The Month Of Montréal: July 2023 Recap

And with that, it’s August and summer is winding down. Time makes no sense 🙂 . While I grapple with that, let’s see what I got up to during the month of July!

I Moved To Montréal, Canada!

After a quick stop in Upstate NY to say hi to some family, we moved to Montréal! My Partner and I had previously been here twice in the dead of freezing winter, but were told the city is completely different in the summer so we decided to check it out – and we’re so glad we did! From the very second we touched down it was a fairytale – filled with hilarity 🙂 :

Canada Border Patrol: What are you doing in Canada?
Me: Vacation.
CBP: What will you do on vacation?
Me: Eat.
My Partner: I hear your bagels are good.
Me: 🤦🏾‍♀️
CBP: What do you do for work?
Me: I'm retired.
CBP: 🤨……..Lucky you. NEXT!
Me: 🤷🏾‍♀️🤣
2/2

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) July 12, 2023

In addition to other chuckle inducing interactions like that one, we had a fantastic month. We loved Montréal summer so much that only days after arriving, my partner suggested coming back for 3 months and/or adding summer in Montréal to our annual plan. That’s high praise!

We stayed in a high-rise condo for the first time since we started our nomad life 3 years ago and enjoying the building’s many amenities (such as a rooftop pool, gym, spa and various game rooms and lounges) proved to be a lovely unexpected perk. Starting my day by swimming in the pool and soaking up the sun before hitting the gym (or running along the water outside), was absolutely lovely. Spending the rest of the day walking all over Montréal, stumbling through using my high school French and eating all the delicious food in sight was a real treat 🙂 .

Anyway, enough gushing. I’ll go into everything I loved and learned about Montréal in my usual Slow Travel Review that will be out in a few weeks. I’ll also be sharing pictures of this fancy high-rise we stayed in on Instagram in a few days so look out for that 😉 . Now back to my month!

I Brushed Up On French

…but not enough 🙂 .

Despite rarely using French when I visited Montréal in the past, I wanted to brush up just in case before this visit. And in doing so I discovered that I hadn’t lost all of my 7 years of French learning like I thought I had!

I familiarized myself with French phrases beforehand and found that my accent came back almost immediately as well as the ease of saying the words, but what didn’t come back was my ability to understand what other people are saying and respond in real time AKA the part I found most challenging when I learned Spanish in 2022.

Luckily my Spanish helped me decipher written words, but spoken French sounds like music – just like Spanish did before I started learning it. So I’m definitely going to study way more intensely before returning to Montréal and might sign up for an intensive language class like I did for Spanish in México.

I Went to Ottawa!

…which is apparently the capital of Canada! Geography is obviously not my strong suit 🙂 . It was a quick visit, but I had a lovely time and got to explore a new kind of train travel, which I wrote about here:

• Review: VIA Rail Canada Train – Ottawa to Montréal

I don’t usually venture out of a city I’ve moved to while traveling because I like to spend my time in one city and feel like I live there, and a month is barely enough to do that in my opinion. But it was fun to see what another Canadian city looked like, especially since my only experience outside Montréal included Vancouver and Nova Scotia.

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I Learned Spanish

Despite living in the land of French Canadian, I’m still practicing my Spanish – sometimes accidentally 🙂 :

Progress

In addition to Spanish accidentally saving my ass in that situation, I also read a book that had conversations in Spanish without translations and I understood it all.

On our plane to Canada I also read the airline safety instructions in Spanish without a problem, which is awesome since it’s not just casual words and includes more professional language.

Based on all of the above, I’ve found that my brain has been switching languages a lot faster lately, which is an awesome improvement!

I Played Video Games

Basically, this:

Zelda: Breath of the Wild got its claws in me 🙂 . I was watching my Partner play through the new game (Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom) this month and it inspired me. I had previously tried playing Breath of the Wild, but almost immediately starved and froze to death while running away from monsters so I gave up 🙂 .

But I tried again and with more coaching from my Partner I got over that initial hump and immediately jumped into playing 8-12 hours a day. It’s addictive, but super fun and it was cool to see that I could enjoy an adventure/story based game instead of an open world one like my usual, The Sims.

