From Winnipeg to Montreal in Three Months Flat

Well, here we are once again. After an absence of almost four months, I've decided to come back and do some blogging again. While I wasn't blogging I was moving my life 2000km east, and am now comfortably installed in Montreal, the land of film festivals, bike lanes, bookshops and rapid transit. Having been born and raised in Winnipeg, it was not an easy decision to leave, but after nearly 25 years I was ready to try something new. Since my first visit in 1999, I always thought in the back of my mind that I might want to try and make a go of it out here, and now seemed as good a time as any. Better to have a go now while I'm still young. If I don't like it after five years, I can always go back (or move on), and I still won't even be 30 years old.

In the coming days, weeks and months I'll be writing quite a bit about what it's like living here, especially about how it differs from life back home (as I still refer to it... for now). At this point, it's officially the longest time in my life that I have ever spent away from Winnipeg. In 2001 I did a 13-week internship with the Government of Quebec in Quebec City, but it's now over 14 weeks since I moved here.

Another young Winnipegger flees the city of his birth. It's that same, depressing, oft-repeated scenario, but at least I didn't move to Calgary or Toronto...