: Driving to Montreal :
This is the first in a series of posts recounting my trip to Montreal and gender reassignment surgery with Dr. Pierre Brassard, which took place on January 8, 2007:
As a lot of things in my life lately, the trip to Montreal was quite the adventure, and unfortunately not in a good way.
First of all, I had to work pretty late on Friday night (Jan. 5, 2007), and then there was some kind of police investigation that shut down a lot of trains from Penn Station, which made the station a madhouse and caused me to miss my train home. So it was a pretty stressful night even leading up to the weekend, but at least I felt like I got everything done at work that I needed to do before I left.
Saturday morning I got up at 9 a.m. to pick up a silver Ford Taurus from the local Budget Rent-a-Car. Since Yoshi (my 1999 Honda Odyssey) is getting a bit long in the tooth, I figured it would be safer to have a newer car for the trip. Plus, it made it more convenient for me to disconnect Yoshi's battery for the duration of the trip and my recovery, since I wouldn't be able to drive anyway. I drove the rental car home and continued to pack, but I was struggling with my emotions the whole morning, crying a lot and such, not for any particular reason, just being emotional, probably from my lack of estrogen and the significance of the day. I had been instructed to stop hormones three weeks prior to surgery, and I did so with mostly minimal effects.
Once I finished packing, I ran some last-minute errands - dropped off my books at the library, picked up my dry cleaning and emptied my mailboxes. I went to my family's house, loaded their stuff and left around 3:30 p.m., a bit later than we had planned, but figured we would still be okay if we made good time.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. In upstate New York, a light came on the dashboard that read "Check Transmission." We stopped at a service station and checked the fluid level - it was normal. Since it wasn't something we could fix ourselves, we decided to play it safe and change out the car at the Budget office at the airport in Albany. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than we expected, as many of the same-size cars either did not have a CD player (a requirement), only had two doors, or had smaller trunks. After going back and forth on three or four cars, we finally found a silver Hyundai Sonata that we could live with. At this point it was around 8:30 p.m. and we knew we were going to be late, so we called Madame Chantal, our host at the Gite du Marigot bed and breakfast, to let her know what was happening.
The rest of the trip went well, as the Hyundai drove much better than the Ford. When we got to the border, we were surprised on how easy it was to get in - just a few questions and showing of our driver's licenses (and my new passport). Probably by next year, passports will be required for all U.S. citizens to re-enter the country from Canada, even by car, but as of Jan. 18, only airline travelers require passports.
Upon arriving into Montreal, we found our directions to the B&B to be less than satisfactory and we got lost several times. Once we stopped at a gas station for directions, only to find that the attendant, although he knew where to go, spoke hardly any English. Then a customer came in and tried to be helpful because he could speak English, but it turned out that he had no idea how to get where we were going. So we were able to communicate with the attendant through broken English and got back on the road. After a couple more wrong turns and a midnight phone call to Madame Chantal, we finally arrived at the residence at around 12:30 a.m.
We met Chantal and her husband Ivan, who showed us the apartment where we would be staying. She also gave me an enema to be administered the next day, and said Dr. Brassard would meet with me either Sunday evening or Monday morning before surgery. She also invited me to dinner Sunday evening to meet the other T-girl staying at the house who also is getting surgery this week. Since I had my two companions with me, we had decided to rent the larger apartment rather than stay in the main house so as to have more space and privacy.
As you can see from the photo and if you look at Apartment #4 on the Web site, the room is very nice, but this part of Montreal (Laval) is a bit run down, and looks downright scary at night. I liked the way the room is decorated with lots of exotic and whimsical items, plus it had a fireplace and a full kitchen and bathroom with a shower.
We planned to spend a few hours exploring Montreal on Sunday before my enema and dinner that evening. But Saturday night we were just glad we all made it safely. And so it begins…
Coming up - Exploring Montreal and undergoing surgery
As a lot of things in my life lately, the trip to Montreal was quite the adventure, and unfortunately not in a good way.
First of all, I had to work pretty late on Friday night (Jan. 5, 2007), and then there was some kind of police investigation that shut down a lot of trains from Penn Station, which made the station a madhouse and caused me to miss my train home. So it was a pretty stressful night even leading up to the weekend, but at least I felt like I got everything done at work that I needed to do before I left.
Saturday morning I got up at 9 a.m. to pick up a silver Ford Taurus from the local Budget Rent-a-Car. Since Yoshi (my 1999 Honda Odyssey) is getting a bit long in the tooth, I figured it would be safer to have a newer car for the trip. Plus, it made it more convenient for me to disconnect Yoshi's battery for the duration of the trip and my recovery, since I wouldn't be able to drive anyway. I drove the rental car home and continued to pack, but I was struggling with my emotions the whole morning, crying a lot and such, not for any particular reason, just being emotional, probably from my lack of estrogen and the significance of the day. I had been instructed to stop hormones three weeks prior to surgery, and I did so with mostly minimal effects.
Once I finished packing, I ran some last-minute errands - dropped off my books at the library, picked up my dry cleaning and emptied my mailboxes. I went to my family's house, loaded their stuff and left around 3:30 p.m., a bit later than we had planned, but figured we would still be okay if we made good time.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. In upstate New York, a light came on the dashboard that read "Check Transmission." We stopped at a service station and checked the fluid level - it was normal. Since it wasn't something we could fix ourselves, we decided to play it safe and change out the car at the Budget office at the airport in Albany. This turned out to be a lot more difficult than we expected, as many of the same-size cars either did not have a CD player (a requirement), only had two doors, or had smaller trunks. After going back and forth on three or four cars, we finally found a silver Hyundai Sonata that we could live with. At this point it was around 8:30 p.m. and we knew we were going to be late, so we called Madame Chantal, our host at the Gite du Marigot bed and breakfast, to let her know what was happening.
The rest of the trip went well, as the Hyundai drove much better than the Ford. When we got to the border, we were surprised on how easy it was to get in - just a few questions and showing of our driver's licenses (and my new passport). Probably by next year, passports will be required for all U.S. citizens to re-enter the country from Canada, even by car, but as of Jan. 18, only airline travelers require passports.
Upon arriving into Montreal, we found our directions to the B&B to be less than satisfactory and we got lost several times. Once we stopped at a gas station for directions, only to find that the attendant, although he knew where to go, spoke hardly any English. Then a customer came in and tried to be helpful because he could speak English, but it turned out that he had no idea how to get where we were going. So we were able to communicate with the attendant through broken English and got back on the road. After a couple more wrong turns and a midnight phone call to Madame Chantal, we finally arrived at the residence at around 12:30 a.m.
We met Chantal and her husband Ivan, who showed us the apartment where we would be staying. She also gave me an enema to be administered the next day, and said Dr. Brassard would meet with me either Sunday evening or Monday morning before surgery. She also invited me to dinner Sunday evening to meet the other T-girl staying at the house who also is getting surgery this week. Since I had my two companions with me, we had decided to rent the larger apartment rather than stay in the main house so as to have more space and privacy.
As you can see from the photo and if you look at Apartment #4 on the Web site, the room is very nice, but this part of Montreal (Laval) is a bit run down, and looks downright scary at night. I liked the way the room is decorated with lots of exotic and whimsical items, plus it had a fireplace and a full kitchen and bathroom with a shower.
We planned to spend a few hours exploring Montreal on Sunday before my enema and dinner that evening. But Saturday night we were just glad we all made it safely. And so it begins…
Coming up - Exploring Montreal and undergoing surgery
