On a side note I found this great Podcast site for learning French:

Learn French by Podcast

I plan to give it a whirl on my mp3  player while I walk to and from work.  The site’s been up and running for a few years, so if you want to start at the beginning then you have to go back to 2006 for their First Lessons.

and I bought the perfect condo in Pointe St. Charles: new electrical, new plumbing, original hardwood, tastefully renovated, in a beautiful 3 story 1910 walk-up.

This is big news for a few of reasons:  1) owning property feels weird (good, but weird),  2) after 16 years on June 1, 2009 I’ve moved out of Mile-End, and 3) I love The Point… I really love The Point…

I had been in Mile-End for years, been in love with Mile-End for years, been in the same apartment for 13 years, and never had any real desire to leave.  I found it strange when I realized that I needed to buy something, and that there was no way that I’d be able to afford to own in Mile-End.  What I should say is that there’s no way I’d be able to afford to own anything larger than a shoe box or a basement in Mile-End.  It was a strange day when I realized that I was going to leave.

[shopping... it was horrible and I'm not going to talk about it -- though I did have a great agent]

So now I’ve been in The Point since June, and it feels like the right place to be.  From what I see the point has deep roots, a dynamic diverse community, and a lot of architectural/urban planning quirks.  It’s old… one of Canada’s first industrial slums, and it is still flavored by  the predominantly Irish and French workers who first settled it.

The Point is also undergoing some pretty turbulent growing pains.   It’s a poorish downtownish neighborhood that’s undergoing a lot of new developments (I’ll look at some of the various projects in future posts) with many groups actively opposing them (I’ll look at some of them as well).  Gentrification is as always a juggernaught… I’ve been slowing watching it roll over Mile-End for years, but in The Point it’s different, the gentrification seems to be happening quickly,  and it’s opposition is well organized and seems to enjoy a wide breadth of community support (they did stop the building of a Casino couple of years back).

I’m not really sure where I stand on these issues (IMHO: some of the developemnts are tasteless, and some of the opposition groups are radically retarded), but I’m definitly interested in watching it all unfold…  I love The Point as it is right now, and I hope I hope I’ll love whatever it becomes.

I can honestly say that I have no regrets about my choice of moving there.