In a California summer, the sun is an oven. It lightly toasts the hills and leaves everything from the asphalt to the spiky leaves of the live oaks sucked of moisture. The breezes that do come are dry, and in their wakes the rustling of the leaves has a brittle timbre. The skies are clear, plain blue, but for some reason--air pressure? the prominence of brown over green in the landscapes?--the blue always seems tinged with a hazy white. It's paradise, sure, but it's Eden after a drought.
There's something different about summer here. Maybe it's just the product of those everywhere-but-California summer rains, but the sun in Montreal doesn't sear the streets like it does at home. You can feel the open bodies of every piece of flora in the city taking in every last ray, from the maples covering the mountain to the flowers in the balcony boxes to the grass blanketing the parks. The contrast of the verdant landscapes against the deep, rich blue sky of a Northern summer is shockingly vibrant, even to my color-deficient eyes.
It's also the attitude of the people. Trapped inside for more than half the year, they escape en masse to the parks and peaceful bliss of the plateau streets with determination: we will enjoy this, dammit. I certainly feel it. Even with the summer stretched before me, I feel the need to suck every last second of sunshine out of the air and to store it up for the brutal winter I know I have ahead of me.
Plus, this city has the most beautiful women I've ever seen, and they all wear sundresses in the summer. Which is nice.
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