Summer started early (actually on the very first say of June, on my birthday, with 25 degrees + temps and only one "cold" day and now the smog settles in the metropolis, just in time for the annual zoom zoom invasion, that is F1 Grand prix. As usual i wanted to get away as much as possible from the city during that event which attracts thousands of baseball cap-wearing turds and attention-deficit impaired drunkards.
We went north to get some peace and quiet (and maybe a bit of a dip in cool water) and drove through Laval. The palindrome city should actually be Hell spelled backward because we had to drive up by taking another route than the 19, which borders agricultural lands, thus plunging in the midst of suburban pandemonium, filled with failed development projects (abandoned box centres, car dealers-cum-junkyard managers, fast food outlets with disgusting names like Patate Dépôt).
No wonder everybody is speeding on that four lane boulevard. The environment is so depressingly ugly I'm wondering why Laval does not have the highest suicide rate in the whole province. Then I remember that most suburbs and cities in Quebec look like that billboard and half-empty parking wasteland. Is this really what we want to leave for our kids? A place for complete alienation and dependency to the Big Brother south of the border (and, indirectly, the Chinese dragon)?
So we left the brown and grey of the city for the grass and beige of the suburbs. Good thing people live there 'cause... seesh.
I got back a bit late for a party organized by a student in anthropology celebrating her trip to Argentina. Since I arrived around midnight, everybody was more or less drunk, except for one neighbour doing his Ph.D. in mathematics. We talked about education of children, music in the Eighties and trying to find a balance between studies, research and having fun... When we talked about learning languages (he is learning Arabic), the discussion immediately led to people getting away from us in 3rd gear.
I left a couple of minutes after cutting a watermelon in pieces for half of the partygoers.
I cycled back home on Notre-Dame street. Part magnificent part horrible-looking, with some of the old tramway tracks still embedded in the pavement visible sometimes, making me hope that they will be used someday.
Posted by phonono at juin 12, 2005 11:54 PM