A trip to Montreal

It was this year's ASA meeting. I came back today, with a great impression about Montreal.

I rented a bike for three days, and biked every single day. I think I covered almost every cover that three-day biking can cover. This place was very european. People looked relaxed, weekdays and weekends. A lot of Cafe, very few cellphones. Mostly white, especially blonde. People look slimmer than a generic American. Ladies are attractive and guys dress very well. Food are quite expensive, but my sample is only in tourist place. People bike in the city all the time. In fact, when I passed by apartments, a lot of families have bikes on their balcony. I guess that's keep them fit.

I biked in small streets with bricks paving the way. I tried it fast, so that my whole body was shaking violently along with my mountain bike. It might cause some brain damage already. It reminded me the movie "cinema paradise", my favorite non-English movie so far. I also biked far away along the bike trail. Once I saw a random fox, and once I saw handrens of people gathering in a park, dancing in uniform, just like you will see on TV of the group dance in Europe.

Once I was walking on the street and realized that the guy in front of me was smoking pot. I stayed in a shabby hotel with friend Brian. He had a hard time sleeping, probably due to the prolonged sunlight time. I hope it was not because of my snore (do I snore at all? I do not know.) One night he taught me how to play "risks" game, which he installed in his computer. He told me that was how he killed time when he drove up and down in Carlifornia prison system for his interview. I learned it quickly. Within two hours, I kicked asses of 7 computer-controlled players. I guess video game can always bring me joys, as if the success is too rare in real life, so I treasured every single opportunity to enjoy even I know it was sorta fake.

Overall, I attended maybe 3 sessions in total (including the one I presented a paper in a roundtable session), met with two universities through employment service, met a good future contact on the airplane, biked about 60km to cover the city, visited 3 museums, watched 1 3-D IMAX movie, passed numerous parks, saw the most romantic marriage propose in my life ( the guy contacted a street performer a month ago to make sure he and his girlfriend would be picked as "innocent" volunteers that day. After they suffered some fire and knife hazards, the guy got on his knees and proposed. The girl was in a shock, the guy was in a satisfying smile, and everyone else was sheering. Quite something, isn't it?)

See http://picasaweb.google.com/songhua/200608Montreal