Reclaiming My Independence in Montreal

One of the things I heard most about Montreal besides the fact that it has the best poutine in the world and the fact that it gets extremely frigid during the winters; is that it's essentially the party city of Canada, with a close second being Toronto. For the last couple months or so I've been dipping my big toe into the rave scene, so this knowledge made me extremely curious. And with the addition of discovering this club called Stereo, which allegedly has one of the greatest sound systems in the world, I was pretty much sold on going.

There was another not-so-fun reason that I decided to go, a more intensely personal and spiritual reason which ultimately lead me to trekking 543 km by train, walking through -17° weather, and spending as much money in three days as I normally do in three months. This reason was the desperate attempt at reclaiming any semblance of my own individuality, identity, and independence following my extremely painful breakup earlier this year.

One of the main things that stemmed from this unfortunate event, besides the sudden cessation the utterance of the phrase: "I love you" from my lips, a phrase that I haven't said since (a tragedy in of itself), is the swift dissolution of so much of my already baseless identity of my 21 year old self. You see, when you don't have much of sense of who you are, a symptom of youth, you learn to lean on other people for that stability. First, its most likely your parents, then its partners, and then hopefully (with some growing pains) you develop into your own.

This was one of those growing pains of my life, and the only two things that really made me feel some faint appearance of life within my soul were:

1. Dancing to loud techno music with a room full of strangers and;
2. Not being at home

So I used those two key principles to embark on this trip completely solo for one key reason, I felt like I had to do this alone. I felt like I absolutely needed to prove to myself that I am capable of travelling alone, despite my disability and despite my extreme social anxiety. I needed to do this. On a microscopic level, there was something that bothered me about this constant need for have somebody in my life. Somebody to share things with, just having somebody else, not me. It didn't make sense why I couldn't just enjoy things for myself, and rather needed to enjoy it with somebody else.

One side thing to note about me is that for all of my youth, I hated going outside. I'm not quite sure whether it was because of my chronic addiction to the safety and anonymity of the internet, my extreme social anxiety, or the fact that I was socially drained each day from school (or all of the above) but I was the most reclusive person you'd never see. There was even a point in my life when I was literally too afraid to walk a couple blocks from my own house, how times have changed...

So to say that this was outside of my comfort zone would be such an understatement that it would be a borderline insult to call it that. However in all fairness, even the place that I always considered to be my zone of comfort for so long no longer felt like a desirable place to be. In fact, my room was now a consistent source of painful memories, the feeling of entrapment, and downright stagnation. It no longer felt like a place that I can grow in but rather a place which was stifling my growth; a prison cell of sorts.

I won't bore you with all the details of my journey because quite frankly I don't believe it to be a super important part of the narrative, even though riding a train for the first time since my visiting of China in 2014 was a welcome addition to the trip. I'd started The Brothers Karamazov in audiobook format read by Geoffrey Giuliano, which is overall a very delightful book that I cannot wait to write about.

Hotel food review!:

Poutine - 7/10 - Honestly pretty disappointing because Montreal is literally known for its amazing poutine. The cheese was lacklustre, the fries were extortionately thin, and the gravy was cold. The poutine at my local Costco is infinitely better.

Cheesecake - 10/10 - Quite possibly the best cheesecake I've ever had, hands down. The surface of it had a slightly tough exterior but the interior was extremely creamy and delicious, It's almost akin to a creme brule in the way that it was constructed. Also the berries in the center were divinely sweet and creamy.

Burger - 6/10 - Pretty disappointed with it. I think It's because I had Five Guys earlier today which is literally the absolute peak when it comes to burgers. Enough said.