Ellie's Brain

It began with a 9 hour drive to Massachusetts, at the beginning of which I sent up a little prayer that I wouldn’t feel like falling asleep. I’m prone to hallucinating on long drives when I get tired, which sometimes leads me to see a group of giant spools of thread rolling towards me on the highway…another time I saw giraffes. But this time, nothing! The prayer worked, and I only felt tired once.

It was cold when I arrived, and Megan somehow managed to sneak out without me hearing her. I was pleased to discover that Coco, her brother’s cat, was at the farm house, and I had myself a jolly time petting her, avoiding her constant, abrasive licks, and waiting to hear her raspy meow. If Pebble were a cat, I fully believe she would be Coco. This goes beyond the fact that they have identical bald spots above their eyes; it’s more so just a feeling I have.

We had pesto pasta with roasted veggies from the farm for dinner, which led me to poop 2-3 times immediately afterwards. It felt so good to be back.

~

The next day, we took our time setting out on the road. We both packed an impressive amount of clothing (an action that kicked us in the ass later on), and I left my passport in the trunk which caused much disapproval from the man at the Canadian border. Luckily, we passed through without further fuss, and we watched with pleasure as all the English switched to French, and the signs began to read km/h rather than mph. We were officially in CANADA!!!!!

We parked in a garage that was a 13 minute walk from our airbnb, and here was exactly when the amount of stuff we packed began to seem like a bad idea. We strapped ourselves with several bags each, and began the short trek over. It took some whining, but we eventually arrived at the apartment building with all of our bags in tow. The airbnb was a studio apartment in the heart of Montréal, and we found it to be exceptionally nice. It was an uncanny replication of one of those showrooms in IKEA, complete with all the bowls and cups being from IKEA. I said if this were a horror movie, it would be an IKEA showroom.

“A horror movie?” Megan said with raised eyebrows.

“We’d open the curtains and realize that the window just looks out to another showroom. And when we wake up in the morning, there’s families staring at us…” I trailed off, because I started to forget why I mentioned the horror part in the first place. It made sense in my head, but as I started to say it out loud it sounded like gibberish. Thankfully, we moved on.

It was already dark outside, the time being sometime around five. We both wore jeans to get dinner, and within moments of standing outside our legs were numb.

“I feel like I’m becoming hypothermic,” Megan said at one point during our walk to the food court. I was glad to hear her say it, because dramatic as it sounds, I was having the same thoughts

After food, we wandered into a Uniqlo store. Megan had shockingly never been in one, and this one was more impressive than any other Uniqlo store I’d been in before, mostly because it contained two levels instead of one. We wandered around the store, and I rated the mannequin’s outfits.

“That guy’s hot,” I said, gesturing to one of the faceless mannequins sporting a sleek trench coat and tasteful scarf.

“That guy wears circular glasses,” I said, pointing at another one wearing a beanie and collared long-sleeve.

“That guy’s hot,” I said, pointing at another one, dressed in nice layers.

When we left, we passed by another shop with three male mannequins in the window. They were wearing outfits with big logos splashed across the front and low hanging jeans.

“These guys are ugly,” I said, dismissing them with the flick of a mittened hand.

~

That same night, we stopped by the store on the way back and picked up two cartons, one of milk and one of apple juice. The milk was for the cereal I brought for us so we could save some money by having breakfast at home. I also packed four large croissants from a Costco pack. Every morning for the next four days we’d have a bowl of cereal with fruit in it (bananas for the first two days, then raspberries for the last two when we ran out of bananas), and a croissant (plain croissants the first two days, then almond croissants when we ran out of the plain ones). It was a grand start to the day, and a welcome change to be drinking proper cow’s milk again since so many of the people around me insist on drinking almond or oat milk.

We made plans to go to the Montréal Biodôme first thing, and took the metro over. It was one of the best moments of our entire trip. There were PENGUINS! And STURGEONS! And GOLDEN LION TAMARINS! The tiniest, most precious little monkeys you’ve ever seen. A friendly guide we met in the Polar exhibit took a liking to us and eagerly spouted facts about various animals in the different ecosystems. He was the kind of man who would shop at Uniqlo, so we took a liking to him right back.

After the magic of the Biodôme, we celebrated with a lunch of poutine. It felt like something we had to have while in Canada, and although I have no real complaints about it, it’s doubtful I’d ever order it again. Halfway through it became a chore to finish, and when I finally swallowed the last gravy-soaked fry, the whole mess of it happily plopped in my stomach like a brick. We jointly decided to walk the length back to our apartment rather than take the metro, in order to relieve the weight of the poutine sitting in our stomaches.

It was a cold, but pleasant walk back. We sat in the apartment for a bit, then ventured back out to split a falafel wrap at an excellent Lebanese place. The poutine had thankfully exited my system by then, and we left to go catch the new Wicked movie.

Before it began, a smiling worker came out to stand below us and welcome us to the movie in both French and English. He said he hoped we’d enjoy it, and left to the sound of applause from a bewildered audience.

Megan leaned over the seat and whispered, “He didn’t even ask us to silence our phones or anything…he was just…welcoming us to the movie?”

“I love Canada,” I whispered back.

When we left the movie theatre, it was snowing beautiful, fluffy flakes.

