Jenni Ajderian

     A late bus brought me not to the home of my next WWOOFing host, but to his uncle Clément, the sixty-year-old who responded to my explanation that I was on une année sabbatique (a gap year) with the explanation that he was on  une vie sabbatique.      Sitting in the midday sun at Marché Jean-Talon sipping face-twitchingly strong coffee, you could easily be convinced you were in Europe. Here in the depths of the francophone part of Montréal there is barely a shred of english in sight, and now in the absence of a travel companion (apart from the ever-loyal Boogie Bear, of course), I find myself feeling a little more intimidated by the city. Grand in every sense of the world, it teems with a life hidden in some respects by this language barrier and simultaneously improved by it.      Following a day of working in 36-degree heat, my new hosts came to pick me up. The trip back to the farm lasted an hour and drove us into humidity so dense my cheek went numb as I rolled down the windo

Jazz On The Park Hostel-      4 nights' stay with ISIC discount <$115      4 mornings' worth toast, eggs & coffee = free Attractions seen-      Statue of Liberty (from Staten Island Ferry) = free      Empire State Building (from the ground) = free      Time Square = free      Brooklyn Bridge = free      Band Leeroy Justice performing & filming video on Brooklyn Bridge = free      Central Park = free Museums-      MOMA = free (friday night)      Guggenheim = $1 (by donation saturday night)      the Metropolitan Museum of Art = $1 (by donation) Starbucks      Branches seen (so far) =  17    25      Money spent = $0 (see above, Jazz on the Park coffee) Food      New York Cheesecake = $4 (from a gorgeous deli / fast-food place near City Hall)      Pretzel = $2 (from a street vendor outside the Met)      Quaesadilla = $6 (from a nice little hole-in-the-wall near the hostel)      Hard Rock Cafe = $30 (because apparently the one on Time Square do

Three and a half days wasn't really enough for Montréal.      It's not exactly that there are thousands of things to do- not for a European, anyway- but just to soak up enough of the rich atmosphere would probably take another week.      As far from Vancouver as from Europe, Montréal is a truly bilingual city. Though all signs are written only secondarily, if at all, in English, most people speak both this and French, and maybe a couple more languages as well. One of my favourite things has been starting a conversation in English, et puis qu'on continue en Francais. The city is even roughly split in two by its two half-heritages, the business district ruled by the literal-minded anglophones and the cool centreville by les francophones who remain so proud of their language.      We managed to spend the weekend here going to only one museum- any longer touristy stay would merit visiting a couple more, considering their abundance in the city. This is one of those rare plac

On the 8 th  of October, 1871, Catherine O'Leary was out milking her cow.      It was the dead of night, so she had an oil lantern next to her, overlooking the fact that the barn was a giant fire hazard and that cows can get twitchy when someone's pulling on their udders.      Well, wouldn't you?      The resultant fire destroyed 4 square miles of Downtown Chicago and killed hundreds of people, leaving thousands more homeless. A third of the city's property value was turned to rubble, and over 70 miles of roads burnt up beyond recognition.      So, what do you do with a chargrilled city? You rebuild, of course. Nineteenth-century Chicago found itself in prime position for all the new waves- on the northern end of the Mississippi, and the hub of most trade routes, the 'Second City' had a huge influx of funding from the federal government which was easy to divert into its rebuilding. Turned out this was desperately needed, as the population just kept growing.

"Program Change: Earth, Wind and Fire will perform today, ARETHA FRANKLIN WILL NOT APPEAR" Yeah. Annoying.      Still, Iman, Ellie and I saw reams of brilliant musicians at JazzFest this year, both inside and outside the festival grounds. The calibre of the average busker is incredible in the Big Easy, as is that of the bands playing the clubs in town- often an artist will play to the JazzFest audience, who've payed up to $60 apiece for a day's ticket, then head to Bourbon Street and play to people who got in for five dollars, or even for free.      Trombone Shorty did it the other way around- on Saturday night he and his band Orleans Avenue played Tipitina's Uptown, finished at about five in the morning, had breakfast, then headed into the racecourse and did it all over again.      The man does not have a single bad review. Everyone and anyone you talk to about Trombone Shorty will say how great he is, how fun the show is, and sometimes how they'r