Well we're now living right next to the cheapest road on the English Monopoly board, sunny Old Kent Road. Yep, we're in London! Yay!

We've had a good couple of first days back in London. After a slightly delayed flight, sitting on Toronto tarmac with no air conditioning for 30 minutes, we arrived 30 minutes late into Heathrow. Thankfully Air Canada's in flight entertainment, designed by Miette herself, was in full working order so I got to watch two movies about New York being destroyed (both great for different reasons. With no sleep under our belts, we were picked up at the airport by dad, who then drove us over to meet t'other Matt at our temporary digs south of the river before we all wandered around on the south bank for a bit trying to stay awake/human.

Now we're getting back into English habits, or at least learning them for the first time in Miette's case. Water heaters that operate on Economy 7 and need to be switched on before a shower. Hobbs sandwiches at Borough market. Tesco supermarkets selling everything you need, and a lot you don't but have to have anyway. Big electrical plugs. Pants meaning pants, not trousers. Coins that weigh you down and break wallets. Remembering to swipe Oyster cards at the beginning and end of your journey. The cost of everything compared to Canada and the US; sometimes it's not as bad as you think it will be, others it's doubly worse. Having the same accent as everyone else, or not in Miette's case. The different sound of police sirens. Television licences, and the fine British programs they fund. Proper bacon... mmmm.

It's good to be home.

An Aside: 3 Mobile Broadband for Apple Mac OS X

Now some handy hints if you want to use 3's Pay as you Go Mobile Broadband USB modem on your Apple Mac.

1. First up, you have to get the black modem - the white one doesn't have the right software on it (only OS X 10.4 and greater). The black modem is only available at 3 shops right now, big ups to the helpful staff in Carphone Warehouse on Tottenham Court Road who told me that.
2. Secondly, the instructions will tell you there's a CD to install - they lie. Instead, plug in the modem and run the package that shows up in your Finder as a plug in hard drive. You'll have to re-start your laptop at this point.
3. When you plug in your modem, the program should automatically launch, if it doesn't then start the program first before you plug in the USB modem.
4. Finally, when you get the modem from the store and buy some credit they should really tell you that this credit is not already applied to the modem, but maybe they won't. If they don't tell you this, then you can see your modem's working by going to www.three.co.uk/my3 - if that page comes up (and pages outside of it won't) then you can click on the icon to activate your topup. When you do this be sure to choose the Add On Broadband option in the dropdown and not just 'top up' otherwise you'll end up paying £1 per Mb, rather than getting 1 Gb for £10. Oops.
5. If you make the mistake of setting your credit to 'Top Up Only' like I did, then make sure you don't browse any pages - instead, log into the my3 page and re-allocate your credit. Of course to do this you need the password for your 3 account... which gets texted to your modem when you register. Unfortunately on the Mac you can't access this password, so you'll have to go down to a 3 store and borrow a 3 phone to retrieve the password - unless you have a friend handy with a 3 phone you can borrow. Simple.

Having gotten the browser working I can say it's a great value, fast mobile broadband service - I just wish they wrote better instructions and software for Mac!

Labels: Apple, Brit Stuff

Not long now and we'll be on a plane to Heathrow, ready to enjoy an English summer of warm beer, cricket and CCTV. What ho!

The Montreal apartment is all packed up and stored in various places. Our aches, pains and bruises from moving all the boxes are starting to fade. We're enjoying some last Canadian sun so we land nicely tanned and I might even have a shave so I don't get pulled aside for looking too suspicious. Ah, modern travel.

See you all soon...

Labels: London, travel

Get bitten by a shark and survive. Every news program around the world will report on you, most likely before peace erupting in the Middle East*.

*Unless the Middle East negotiators have also been bitten by sharks.

Labels: Nature, Politics

Yesterday we spent an exhausting 13 hours moving out of our Montreal apartment, and then driving our 17" U-Haul truck six hours to Toronto. Phew. Every part of my body is aching right now. The good news is that last night I finally got a full night's sleep for the first time in two weeks!

For some reason we thought we'd be able to get the packing finished by midday after getting up at 6.30am to get started. Turned out we mis-estimated slightly, as we finished at 6.30pm. Up and down three flights of stairs with heavy boxes for 13 hours - no wonder I'm aching!

Big thanks to Jason and the twins for turning up at our darkest moment to help get the heaviest crap down the stairs, I don't know what we would have done without you guys. Plus the singing was awesome. And also big thanks to Max for coming along to help on the final stretch and for taking the final photo of us in our bare, empty apartment, very emotional.

Today is our last day in Montreal, at least for a while, as tomorrow morning we begin our roundabout journey back to London. We arrive in London early Wednesday 14th May, ready for a hectic week of settling in, finding jobs and family birthdays. Before that we have to load up a 17" U-Haul lorry with most of our possessions, drive to Toronto and Miette's family, spend a few happy days catching up with Toronto folk and then onto a plane to London and onto another chapter in our lives.

Right now both of us are a bit tired - mentally and physically. Thankfully the Montreal sun is shining down which is keeping our spirits up, as we prepare to leave the home we've created for ourselves here. Our first shipment of 'life crap' is boxed, waiting in a Montreal warehouse, soon to start it's own journey to London by sea. We've ticked most of the boxes on the 'Montreal things we'll miss' list; hanging out with friends, a last yoga session, eating way too much poutine, walking around the Old Port, dinners at our favorite restaurants (Chez Jose, Stash and last night L'Express) and just enjoying the Montreal chilled out pace of life. Personally I hope we can take some of that calm and stillness that we have here to the more hectic, bustling London world.

Sitting last night at L'Express, enjoying foie gras and beautifully cooked steaks, we wrote down the things we're looking forward to in London; seeing family and friends, jogging along South Bank, going to the art galleries, shopping at Tesco, trips around the country, watching Doctor Who without waiting for someone to upload it to youTube, cycling around and finding out how we create our home over there for a while at least. There's an adventure ahead of us that's for certain, and fond memories of the adventure so far to enjoy in the quiet times. Ta ta for now.

Labels: Life, London, Montreal