer fridge, it feels like tropical paradise.**

** Ok, you might not fully understand this, so a bit more explanation about depanneurs and the concept of walkthrough fridges is needed here: Depanneur in QC means mostly independently run convience stores, kinda like nightshops. Everywhere else it means a towing service when your car breaks down. Since in early provincial law only the SAQ and small grocery stores like depanneurs where permitted to sell alcohol. So that means that they have a long tradion of selling booze, meaning you have a vast array of beer in every small depanneur. (Nowadays supermarkets can sell beer and wine too.) They usually have big walkthrough fridges (a couple of square metres). So you can buy cartons of beer, that is always chilled. Which is nice, of course.

Besides that: we started painting, redecorating and sometimes it's just basically renovating. We found almost everything at IKEA, besides the fact that they forgot to count our bed. So we have to go back for that. The paint, dust and cold don't do Tinneke's allergies very good.

And I am still looking into different jobs and unfortunately didn't get the job at Flanders Investment and Trade. But I think the whole thing was fixed coz they didn't check my French skills, which is a bit unusal especially for working in Quebec. Well, anyway ...

Little Mosque on the Prairie

'ello! This week the first episode of "Little Mosque on the Prairie" was aired on CBC. This new sitcom is about a muslim community living in rural Canada. Worldwide this new show got a lot of attention (even in De Standaard) because it's comedy written by and about muslims in the post-9/11 era. For me this is how comedy should be: a royal kick in the butt of society, funny and most important of all: holding a mirror to all ignorant, selfcentered and prejudiced people out there. Tolerance towards muslims isn't about eating Tajine, but it's about realizing that they're also just ordinary folk trying to get around in this crazy, mixed up piece of junk we call planet Earth. Just sit back and relax! Enjoy this first episode of "Little Mosque on the Prairie".

Rodney Graham @ MACM * Poutine @ Patati Patata

Hope you all spent a nice New Year's Eve? We spent it quietly, just the 2 of us with a vast smorgasbord of tapas, cava, vino tinto and Single Malt ;-))
We already uncorked our first bottle of bubbles to celebrate with our parents at 6pm (so midnight in Belgium). And the sky is the limit with modern technology, so we had front row seats for the Wuustwezel Fireworks through webcam and surround sound.
Next day, our 2 godchildren Senne & Robbe, commonly referred to as "The Rascals", read out their New Year's Letters through Skype.

And then it was back 2 work. On wednesdaynight we went to the Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal for our first cultural injection of the year. Between 6 and 9pm on wednesday's there is no entrance fee. There was an excellent temporary exhibition of Rodney Graham. This BC (as in British Columbia) artist displays multidisciplinary conceptual work influenced by films, music and contemporary culture. But sometimes contemporary art is a bit "out there". But then again, maybe we need not take it so seriously.
I was especially intruiged by "Lobbing potatoes at a gong". A wall-wide projecton with loud stereo-sound shows the artist in front of an audience (that does not give a blink as such) sitting in a chair and throwing potatoes at a huge Chinese gong. Later on, all the potatoes were distilled into vodka and are part of the artwork. LOL


After this, it was time to fill the ol' stomach, so went to "Patati Patata" one of the best places in Montreal to have burgers and poutine.


Poutine like the Russian president? No, it's a Quebec signature dish: fries topped with melting cheese curds drenched in brown gravy. I got quite to like, although "Frut Special" will stay my all time favourite.

And now we need to start planning our next visit to IKEA, buying paint, coz Helena is moving out all her stuff somewhere around the 15th of Jan. So after the poutine, that will be the next big thing to tackle.

Have a good one!