flying time

Wow. I can't believe I only have two more weeks left here. I'm finding myself feeling a little more anxious, feelings all over the place, not sure how to gather my thoughts or "make the most" of these last days. I'm trying to focus my head day to day but that's nearly impossible: what photos and mini-gifts should I give to people? What birthday present should I make for (my friend/co-worker) Natalie? What should I do for my last weekends off? How can I show people in the best, clearest way how much I love them? Who knows! And no answer will be totally satisfying or possibly "the best" because there are so many ways to respond to those questions, and in the end, the experience will be over. I will have to accept whatever happened as one pretty crazy and awesome year!

Two weekends ago I switched my off-days to be able to go out to Boston with Natalie. Her main goal was to shop and a mutual goal was to attend a heavy metal concert (few and far between around these parts)! Natalie did do shopping and it took her a day to recover from feeling guilty. The heavy metal band was good but there weren't enough people so the energy was a bit low. Either way we wore all black, fish nets, and black make-up to get ourselves in the mood :)

This past weekend I went to Montreal with a current and former volunteer. It was good to talk to a volunteer from last year about his experience - how the residents and volunteers were then v. now, how much has changed on the farm, how he felt about his experience before and afterwards. Talking with a former volunteer helps settle me a little, knowing that this place won't just disappear and that I'll probably visit again. In terms of Montreal, I fell in love with the place over a mere day and a half! I got the impression that it has plenty of things I would enjoy living around: French, cafes and smaller shops, nice parks, culture, diversity, fun night scene, young people, liberal, mix of nature and city, etc. We stayed in a small, rented apartment and went to a dance club 1234 (ladies free before midnight!) and danced the night away for hours. The next day we walked to a good ice cream shop and a Montreal bagel place (I gather the difference is that their bagels have bigger holes and are round and have seasoning on both sides as opposed to not on the bottom). We also walked around the Latin Quarter, saw circus people performing and a life-sized chess game, and bought a lot of cold drinks that day (heat wave this weekend). In addition, some old man went up to my friend and scratched his beard. There are also some strange people there!

This week I plan on going to a shooting range, a roadside bbq place and the drive-in movie theatre in Milford (things that have been on my wish list for a while). Hope it works out!