Its going to be a brutal 4-5 months....

 After multiple, surprisingly awkward, sessions of beer pong, we managed to find ourselves challenging our upstairs neighbors for the neighborhood title. Needless to say, after 6 hours of playing, the championship games was abruptly cancelled due to technical difficulties.  But here is the deal, in Finland we have this thing called "viinaturisti", which is pretty much used to describe finnish tourists around the globe. The morning after, me and Ville officially identified ourselves as "viinaturistit". We're supposed to be here for 5 months? we've been here a week and I feel like I'm 20 years older. Remember kids, studying is hard work.

The Ultimate Fratboy collection 

During the past week, it has become more and more clear to us, that the Canadian price levels were not as low as they were supposed to be. If we keep this up, in 4 months, we're either going to perish or we'll have to prematurely cash in Ville's 401k, whichever comes first really. On Friday we visited terraces bonsecours, a local club located in the old port of Montréal. Now, if you like paying $10 for a cup of beer and going through ceaseless airport security checks just to get your drink knocked out of your hand by some random stoner going apeshit on the "dancefloor", the place is for you.

Also during this past week, we've finished our research on Canadian beers. Conclusion: they're all horrible.

Now for the serious part....

So far Montréal has been an extremely friendly place, even the cashiers at grocery stores are nice, and mind you, nice is an attribute rarely found in Scandinavia.

The city itself is a beautiful place, a sort of U.S meets Europe, and exploring it is relatively easy, as the subway system is extremely simple. But hey, what can we say really? We've been here for what? 9 days? Its not like we know everything about the city. Funfact #1, In Montréal, the highest building (le 1000)  is as high as Mont Royal itself, the mountain that the city was named after. For me, that seems like a much better measuring stick to how long a building should be, instead of the typical Finnish 3-story concrete block from the 70's.

Le 1000 

View of Montréal from the Olympic Stadium Tower

Our studies start next Monday, until then, we'll keep on exploring the city and the culture in order to be actually able to write something relatively useful in here.

Good places in Montréal

- Restaurant/bar Les 3 Brasseurs, relatively cheap and good stuff. Poutine burger ftw right? This bar is also a microbrewery, which makes the dining experience unique.

- Montréal rapids ride, Saute-Moutons. A thrilling jetboat ride where you get pretty much slapped in the face by 3 metre tall waves. Nothing wakes you up better than getting 10 litres of water thrown in your face with extreme force.

Saute-Moutons

Dat Fashion

Since we featured the cat shirt on the first blog entry, we will have to continue to supply the readers with hipster-esque clothing. So here's a penguin shirt Ville bought....

Penguin Shirt from Urban outfitters

Bonsoir!

This blog is mainly about the experiences of two distinctive people from Finland taking an actual chance and going to Montréal to study for 5 months.

Hi, my name is Niko and I am a 21-year old finance student from Finland (Aalto university school of economics, or Aalto Biz, whatever they may call it nowadays). I have lived my whole life in Helsinki, Finland, and am now willing to share my "exchange" experience with the staggering two or three people reading this blog. Have a laugh.

...And my name is Ville, I'm the co-author of this blog. I've known Niko since high school and now we're both in the same faculty, living in the same flat. I've spent a good portion of the year living abroad even prior to this experience. I call myself an expatriate yet I dry my hands in a HIFK playoff towel. Go figure.

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Welcome to Montréal...

Ok so here’s the deal; I have this tradition of boarding trans-Atlantic flights hung-over as Fruit loop. So, as we say in Finland, it obviously was a “salee-ihan-hyvä-juttu” to stay up drinking until 4 AM on the night before. I guess Niko managed to get some sleep onboard the Airbus, while I listened to Kirka and Päivi Lepistö (=our collaborative Midsummer ’13 playlist) and watched HIMYM for the duration of the flight.

After an exhausting immigration process we exited JFK International, hollered an (almost) legit cab and headed for Manhattan. The mere sight of the impressive skyline makes a man humble. Long story short, we ended up discussing serious business with some Israeli UN mission guys on a rooftop bar, enjoying a warm New York summer night and mediocre US beer.

Dat Stock Exchange

In the morning we took the Adiron-duck (whatevs spelling) train to upstate NY, visiting exciting global party venues such as Poughkeepsie, Albany and Plattsburgh (Go Plattsburgh Penguins!) before entering the Great White North.

Our neighborhood in Montreal is “Portuguese-Jewish-Greek” (according to Lonely Planet). In my experience, it resembles New Jersey. Don’t take this wrong, I love the Garden State. It just looks a lot like Jersey, maybe a bit less tanning salons, but still.

On day one, still suffering from jet-lag, we visited important Canadian sights such as Tim Hortons, Centre Bell and the Dollarama Store. We also bought a flag of Quebec (landlady approves) and a bottle of Finlandia Vodka, as well as some fine Canadian beer (Sleeman Brothers, anyone?).

Our second day included e.g. more aimless wandering up and down Ave Mont-Royal, additional visits to SAQ and purchasing the most awesome cat-themed shirt ever (they really shouldn’t let me near any hipster-esque shops, otherwise I’ll come home a complete pretentious douche).

P.s. We also came up with a game to play in Montreal: At any point of time, when standing at a place with a good 360 degree view, if you can’t see a church tower, something happens. We have yet to come up with an outcome, as we are still looking for a place in Montreal that does meet this criterion.

Peace, I’m out (Here’s also a pic of my most awesome shirt)