Montreal roads are broken

I'll just start off by saying that I'm a world traveler. I'll be honest, I haven't driven a car outside of Canada or the United States, but I have spent a considerable amount of time sitting as a passenger in all kinds of places around the world.

Probably the worst roads outside of Montreal were in Cuba, Thailand and Cambodia (which in many places was more like dirt roads). Greece has a lot of bumpy roads too. But last time I checked, Canada is supposed to be a wealthier nation than the above places!

Driving through this city one gets the distinct feeling that they are not in Canada. Perhaps it's a Quebec thing? Our government wishes us to be distinct in every possible way! Sadly, I don't think that having broken roads is something to take pride in.

These days, just about every single road that you drive on is broken somewhere along the way. Someone cleverly named Montreal "Cone-y Island" (please excuse me if I got the spelling wrong, and I'm sorry I can't site the source). This is due to the insane amount of traffic cones in our city. I'd love to know exactly how many cones there are sitting on the streets right now. It must be in the millions.

Most of the time the traffic cones are there for days, or weeks but there is hardly ever anyone working! That is probably one of the biggest concerns, you hardly ever see construction workers actually doing work on the roads! Hardly ever will you see work done at night, except for maybe on the bridges.

It is such a painful experience trying to drive around Montreal. You have to check Google Maps every time you want to leave your house. Even a simple trip to the grocery store could turn out to be a nightmare if all the usual roads you take to get there are now closed! This happens rather frequently!

In N.D.G it feels like every single street is broken. You can't drive at normal speeds, and you can't drive in a straight line. You have to dodge potholes every few feet. Some of these potholes are the size of four medium sized turkeys!

There are often traffic cones surrounding areas that look just fine, where as there is often a complete lack of cones in very dangerous areas. Usually you only get a smooth road if you are on the highway. Which makes sense, since hitting a pothole while driving over 100 km/per hour could result in horrible accidents.

Currently in N.D.G all of the routes into the neighbourhood are under construction. One of the old routes will remain closed until 2020 (this was the main exit at St. Jacques from autoroute 20). Now if you are heading to that area from the western parts of the city you have to exit the highway a few kilometres earlier and navigate horrific roads full of traffic and potholes.

There are rarely any signs warning you that certain streets are closed or under severe construction. This morning I made the fatal error of not checking Google Maps before leaving my house. I took Decarie (almost always a mistake) and got off at the Queen Mary/Cote St. Luc exit. I then got to sit in stagnant traffic for 20 minutes because two out of the three lanes on the service road were closed. For construction. This time there were at least people working!

I'll be providing pictures soon, just to really show how absolutely horrific it is trying to drive through this city. But for now, I'll just say one final thing.

I spent five days in Toronto this past summer. My boyfriend and I drove all around the suburbs and downtown area. We really did a good tour of the city in our car. Guess what? Hardly any traffic cones, hardly any roads closed, hardly any potholes. It was actually kind of shocking. To be in a car that isn't constantly making loud thumping sounds as you hit bumps and holes constantly. To be able to get from point A to point B without being diverted all around the city due to road closures. To not have to plan your own detour to avoid construction. To not have to rely on Google Maps for simple trips. I have to hand it to Toronto, they have GREAT roads!!! If any Torontonian wishes to bitch about their horrible roads, I encourage them to try spending the weekend driving around Montreal!

Gilmore Girls

I must confess, until recently I had never even heard of Gilmore Girls. Netflix highly recommended it to me, and well, I trust Netflix! It is rarely wrong, actually.

Over the last decade I have mostly watched crime dramas or sci-fi. I watched shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, CSI Miami, Criminal Minds, Fringe, True Blood, Stargate, Caprica and Battlestar Galactica. You get the point.

Gilmore Girls is pretty much the opposite of what I usually watch, so when Netflix recommended it to me I ignored it. I wasn't really interested in watching some sappy drama about a mother and daughter. But one day, on a whim (the same kind of whim that provoked me to watch Glee one evening after a few glasses of sangria) I succumbed to the Gilmore girls.

Right from the very first episode I was hooked. The beauty of Netflix is that you can binge watch. I watched seven seasons in about seven weeks!

*** Spoiler Alert: I will make references to plot lines etc. so if you haven't watched the show, you may want to come back and read this later! ***


I found it a relief to watch a show that didn't involve a bunch of narcissistic, back stabbing, screwed up people! A show that didn't involve people being brutally murdered in every episode. A show that actually involved believable (if sometimes very odd) characters as opposed to superheroes, aliens, space travellers, vampires etc.

It was also super nice to watch a show that wasn't so formulaic every episode.  Criminal Minds - serial killer on the loose - team must figure out who it is and catch them! Same thing with CSI Miami - someone found dead, with crazy and entirely unbelievable forensics they solve the crime.

Gilmore Girls was a little bit different every episode. Sometimes there were parties, town festivals, extravagant dinners at Richard and Emily's house, road trips, and without fail, coffee. Lot's and lot's of coffee. At Luke's Diner, of course.

At the heart of the show, of course, is the relationship between Lorelei and Rory. At first I was quite shocked by how close they are. To be honest, I haven't met too many people that are that close to their mom. It's rare to call your mom your "best friend". They sit right next to each other on the couch, they tell each other everything, they share clothing and jewellery, they have the same taste in movies and have regular movie nights where they re-watch their favourites. They even cuddle in bed! This is certainly not something I've done since I was a kid!

Then there were the boyfriends! I liked Luke and Lorelei together. I guess right from season one we are made to feel like they will probably get together at some point. However, we had to wait four seasons for that to happen. Luke is a great guy who has a big heart and was constantly showing Lorelei how much he cared about her by all the nice things he does for her. He cooks for her, he renovates for her, he is just always there for her when she needs him. I loved all of the episodes of them together as a happy couple!

