(no) news from the city

your weekly weather update: hovering around 12 C, often annoyingly windy, today rain, which from inside the comfort zone of my kitchen makes me feel submerged in some kind of woolly underwatery realm where something's slightly off. (but, i mean, i think just 'slightly' is an improvement!?) still no blooming trees. all the daffodils i've seen (very few and far between) look undernourished and traumatised.

like, look at these deadly pale crocuses in front of my landlord's house

so i guess focusing on the joys of the urban landscape remains the only viable option for the rest of this month. this episode's focus, the place d'armes metro stop. randomly chosen because i was meeting melanie there yesterday and i had a few minutes to look around. so these photos were all taken within 100 meters around this stop.

palais de congres/place riopelle. 

same place, different wall. 

right outside the metro stop, chinatown in full splendor

but because chinatown borders on a portion of laurent, some 'grittiness' is unavoidable. here goes

old brewery mission, a place i' heard much and more about. hadn't seen it from this side til yesterday though. 

so montreal

and moving just a few steps, partial view of this city's notre-dame

a bit further away, i met with a cultural dilemma:

well, my dilemma has nothing to do with the question, or if so only very obliquely. no, it is about ticket prices for theater. i really wanted to go see this play, so i go home, get on the website of the theater etc. it's 42.30 dollars, with taxes. instantly i was like, ok, too expensive for me. but the frustration is in where you draw the line, and how such lines get drawn.
back in vancouver i had money for nothing, which was frustrating in a different way. now i`d maybe pay 25 $ to see a play i wanted to see. 43 is...not super outrageous, but still outrageous for my possibilities. like, i am very tempted to just get defiant and pay that money to go see it. to prove to myself that i'm a person in this place for whom cultural events are not out of bounds.
still, there's something very bothersome about the situation, and i thought if i rant about and around it a bit more (on more than one platform, apparently), maybe i'll figure it out and come to partial peace with it.
ignore the obvious solution, which is 'you have to start earning more'. shouldn't  students, for example, see plays? i dunno. like are plays for successful artists and secure middle-class citizens?
says the girl who had just half an hour before contemplated buying a pair of sandals for 127$.
but you don't understand: i can and would wear those sandals for more than 5 years. they were displayed there, i saw what i'd be buying, i touched them, tried them on. the 'theatre experience' -I'm paying for the elusive promise that i might...treasure it forever????
so we're getting back to a point which makes ME sound materialistic/mercantile and therefore non-artistic or -deserving of experiencing art, even if i could pay for it. or something. 

this rant was almost completely unplanned, just so you know. but hells i'm leaving it here.

in other, more cheerful, culinary news: this week marks 2 firsts: i fried my first plantain (liked it!!!) and i tried my first s'mores sandwich. very exciting! (i made a mess of it, of course, twisting the marshmallow and stabbing it with biscuit pieces but ok that's pure carmen m.o.)