Mission. Accomplished.

Geez, when I say I'm disappearing for a few days, I really mean I'm disappearing for a few days.

OH HI EVERYONE

Please pardon the absence, I have spent the past month and bit splitting my time between working and focussing on the completion of a couple of list items. And oh boy, oh boy, were they accomplished to the extreme.

Before I begin to speak of a few successes, I think I need to publicly admonish myself first. I have been slacking on a couple of numbers, and #89 (publicly blogging about the progress of the list) has certainly been one of them. BAD MARISA. A half-assed post about Darren Criss will no longer suffice! It doesn't matter how dreamy he is!

Anyways. Just another moment of me kicking my blog caboose into high gear.

#44. Improve my French.

So I somewhat took this to the extreme. Who has the time and money to actually enroll in a language class when I can go to Montreal instead?

Okay, so financially, my decision didn't make the most sense, but it ended up being much more of a life-lesson than a chance to complete a number. Let's back up a bit though...

My French, c'est terrible. Embarrassingly so. The majority of my girlfriends are quite fluent in the language; and if not fluent in that one, fluent in another. I've always admired bilingualism and, while Pig Latin is a great party trick when you're 8, it just won't cut it when you're 24 and looking to become a little more cultured.

This realization aside, I decided to make a sudden announcement at work after a particularly hectic day of reading bad scripts: I wanted to get out of town for a few days.

"Oh fun! Where to?" asked the Boss.

I hemmed, and hawed. I didn't know where. I just wanted a break from the office routine, despite all the exciting calls from hyper agents and producers alike. I wanted to go be by myself and get out of my skin while all the while learning what's under my skin. Not a heavy order at all, right?

"MONTREAL!" I announced. Of course! Montreal. Amazing, fancy, freezing Montreal. It was decided. I would go by myself to have fun on my own terms while hopefully utilizing another conversational winner than "Ou es le biblioteque?" "Le biblioteque est dans l'enfant." "Quoi? L'enfant mange le biblioteque?" "Oui." ( Listen, I have weird friends, okay...)

Besides, Montreal is beautiful and so is everyone who resides there. Legitimately. With this knowledge, I knew I would have to pack my most luxurious winter gear (re: turtlenecks).

The Fairmont in Montreal was having a decent winter sale (y'know, since its Montreal...in winter) and I booked my ViaRail tickets well in advance. The prospect was all very well and exciting to me as I had never taken a mini-break by myself nor taken the train. And no, I don't live in a bubble, just there are a bunch of things I've yet to experience in life! I had visited Montreal plenty of times with family when I was younger but this would be the first solo visit without any sort of plan. Before I left, my friend Shannon helped me learn a few key phrases so I didn't look like a total idiot as I bumbled my way through the city, including Je voudrais pratiquer ma francais, donc, si vous plait, parle en francais pour moi and Ma vocabulaire n'est pas la meilleure- the latter of which I used quite a bit.

This was my room. I thought the hotel staff would soon discover I was staying by myself and kick me out, Home Alone style. Then I remembered I was an adult and had a real credit card and stuff.

I wish I could write here about all the neat, exciting, and life-threatening shenanigans I got up to Montreal, but to be perfectly honest, all I did was shop, eat, and sleep. By my standards, this was the vacation I truly needed. I didn't do any touristy things - heck, the only photos I took were of my room and a couple of meals. I wanted to immerse myself in the city, and if that meant shopping at Simon's and exploring the underground city instead of checking out the cathedrals and Biodome, then so be it. It also meant that as I walked into store (after store after store), I was greeted and told all sorts of promotional deals - IN FRENCH. That's right. They couldn't smell the Anglophone off of me!

For the most part, I found myself understanding what was said - it was the communicating back that was difficult. I stepped into an American Eagle one morning and after the initial bonjours were exchanged, the peppy salesgirl spoke to me in a flurry of francais that seemed to last for 5 minutes. Embarrassed, I hung my head in shame and admitted "Sorry, my French is terrible. C'est terrible." She laughed and surprisingly looked embarrassed herself. "Oh! But your accent was so good!"

I beamed. Sure, I know it's probably because she wanted a sweet commission, but it still made me feel great!

I learned that I'm shy in new social situations where there's a potential communication barrier, a fact about myself that I didn't consider before. Shy. As in, crippling shy. Perhaps this is why I often choked on Shannon's phrases and resorted back to English. Luckily, those I talked to didn't mind speaking back en Anglais and were happy to shut down any theory that I was making a total jackass of myself.

All in all, it was a great, beautifully quiet trip. It gave me enough time for a lot on introspective thinking as well as the chance to look at all the pretty in Simon's. I was also blessed to meet up with a dear friend and see him act in some amazing theatre (www.igettowritemytripoff.com)

Montreal is just what this little soul needed. I'm not quite sure if my education of the French language improved, but I'd say throwing myself into an unfamiliar scenario and learning how to express myself, in either language, was success enough.

Do you smell that?

Hmm..it smells like..

A BONUS POST!