I had a hard time watching season six, with the breakdown of Luke and Lorelei's relationship. As usual it always comes down to communication. If Luke had been open with Lorelei about April right from the start they could have made things work. I also think that if Lorelei had been open with Luke about how she felt they could have somehow worked it out. Instead she bottled it all up until she finally blew it at the end. Very disappointing.

Therefore, after everything that Luke did, I really didn't see them getting back together. I really wanted Luke to make a huge gesture of his love for her, over many episodes. Instead the series ended with a pathetic kiss at the very end. I didn't feel that they had really reconciled enough to get to the point of kissing, so that was pretty disappointing too.

I won't get into Max and Jason. They were ok guys, but nothing really exciting and it was kind of obvious that things weren't going to work out between them. By the way, what ever happened to Alex?

I kind of hated Christopher. He was cute and they had a shared history, but he was trouble for Lorelei. The amount of times he let her down was a bit heart breaking. I was so disappointed when they got back together in season 7. Though at the same time, I found their break up to be disappointing too. It just seemed a bit quick, they never really sat down and talked about anything. He read the letter that Lorelei wrote about Luke (which was just a friendly thing she did so that he could have access to see his kid legally) and that was it. Over. Kind of pathetic.

As for Rory's boyfriends, I don't think I have a favourite. I think that every boyfriend came along at the right time and contributed to how she grew as a person. Therefore, probably none of them were perfect for her long term, but all of them were perfect for the time.

I loved Dean at first. He was cute, friendly, thoughtful, loyal, kind. He had a lot of great qualities. But he was boring! He had average intelligence, and very little in the way of personality. He was totally devoted to Rory, which was one of his best qualities. But I don't think he could offer much to Rory in terms of fun and witty conversations.

It was therefore not very surprising that she then became infatuated with Jess. He was new to town, so there was a lot of mystery surrounding him. But we find out right away that he's the "bad boy". He smokes, skips school, defies authority and is extremely cute. He is completely disrespectful to every authority figure he encounters, and therefore he is a mostly unlikable character. However, he becomes quite taken with Rory and does do a few really sweet and romantic things for her. She becomes quite addicted to his attention, despite being rather unfair and cruel to poor Dean.

In the end he proves to be a rather despicable person the way he just leaves town without saying good bye to Rory. It might be a bit cliché to say that Rory needed that heart break to grow as a person. That she had her taste of the bad boy, and the heart break to go with it. That she got that out of the way when she was young so that she could then move on to a more mature and deep meaning, respectful relationship. But honestly, I don't think that anyone deserves to go through that. He constantly let her down, and she was such a sweet girl it was just plain unfair.

Then we meet Logan. I must confess, that despite everything he was my favourite. He did tick most of the boxes. He was very cute, very smart, witty, romantic and filthy rich. The rich part is superficial, but it did allow him to be over the top romantic to Rory by being able to shower with elaborate displays of affection. Like the time he arrived by helicopter so that he could have a romantic dinner with Rory on the roof of his apartment.

He was really kind and generous, allowing Rory to live in his amazing apartment while he lived in New York. He would give Rory the moon if he could. He really was a sweet heart. I loved the time he gave Luke a present to give Lorelei for Valentine's day so that he wouldn't look bad next to him (he had a nice gift for Rory).

But ultimately, he was young. He was only 20 or so. He had a lot of growing up to do. Therefore, he was rather immature in ways, and a bit irresponsible - particularly with money. I was disappointed when they broke up though, I did think that they were a really nice couple.

Now onto a few other characters that we got to know on the show.

Well, we can start with Taylor. One thing that kind of annoyed me was his dictatorship over the town. It was sometimes mildly amusing, but at other times it was pretty grating. I was so happy when Jackson took over the job and was looking forward to seeing a more humbled Taylor. But then a few episodes later, Taylor was back in power again!!! No one ever addressed how that happened! I mean, only a handful of people actually voted for Taylor in that election. If Jackson didn't want the job, there should have been another election! One of the annoying things we aren't supposed to notice or question as viewers I guess.

Another thing that kind of bothered me was Lane and Zach. I thought Dave was a much better match for Lane. For one thing, we are led to believe that Lane is intelligent. We are also led to believe that Zach is a complete air head. How did these two end up together? It was rather sudden to me, the way that Dave had suddenly gone to California to college. There was no good bye, no real focus on that issue. He was just gone. They were doing a long distance thing. Then suddenly she had a crush on Zach. I was just like, what happened to Dave?

I loved Gil! Actually I was a huge Skid Row fan back in the day, and even saw them in concert. So yeah, seeing Sebastian Bach on a t.v show was pretty darn cool!

I actually really liked Babette! I thought that Lorelei and Rory were a bit cold to her. She was a really sweet neighbour that was always willing to help out. They did reciprocate, but they were always giving each other looks when they were at her house, and they never wanted to spend much time with her. Maybe it was her unusual attachment to her cat? I did get a bit of a chuckle when Babette was pushing her cat around in a stroller through town! Or the time she held a funeral for her cat.

One final thought. In the final episode there is a huge going away party for Rory. I have to say, while Rory is a pleasant enough girl, was she really such an amazing person that it would be likely that a whole town would get together for a farewell party? It kind of reminded me of how the people who are the most self centered seem to be the most liked. Where as, really kind people seemed to get pushed aside. I'm not saying that Lorelei and Rory never did nice things for people. But overall, everyone was always doing nice things for them, and they didn't really reciprocate much. Lorelei did a lot of sewing for people. Could that really be all that it takes to become the town celebrity?

*** I can't wait for Gilmore Girls to come back in November! ***