My Montreal (Goodbye Montreal)

When I left Edinburgh at the end of May last year, I was sad. Deep stuff KD, please do bear with me. Obviously I was also excited; my departure marked the beginning of summer. It also meant I was one step closer to starting at McGill. However, at that point, the overwhelming feeling was a negative one.

That was because I knew what I'd be missing. I love Edinburgh, deeply, and by the end of second year I knew it very well. All the more, Edinburgh is at its best in early summer. The pink blossom in the Meadows and the yellow gorse illuminating Arthur's Seat. Most of all, I knew there were some hard goodbyes to be said, people I wouldn't see for as long as eighteen months. There was a whole series of them, each more unpleasant than the last. But, at least I knew I would be back, they would be back, and Edinburgh life would resume.

Then there's Montréal, then there's McGill. Despite having only arrived eight months ago, I feel this goodbye is going to be equally, at least initially, difficult. And that's not purely due to my penchant for being overly sentimental.

People say university life is a bubble. Time and time again, fellow exchange students and I have reached the consensus that our time abroad is a smaller and more pristine bubble within that still. Not "better" than any other university experience, but unique. We're all aware of this, and late night conversations have regularly come round to this and inevitably end with us in agreement about how lucky we are to have been provided with this opportunity. You see, it is this "exchange bubble" that makes its bursting so difficult. Its brevity calls upon you to seek adventure constantly and make the most of every experience, because the clock won't stop ticking on (an unfortunate realisation when faced with McGill finals season.) It is constant excitement and, I will admit, a lot of pressure. The lovely fizzing pressure behind a ripe champagne cork though, not a horrible pressure. Granted I have felt under a lot of nasty pressure this year, but more often than not it has been self-inflicted..

Due to this, there is a surreal intensity to life away. Friendships forged run far deeper, and new adventures are sought out daily. This is a good approach to life, and a lesson learned for people like me with a habit of taking everything a little too seriously. This intensity is what makes Montréal so difficult to part with in many ways. It is a place filled with all these strong emotions, and it is these that have lead me to have such an affinity with it so quickly. For one thing, I have been overwhelmed by the genuine friendship offered to me by so many McGill students as well as by members of the Montréal community. (If you think I am writing about you, I am. Every smile in the corridor, every invite offered and all the other little gestures are the main reason I will miss this time so much.) Travelling the breadth of Canada - quite literally I have now travelled the entirety of the West-East Canadian railway now - has been a very successful exercise in making Montréal feel like a place to come home to: a place of warm faces and familiarity.

Yet, unlike my departure from Edinburgh or even my teary goodbyes when I returned to Canada after Christmas, I have no definite date set for my return to Montréal. More so, by the time that I do come back, I think almost certainly near all of those who I will miss most will have departed too. I have a friend who worries our exchange will rapidly feel like a dream. Writing this out now, I can see why.

Ultimately though, I don't need a day circled in my calendar. There is no doubt in my mind that I will be back: to the city, to Canada, to North America. The fondness with which I will remember this year is draw enough. Exchange has been so hard, but also the time of my life and - as the cliché goes - has provided me with the space, time and impetus to develop and strengthen as a person. Being away from what you know (Canada isn't a totally alien culture, of course, but it has proved at once more and less familiar to me as time has gone on) and who you love allows you to evaluate, to truly value, the relationships that anchor you to go. And endless thanks must be said to each of those anchors, without whom I would undoubtedly have been a (more) frequent mess this year. Distance teaches you what, and who, home really is to you. And it is certainly a more abstract and complicated place than I once thought!

So while there are many smiles that I won't see for far too long, and many views I'll have to keep in my mind's eye for now, I know that while leaving is sad, it is far more truthful to say that Montréal has made me so happy. It isn't home, not really, and it will be wonderful to be back in the U.K. However, contrary to my initial apprehensions, it came far closer to being so than I could ever have imagined.

À la prochaine, Montréal.

Now, bloody hell, someone pass me a Yorkshire Pudding.