~

The next day we decided to kick our vacation up to the next level and go to a spa. We went for the “Thermal circuit” package which involved a sauna, cold plunge pool, steam room, hot tub, and “relaxation” beds. During my fist circuit, I was so relaxed when it came time to lie down in the beds that I dozed off into a peaceful slumber. When I woke up, Megan had already moved on so I continued on with the cycle at my own pace. Previously, it had been only us and two other women, but when it was time to go to the hot tub again, I was appalled to discover three pairs of couples. Each of them had occupied their own section across the same side of the hot tub, and each of them was intertwined in an intimate way.

I faltered when I saw this, and briefly debated on retreating back to the relaxation beds. But then I figured, no, this was my spa experience too, and I wasn’t going to let three touchy couples stop me from entering the hot tub.

With a grim determination, I entered into the hot tub, took a spot across from the three pairs, and closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see anything that was going on in front of me.

Later on, I went to join Megan in the steam room. The steam was so thick all I could see was a pair of feet on each side of the room. I took a wager and went to the left.

To my dismay, I was confronted with the sight of a man massaging his partner on a bench, her back arched in an impressive way. I immediately doubled back and hurried over to the feet on the right side of the room, which thankfully belonged to Megan.

I believe it was then this evening that we discovered “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.” Prior to this moment, there was talk of experiencing a night out in the city, going to a nightclub, and perhaps meeting some other young people.

After discovering this show, however, that was all out the window. Suddenly there was nothing more appealing than spending every evening with a homemade sandwich, barbecue chips, and a glass of apple juice, parked in front of our comically large TV and binging this show.

Sometimes we’d glance out the window, note the powerful wind and heavy-pelting snow, and nod in agreement that it was much better to be sitting inside, and, as I’d like to say, “catching up with our Mormon ladies,” than having to brave the elements out there.

~

There were moments though, when the weather felt inviting. Very close to our apartment was a popup Christmas market, and the constant snowfall made it magical.

“Walking through a Christmas market while it snows and Acapella plays through the outdoor speakers is a dream come true,” I told Megan, and I meant it. Pentatonix was blasting through the speakers singing a Christmas cover, the smell of wood-burning fires and warm cider filled the air, combined with swirling snowflakes made it all feel like we were walking through a Christmas greeting card.

Another evening we decided to go visit the Montréal Notre-Dame and catch the “Aura Experience” light/sound show inside. It was…odd? And a bit underwhelming, with an awkward ending. The church was packed, but the applause was weak and patchy when the show ended. I wondered out loud if our money would’ve gone further if we had gone to see “Zootopia 2” in the cinema instead.

The best part to me was watching all the tourists swarm to the front of the church afterwards, and getting pictures taken of themselves posing by the religious statues. Megan and I both agreed that if our parents were with us, they too would be asking us to pose at the front of the church and we’d end up with unflattering pictures of ourselves smiling unnaturally in the Notre-Dame. We were grateful to be traveling by ourselves.

~

The next day was Megan’s BIRTHDAY! She turned 25!! We celebrated with a nourishing breakfast of cereal, raspberries, and an almond croissant. Then we further celebrated by catching up with our Mormon ladies for one more episode while we packed.

Afterwards, it became time to make the trek back to the car, and it was somehow worse the second time around. Megan’s bags kept slipping from her shoulder, and when her luggage fell over, she was unable to grab it without disrupting the precarious placement of her other bags. Ultimately though, with only a little bit more complaining than the first time, we made it back to her car.

We began the drive back to the farm, stopping at a strange little pizza shack in Vermont along the way with an unnerving poster of Trump scowling at the front, and the words below reading, “NEVER SURRENDER.” Strangely, it reminded me of a poster Kristen gave me a couple years ago of Eminem scowling at me, made up of thousands of tiny Eminem’s. Though I was an undeniable fan of him at the time, the poster remained in my closet for years afterwards.

At a random point in the drive, Megan asked, “Would you ever take voice lessons?”

I confirmed if I had unlimited funds, it would most definitely become a high priority for me.

She told me that she could sing Adele songs because the lower register matched her voice, and I told her about the recent time I’d tried to sing karaoke to “I’m Not the Only One” by Sam Smith in front of my friend, and ended up sounding worse than I previously thought possible. Afterwards, my friend had sympathetically said, “That’s a hard song to do.” It was demoralizing, to say the least.

Back at the farm house, we poked around at Coco for a little bit (or at least, I did), roped Bonnie into watching another episode of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” with us, and then it was time for dinner! We were ecstatic to discover that Kerry would make us all dinner, so the Taylor’s all trooped upstairs and we got to have another meal together. It felt like being among family again.

After dinner Kerry disappeared, then reemerged holding a homemade carrot cake with candles on top. We turned off the lights and sang “Happy Birthday” to our beloved Megan. I let out a high pitched “WOOOO!” at the end, in the same cadence as the Mormon wives often do when they’re feeling excited about something. Shepherd immediately yodeled back, and we went back and forth squealing and whooping for a while until we were all satisfied.

Shepherd brought out his card game, which was the kid’s version of Cards Against Humanity, aptly labelled “Kids Against Maturity.” Arguably, it was more fun than the adult version, as this one was filled with ridiculous doodles and an abundance of poop-related jokes. Hearing Shepherd’s contagious giggle when every card was read out loud made it all the better, and there was a moment where I felt happiness in such an uncontainable way that I grew close to breaking out into tears over the card in my hand that read “Butt Sandwich.”

It was a very good end to a very good week.