I Hung Out With People

This month involved some of my usual virtual meetups, such as that weekly Spanish call with my Mom and Weekly Movie Nights where we watched the below. If you’re curious about my ratings of movies, I have a Letterboxd account here.

1. Oppenheimer
2. The Two Faces of January
3. John Mulaney: Baby J
4. Johnny Mnemonic
5. Tom Segura: Sledgehammer
6. Ambulance
7. The Big Short
8. Super Mario Bros.

In addition to the lovely times above, I also hung out with a friend’s colleague who lives in Montréal. It was really cool to hear about the city from a local and see things through their eyes.

Also, this very blog continues to help me make friends all over the world. I spent a lovely weekend with my friend Mel from Modest Millionaires, met up with a reader for coffee at their request and also hung out with the wonderful Kassandra Dasent.

I Read 20 Books

This month I read:

1. Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
2. The Ashes And The Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent
3. Rookie Mistake by Anna Zabo and L.A. Witt
4. Scoreless Game by Anna Zabo and L.A. Witt
5. The Bodyguard by Katherine Center
6. Convergence by Etta Pierce
7. Resilience by Etta Pierce
8. In the Middle of Somewhere by Roan Parrish
9. A Witch’s Guide To Fake Dating A Demon by Sarah Hawley
10. A Collection Of Monstrous Stories by Lily Mayne
11. Cutting The Braid by Jett Masterson
12. Teacher Of The Year by M.A. Wardell
13. Whisper Into The Night by Jay Leigh
14. Mile High by Liz Tomforde
15. Don’t You Dare by C.E. Ricci
16. The Right Move by Liz Tomforde
17. Get A Life, Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert
18. Take A Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert
19. Act Your Age, Eve Brown by Talia Hibbert
20. The Princess Trap by Talia Hibbert

It seems that every month this year I’ve gone a little wild over a new author and this month it was Talia Hibbert. I read 2 of her books in one day and just wanted to keep being in that world so I read the 3rd in the series the next day and then just wanted even more of her so here we are!

This seems to be a trend with me this year that I couldn’t be happier about. Thanks to recommendations and reader subreddits, I keep finding new authors that I really enjoy.

I’ve waded through some less than ideal books as well to get there, but every book and every piece of writing is part of someone’s journey to be better and I’m also excited to see what those authors who I didn’t enjoy reading this month write in the future. Everything is a stepping stone 🙂 .

Anyway, as for those authors that I instantly clicked with – I’m obviously super grateful for them and both love and hate that despite how much I read, that there’s no way I can ever read all the great things in the world 🙂 . Anyway, I’ll focus on the positive for now.

If you’re curious about what I’m reading and my ratings of these books, I have a Goodreads account you can check out here.

I Wrote 4 Posts

In case you missed it, this month I published the below posts:

1. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023 Recap
2. How Retirement Is Like College (And Why I Love Both)
3. Cheers To Half A Decade Of A Purple Life!
4. Review: VIA Rail Canada Train – Ottawa to Montréal

In addition to those posts, I had an interview with a company that shares the stories of creators. I’ll let y’all know when that’s live in case you want to check it out.

And now in this month’s edition of “the wild west of my blog email inbox,” someone wanted to pay me $1,000 to join their influencer platform. I don’t know specifically why, but I’m more suspicious if people offer me a lot of money upfront to do something I’ve never heard of so that’s a pass for me.

I was also contacted by a life insurance company, a tax service and a Spanish-English virtual assistant service for a partnership. While the last intrigued me, I don’t think any of that is my wheelhouse.

I was also asked to go to another Chicago influencer event and to join a company I haven’t heard of that has people pay to have questions answered and refunds them fully if they’re not happy with the response. I haven’t heard of that business model before, but I don’t think that’s for me. I feel weird about taking money to answer simple questions that I do for free on social media and this blog.

Physical

Sleep

I’ve been sleeping really well! I acclimated to metropolitan living really quickly after arriving in Montréal and have been sleeping through the night without problem. I guess the Canadian air agrees with me 🙂 .

Food

I got back on the keto train for two weeks before arriving in Montréal and eating everything in sight…and I have no regrets. The food here is delicious and wildly priced.

