The Honeymoon is Over

Subway of Seoul - serving 20 million people

The honeymoon period is wearing off and I'm getting antsy. I've been back in Canada a little over a month now and the impulse to run back to Korea gets stronger everyday. Classic case of 'Grass is always greener' syndrome. Everything Montreal seems a little strange. There aren't enough people roaming the streets, but the grocery stores feel sterile under the florescent lighting. The Metro seems filthy and bank machines smelly. My body is adjusting poorly to Canadian foods- craving bibimbap and kimchee (which I keep stocked in my fridge). My head is also getting tired of lazing about the house and searching the web for jobs. I'm beginning to question whether or not I was being too optimistic by saying I would not return to customer service. Although I still feel I shouldn't have to. It's odd how much Montreal has changed, and yet it has stayed so much the same.

In 2006, Montreal...

• Concordia University has finally completed their towering Visual Arts Building

and the Theater Department has taken over the Grey Nuns Convent

• Has wasted an obscene amount of money on machines that accurately count
  

your change on buses- so the days of riding for ten cents less are long gone

• Has extended the hours for meter parking to midnight on week-days and soon enough

will also nix the free parking on Sundays.

• Most cafés, chain or not offers Wireless Internet

• Cinéma du Park closed down & re-opened again

• City Hall voted to rename a historic Montreal street after a man who never lived on it. Park Avenue will soon become Robert Bourassa Boulevard- a move even the Bourassa family objected to. Poor Mordecai Richler must be rolling over in his grave.

• Montreal smokers have long been paying an extra tax to pay for the construction of
  the Big O (built for the 1976 Olympics). Thirty years of smoking has finally paid for the monstrosity which, we expect will soon be torn down.
• In unrelated news, Montreal passed a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars, prompting many smokers to call it quits. Interesting that the ban comes in at the same time as the Big O is finally paid off.
  

Montreal Metro- serving three million people

The adjustment to being home hasn't been easy- but I was well warned. It seems most people who leave experience this same sense of frustration and unease at returning home. I get it even when I return to Calgary to visit. It makes me wonder whether Montreal will be home in the long run, though. Or even Canada for that matter. The endless string of taxes, expenses and over-priced services are pushing me to consider that perhaps I could be happier elsewhere. For the moment I have enough questions on my mind, though- where and when to go back to school, what jobs to consider taking, what countries next to travel... Perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself - Step 1- Find a job...