Paris, Je t'aime...

I just watched the movie Paris, je t'aime and I loved it. I liked that I recognized most of the places and landmarks even if I didn't know or remember the names of all of them...but the movie also made me very sad because I will be leaving the city soon. Worse is that I feel that I only have a couple more days in the city because after next weekend, I will be visiting other countries all except one weekend from Thu - Sun until the end of September and then will be gone up until the day before it's time ot take my plane back to Canada. I work Mon - Wed and usually get home really late so most of those days I stay home. That means that I only have two more weekends in Paris. Six more days to go out in the day and enjoy the city. Less than a week. And so I am sad.

I have been wanting to add to my Oh To Be In Paris list for a while...well, every day I think of something but as of these past two weeks, I get sad to even think about the list because I know that I won't be in the city/country much longer. I will try to put up one last list before I leave.

I know my blue mood today was heightened by the weather - so sad and dreary. Friday it was overcast and rained the ENTIRE day. That was bad enough but it didn't finish there. Today was basically almost the same thing. And today was to be my finally-maybe-actually-going-right-up-and-under-the-Eiffel-Tower day. Yes, I still haven't done it because I have either been going out or putting it off because of bad weather, mainly going out these past two months. So much so that now it is almost at the now or never stage. Then the movie made me think I should go to the Père Lachaise cemetery although I hate cemeteries. But Oscar Wilde is buried there! And I have to go back to the Louvre one more time!

The weather wasn't the only thing putting me in a somber mood. The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games also made me sad. Every four years when they out the flame and sing or play the depressing song or score that they inevitably always choose to mark the moment, I cannot help the tears that usually start falling if watching the ceremony by myself or with my family. Today it started from when they were showing the medallists from each day on those LCD screens above the stands of the ''Bird's Nest''...Ooo la.

Anyways, four years always seem like such a long time to wait. Four more years to make up for a missed medal opportunity. Four more years to imagine where each person will be during the next games. Four more years to discover the next crop of world class athletes. Four more years before such a large portion of delegates from basically every single country in the world mingle again. Four more years...anything can happen before then...So although I prefer it like this, it is still sad. I think too of the athletes for whom this is their last Olympics or for whom this will be their only Olympics...that's what always gets me...frack I think too much.

When I was younger, like many kids, I used to dream of being in the Games. My cousins, my sisters and I used to ''compete'' among ourselves for all types of sports but one of the later ones I remember us doing was the long jump. Part of the main floor in our house was built on an open floor concept. This meant that there were no walls separating the kitchen from the everyday dining room from the everyday living room. However the living room had a parquet floor while the dining room, adjacent to it, had a tile floor. We used the point where the two types of floors met as our ''jump off'' point. We would run the length of the dining room (sometimes starting as far away as the kitchen just beside) towards the living room and then take off, i.e. jump, just before we reach the parquet. Then we would measure how far each person jumped. Furthest jump = winner - just like normal competition. Of course, you would be disqualified if even a piece of your big toe went over the ''jump off'' point before you jumped. The hours we would spend doing that...until my parents couldn't take the noise any more...at which point they would tell us to stop causing a racket. Then we'd go play basketball, badminton or football. Now you are probably thinking we were between seven and eleven, maybe twelve, years old when these household long jump competitions would happen. Oh no. I remember doing this up until I left for college...when my younger cousin, who is only 2 years younger than I, would visit. LOL.

Here Comes The Cold Again

Nature has decided that it is time for the season to really change here in Toronto. It is getting cold and I am getting more miserable. The funny thing was that a few nights ago I slept only in my underwear because I was so dang hot. The very next night, I had to go dig up my thick blanket because I was freezing. Just like that it went from being hot and sticky (lovely weather in my opinion) to cold and dreary (at least to me).

Although I am the only one in my family not born in a tropical climate, I think I love the heat more than the rest of them. Well....maybe not more than my mother. At the first whiff of cool weather, turtleneck sweaters make a comeback to our daily wardrobe, our winter clothes are placed in the most easily accessible parts of our closets and drawers, and our thick blankets return to our beds. Our thoughts naturally turn to Christmas time because in Jamaica when you start to feel the cool breeze during the day, aka the Christmas breeze, this is a sign that Christmastime is near.

Nonetheless, the cold temperature is the single most thing that I dislike about Canada. When I just arrived, I thought Toronto was bad but then I went to Montreal during the summer....I thought Montreal was bad until I stayed in Quebec City this past summer. I have to say, to me, Quebec City was entirely too cold during the summer. The locals tried to make it seem better by saying it was the coldest summer ever but I had stayed in Montreal 2 years ago and they didn't fool me. During the summer in Montreal and Quebec City it was barely ever warm all day. In the mornings and nights it was ALWAYS sweater weather. Man, if it wasn't for good company and a little alcohol on some of those nights to warm my stomach, I would have been miserable.

Granted, I'll admit that I am a bit extreme in my definition of cold weather. Once I cannot feel the sun's caress on my skin and the temperature goes below 22C then that is cold.

Anyways, here's to fall and all that it brings.

By the way, I cannot wait for Christmas - my favourite time of year.