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Exercise

Running continues to go well! I’ve been setting new PRs and even found a mental trick to make me run even more often. It’s called “if I’m showering anyway I might as well run beforehand”… it totally makes sense right 😉 ?

I had a 6 day running streak going in Montréal, which was helped by the fact that we had a fabulous gym in the building and I could run there if it was raining when I wouldn’t want to run outside. However, I apparently didn’t stretch enough because the last few days my muscles were failing me. I also may not be young enough for these kinds of streaks anymore 🙂 .

I also accidentally went on a hike…Oops 🙂 .

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In between all that, I’ve been walking all over Montréal. In fact so far, I haven’t even used public transit because I prefer walking. I doubt that will stay true before we leave, but that’s a lot of miles logged on these legs.

Mental

Learning

So it’s time for my favorite segment: Fun Facts Nobody Asked For! Here’s what I learned and explored this month:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

• Montréal has a population of 1.7 million people with the metro area including 4.3 million people. This makes Montréal the second largest city in Canada after Toronto
• Canada overall has a population of 36.8 million people, about 1/10 of the US

• Montréal was supposedly named after Mont Royal, the giant hill in the heart of the city. I’ve climbed Mont Royal many times and never made that connection until my Partner mentioned it this visit 🙂
• Montréal is an island – Somehow I missed that the last two times I was here

• During our 3 years of nomad travel, my Partner and I have brought 1 spice with us: Montréal Steak Seasoning. And for an unknown reason, I never made the mental connection that this spice is FROM Montréal *facepalm*.  Apparently the spice mix is based on a dry-rub mix used for preparing Montréal smoked meat, which was introduced to Montréal by Romanian Jewish immigrants. In fact, the Montréal deli Schwartz’s was credited with the creation of Montréal Steak Seasoning
• The amazing Cirque du Soleil is from Montréal and there are more than 40 circus troupes in this area

Astronomy

There wasn’t a lot of stargazing this month sadly since I was in the middle of a metropolis for a lot of the time. However, I did see a few stars when leaving the city and before I arrived saw the first full Supermoon of the year, which was 5.8% bigger and 12.8% brighter than the moon usually. Also, a Supermoon is when a full or new moon is at its closest approach to Earth.

In vague sky-related news, I saw Fireflies for the first time in a while in Upstate NY and in Canada. I don’t know if I just haven’t been paying attention and they were there the whole time or what 🙂 , but it was cool to see.

Flora

This month I tried to take note of plants I haven’t noticed before in NY State and obviously anything interesting I saw while in Canada. Here are the standouts:

NY State

Eastern White Pine, Pink Lady’s Slipper, Purple Loosestrife, Wild Carrot, Canada Mayflower, Eastern Hemlock, Red Clover, Common Yarrow, White Meadowsweet, Purple-flowered Raspberry, Tufted Vetch, Wild Sarsaparilla

Montréal, Canada

Common Milkweed, Chicory, Bird’s-Foot Trefoil, Staghorn Sumac, Common Valerian, Common St. John’s-Wort, Red Clover, Oxeye Daisy, Tansy, Crap Apple Tree

Fauna

I saw a surprising number of animals while hanging out mostly around major cities this month. Here’s what I saw:

NY State

An Eastern Chipmunk, A White-Tailed Deer and my FIRST TIME seeing a Groundhog and a Red fox.

Canada
Northern Map Turtle, American Toad, Common Loon (which is on Canadian money!) , Eastern Chipmunk,  White-Tailed Deer, Eastern Cottontail Rabbit

Birds

I also saw a great range of birds despite being in cities, including:

NY State

Gray Catbird, Tufted Titmouse, Mourning Dove, Black-capped Chickadee, American Robin, House Wren, Song Sparrow, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Bank Swallow, House Sparrow, Blue Jay, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Cardinal, Barred Owl and a Wild Turkey (and a baby!!!)

Montréal & Ottawa, Canada

House Sparrow, Red-Winged Blackbird, Mallard Duck, White Squirrel, Black Squirrel, Song Sparrow, Cooper’s Hawk, Blue Jay, Red-Eyed Vireo, Cedar Waxwing, White-Breasted Nuthatch and Swamp Sparrow

Creativity

My creativity has been great this month! I’ve been getting a lot of ideas while walking around the city and exploring the world. Writing is flowing and I’m excited to start on Year 6 of this blog being public!

