This morning everything was looking up, I woke up early, got my butt in gear and set off to campus for a productive day of studying. On they way there I stopped at the bakery and purchased a delicious baked good to sustain me until lunch time. Called the sportif, it is the love child of a whole wheat bun and a scone. Shaped like a ball, it's made with whole wheat flour, and has sultana's and hazelnuts. A meal in it's own right, I imagine it would be perfect for hiking and all other sport-type activities. Now, as I was standing in line for the bakery I noticed a sign advertising that the bakery would be open on May 1st and 8th. I thought to myself, "so what" and continued on my way without giving it a second thought. About halfway to campus I began connecting the dots, there was a disproportionate number of families on the bike path and I had not seen a single tram. I decided it must be some kind of holiday, and I began to question whether or not the library on campus would be open, but decided that because of the proximity to exam period it must be. Arrived on campus, it could have been a ghost town. By this point I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that the library would not be open, but decided to check anyways. Indeed, it was not, as it turns out neither was anything else.
As yesterday's lunch was rice made with vegetable stock, and dinner was chickpeas with 2 apples and 2 kiwi's, my food situation was in a pretty sorry state. Both of the major grocery stores that are normally open were closed (along with everything else). I had nearly given up when I arrived downtown and found even Monoprix (open on sunday's from 8-12pm!) was closed. Much to my surprise the St-Claire market was open and the Uniprix (corner store) was also open all morning (wow!). A word of advice, if you want to do anything on a national holiday you can pretty much forget it, and if you need food you had better go out before 12pm, otherwise you will hard pressed to find anything other than coffee.
Most shocking of all is that the tram doesn't run at all today. The main mode of transportation downtown just flat out doesn't run today. Too bad if you depend on it to get around... though I guess since nothing is open you theoretically don't need to go anywhere. Anyhow I have since discovered that is the fete du travail today (labour day). After I had hiked up to my room, rather defeated I noticed an unreasonable amount of noise coming up from the city. I was rather upset because I figured I had missed some kind of parade... but it didn't take me long to figure out it was a protest. Seems that it's actually a tradition, on labour day the french protest unemployment, salaries and anything else they feel is unjust that related to work. This year it also seems that things are particularly charged because of the upcoming elections in early may.
So I am currently being treated a concert with lots of screaming fans as the sound from the city rises to my mountain top abode. Oh what a life, should I mention it's no less than 20 degrees today? No wonder I find it hard to study. Because of this, you should scroll down as I have also written a long overdue blog about a portion of my trip to Morocco that I hope you'll enjoy. At least my procrastination is paying off in some way.
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