Flabby brain and squish-squish cheese

I have not used my brain for at least a week. I've been staying in Mont-Royal with my friends Emilie and Julie - and they've been doing all the thinking for me. The muscle is already seriously flabby by now.

Julie works at Notre-Dame Basilica as a tour guide, so we've been given the VIP tour of the place. Absolutely beautiful. It's where Celine Dion got married - contain yourselves - and a must-see for anyone visiting Montreal. Julie has had the good fortune of meeting a bevy of celebrities which include Mathieu Kossovitz (the French honey from Amelie), John Corbett and Zak Braff. I want her job.

Emilie is a student at university and Research Assistant. Which means she gets to tell her boss "I'm working from home" when she is really out shopping. Oh, to be a student again. I want her job. She recently broke-up with her ex who sounded like a complete asshole - good riddance. As a result, we have been helping her through these difficult times with serious Retail Therapy. I don't know if it's been that therapeutic for her, but it certainly has done wonders for me! I met Emilie 5 years ago on a Haggis Tour in Scotland. We were the only two people travelling alone. And we both got a cold by the end of the 3 days. Two peas in a pod?

It has been a most gastronomical experience thus far. I have developed a rather unfortunate sweet tooth. Even the snow that has turned to sludge continually reminds me of Frrrozen Hot Chocolate. Folks - I'm talking chocolate and profiteroles for breakfast. I've become addicted to homemade chocolates, hot chocolate, Oreo biscuits and maple syrup butter. I feel a coronary coming on. I will, at least, die laughing in the company of my Canadian partners in crime. However, they may have to haul my body out of the place with a forklift. A combination of cold weather and an array of food lovers' cafes and restaurants has meant that I am now eating like a horse. You'd think I was pregnant.

Which I'm not. Pigs do not fly yet.

I have also developed a fondness for poutine - the national dish of the Canucks. It's the equivalent of bangers and mash for the English (and yes, I'm aware that I am making sweeping essentialist generalizations right now - but I'm not the one writing an essay to be graded). Poutine - it's so bad, it's good. Chips, gravy and with a healthy pile of cheddar cheese on top which squeaks when you chew it. I'm not kidding.

Adam Hill and Wil Anderson said it was gross when they were in Montreal for the Comedy Festival earlier this year. I'd like to dispel the myth. It only looks gross. It actually tastes very good - once you get over the sound of squish-squish of the cheese.

May the road not meet up to meet you(r ass)

Montreal, Canada. I'm out and about in the trendy and spendy area of Mont-Royal along St. Laurent. It is a shopper's paradise. I will never again pay full price for anything. It's the post-Christmas sales, and when the Canadians say "Sale", they really mean "BIG SALE". 50-75% off is the norm. When something is 30% off, you feel jipped.

Let me paint the picture. Sunny afternoon and it's pleasantly warm (considering it's the middle of winter). The ground is covered in yesterday's leftover snow that has melted into slush and is starting to resemble one giant Frrrozen Hot Chocolate without a straw. I'm in my Tokyo get-up: boots, faux fur-trimmed jacket, skinny jeans, that just-got-out-of-bed hairdo, leather gloves and new Louis Vuitton wallet. I've just bought my Quebecois jacket - Saio & Kyo - which I have been hunting around for days. Tweed has never looked so good.

When I leave the boutique, I am one step away from punching my fist into the air in a Rocky-I-rule moment. With cup of Joe and chocolatine pastry in hand, I'm doing John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. I've got that in-time-to-the-music gait. Oh yes. I'm feeling good. No - I'm feeling f*#*ing fabulous. I'm Shopper Extraordinaire. I'm Napolean (though considerably better looking but just as short). I can do no wrong. Heck - even my French sounds better today than it has any other day. I am invincible. I'm living it up in Montreal.

That's when I slip on the ice.

Coffee flies all over me and I screech "SHIT!" as I fall ass over tip. I am spread-eagled on the sidewalk. At this point, I realise that all this has happened in front of a cafe that is chockers with people.

I leap up, pretending nothing has happened and continue walking down the street - 'walking' being an understatement. It's more of an undignified limp complemented by a bruised knee and squished ego. Miraculously, I have still managed to keep my pastry and cup of coffee in hand. I figure, if I hotfoot it fast enough I can hope to escape the embarrassing scene and the witnesses. And of course, I still have coffee all over me and a most conspicuous look on my face as if I've farted in a crowded elevator and everyone knows it was me.

Nature has a funny way of reminding you that no matter how hip, flashy and fabulous you may feel, reality will always bring you (and your ass) down to earth.

I'd like to borrow from the wise words of the South Park people at this point: Blame Canada.

It's The Final Countdown... minus big hair

Times Square. New York City, Manhattan. New Year's Eve. The final countdown to farewell 2005. The start of 2006 is nigh. Watch the ball drop to ring in the new year.

Watch the ball drop to ring in the new year. Remember that.

I head out to Times Square and am there by 12.30pm. I have about 11.5 hours to kill before I celebrate with a million of my closest friends - and I do mean 'closest' quite literally. I bag a spot right by the stage around 42nd Street. I become best buddies with a Colombian nanny who works in Queens. Luckily, she is no Fran Drescher. We're surrounded by a bunch of South Carolina folk. One of them is a surly fat girl with tacky pink glasses which make out the shape of '2006' - the frames are made from '00'.

I am feeling good, feeling great.

3 hours later, the cops tell us they're shutting off this block. Did I mention that we've all been sitting here for 3 hours already? A few thousand of us are shunted down the road, evicted like squatters on someone's stoop.