Emotional

My emotions were lovely this month. I learned a lot, have been exposed to a new language, ate a lot of delicious things and have enjoyed a lot of poolside fun. In addition to that, it was amazing to meet new friends in Montréal and feel so comfortable in another country. I suspect the amount of sun that’s present in the summer also had a bit to do with this, but overall it was a great month.

Money

I started actually paying attention to my money last month, but then this happened:

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I already wasn’t stopping myself from buying anything, but after hitting that milestone again, I don’t even feel pressured to check up on my budget as I go through the year. It’s interesting to me how my feelings on money vacillate from “Fuck it” to “I should check my budget” to “I have way more money than I ever planned so there’s no need to check the budget.”

Another reason I haven’t felt the need to check my budget this month is because I know sudden expenses resulting from travel delays and cancellations are covered and won’t come out of my pocket:

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So I’m back to buying everything without checking the price tag. Despite the lovely life I’m living, it’s not impacting my budget in a big way. I’m curious to see how this approach nets out at the end of the year, but it’s currently looking more than fine.

Conclusion

And that’s what I did in July! I’ve had a fantastic time in Montréal and am not ready to go back to the states 🙂 . However, that just means I need to start planning my return!…just as I’m already doing 😉 . Next month I’m heading back to the Northeast US before finally taking off on my Australia/New Zealand trip that my Mom and I started planning in 2018. Until next time!

If you’re interested in the other weekly and monthly retirement updates I’ve written, they’re all here:

Weekly (2020)

1. Early Retirement Week 1: The Freak Out
2. Early Retirement Week 2: The Vacation
3. Early Retirement Week 3: The Whiplash
4. Early Retirement Week 4: The Heartbeat
5. Early Retirement Week 5: The Election
6. Early Retirement Week 6: The Trophy
7. Early Retirement Week 7: The Train
8. Early Retirement Week 8: The Challenge
9. Early Retirement Week 9: The Question
10. Early Retirement Week 10: The Game
11. Early Retirement Week 11: The Recharge
12. Early Retirement Week 12: The Holiday

Monthly (2021)

1. The Month Of Rest: Early Retirement Month 4 (January 2021)
2. The Month Of Birds: Early Retirement Month 5 (February 2021)
3. The Month of Change: Early Retirement Month 6 (March 2021)
4. The Month of Atlanta: Early Retirement Month 7 (April 2021)
5. The Month of Portland, Maine: Early Retirement Month 8 (May 2021)
6. The Month Of New Hampshire: Early Retirement Month 9 (June 2021)
7. The Month Of The Northeast: Early Retirement Month 10 (July 2021)
8. The Month Of New York State: Early Retirement Month 11 (August 2021)
9. The Month Of City Hopping: Early Retirement Month 12 (September 2021)
10. The Month Of The Southwest USA: October 2021 Recap
11. The Month Of Santa Fe: November 2021 Recap
12. The Month Of Family: December 2021 Recap

Monthly (2022)

1. The Month Of Freezing My Balls Off: January 2022 Recap
2. The Month Of Thailand: February 2022 Recap
3. The Month Of Spring(?): March 2022 Recap
4. The Month Of México: April 2022 Recap
5. The Month of Mérida: May 2022 Recap
6. The Month of Seattle: June 2022 Recap
7. The Month of Washington State: July 2022 Recap
8. The Month Of New Hampshire: August 2022 Recap
9. The Month Of Maine: September 2022 Recap
10. The Month Of Acadia: October 2022 Recap
11. The Month Of Argentina: November 2022 Recap
12. The Month Of Holiday Cheer: December 2022 Recap

Monthly (2023)

1. The Month Of Snow: January 2023 Recap
2. The Month Of New Hampshire: February 2023 Recap
3. The Month Of Sea: March 2023 Recap
4. The Month Of California: April 2023 Recap
5. The Month Of Seattle: May 2023 Recap
6. The Month Of Chicago: June 2023 Recap

How was your month?