No matter, there's always a silver lining somewhere. I plant myself in front of Mickey D's, which is on the opposite side of the street to my original spot. I'm on my own now. The Colombian nanny has disappeared. It has snowed and rained in the 3 hours I have been camped out in Times Square. Oh joy. I seriously need a toilet break and food. Living on a pastry for the whole day and being dehydrated is not how I want to spend New Year's Eve in 'the world's greatest city'. I join the 30 minute congo line for the loos at McDonald's, then go in search for 'wholesome food' in Times Square. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. Or a street without a homeless bum.

By the time I return, the police have blocked off the area into 'pens'. I can no longer get back to the area I was initially at. I mill around and try to get as close as possible to the city centre for the next 1.5 hours. The nearest I can get is 49th Street. I am deeply peved off.

The cops open up the pen, and the crowd surges forwards. I shift down a block. There is a large crowd of merrymakers already gathered, but it's not too crazy as yet. Of course, it is only 5pm. 7 more horus of standing in the cold and wet. I shimmy my way over to a barricade and am subsequently surrounded by people who don't speak any English and who smoke like chimneys. It is a sign to move on. And none of them looks like snogging material. There is an okay-looking fellow, but I don't think his girlfriend would appreciate a complete stranger planting a big wet one on him.

Shimmy some more. The closest I get is 48th and 7th Avenue. I tell off some ugly red-headed moron from some European country en route to my final destination.

Christina: Excuse me, I'm just going to squeeze through.

Ugly Guy 1: You want to pass through?

Christina: Yes.

Ugly Guy 1: Okay. Pass through. (sarcastic tone - he and Ugly Guy 2 purposely stand side-by-side so I cannot pass).

Christina (raises voice and does 'teacher impersonation'): If you're not going to let people stand in that space, then at least let them pass through. (points accusingly to the circle he and his ugly friends have made and will not let anyone occupy, then gives them a very serious "I Want To Kill You" glare).

Ugly Guy 1: Oh. Okay. (not sure how to respond to the 4'11 midget telling him off).

He and his friends part like the red(head) sea.

Ugly Guy 2: Oh, we'll let you pass since you're so small. (let's out stupid laugh, delayed reaction).

Christina: (thought bubble appears over her head) Dumbass.

I refrain from "And you're ugly" remark. I am much more dignified than that. Besides, 1 of me. 7 of them ugly mugs.

As usual, I snake my way to a good lookout spot. I am perched on a barricade with an excellent view of the proceedings. Big neon signs and a clear view of the ball that drops in Times Square to mark the end of an old year, and the start of a new one. I make friends with two ladies around me. One is a 30 something psychiatric nurse from Yuma and a 63 year old trendsetter with a penchant for fully intact weasels wrapped around her neck that once had Clint Eastwood even paying compliments. The two feed me chocolate truffles and keep me entertained... for the next 6 hours.

One has not truly experienced 'cold' until one has sat on a metal pole for 360 minutes, and frozen their derriere off in sub-zero weather. But I brave the cold... just so I can see that ball drop at the stroke of midnight.

Every hour in the final few hours, fireworks go off from the top of the Renaissance Hotel and confetti shoots out. Some idiot throws toilet paper from the roof at one point. We watch and laugh as it floats down. It is stained brown. We're glad it falls on the crowd on the opposite side of the road.

The night goes off. I am getting wet, cold, numb and tired, but my spirits are high. I also admit to myself that I will probably never do this again. Once in a lifetime. First and last time ever. Next year, it will be a hot and humid New Year's Even in the southern hemisphere where the water flows clockwise down the toilet.

The last 2.5 hours go by surprisingly fast. There's something to be said about the cold numbing the pain. I am beyond frostbitten and tired. I'm ecstatic. Ecstatic not only for the new year, but also so I can extract my bum from the metal barricade and go use a toilet. Once you leave the pen, you're not permitted back in - which makes me wonder how many people pee their pants just so they won't lose the spot they've been guarding for the last 7 hours.

And then it arrives. The last minute. The crowd starts to go off. Cameras flash more times than a dirty old man in a trenchcoat in front of school girls waiting at the bus stop. The sound of the merrymakers begins to boom and there is a rush of energy. I watch the countdown on the big screen and am screaming out the numbers with a million of my new close friends!

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! FIREWORKS! MORE CONFETTI!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

There's a whole lot of hugging going on. A myth, however, is dispelled. People do NOT snog complete strangers here on NYE. There shall be no fish lips tonight.

Myself, Evelona (stylish 63 year old), Tania (psychiatric nurse) and Keven (creepy 26 year old from Montreal with bad acne and a laugh like one of the muppets - who I suspect has been trying to make the moves on me - ew) go for drinks and breakfast afterwards. Tania treats us all because she is so happy to have met solo travellers as nice as we (obviously, she does not think Keven is creepy - and I suspect that she is trying to set me up with him - ew). I think she also buys me breakfast because she may have mistaken me for a 17 year old destitute student on my first big trip away from home. Go figure.

And as we eat breakfast, I realise one extremely important detail about tonight.

The ball dropping in Times Square.

I forgot to watch it.

I was too preoccupied with the countdown on the big screen.

How the hell did I ever get my Bachelors degree, let alone a doctorate? That uses up all my blonde days for this year.

So, I need to return to do Times Square again. Properly. Come rain, snow or sleet.

Just so I can see the ball drop. I need to return for that 10 seconds.

Oh, and yes - that is my lame excuse for another trip to New York City.