We all know by now that Vice Presidential-hopeful Kamala Harris spent much of her formative years in Montreal and graduated from Westmount High but according to her memoir, her time in Montreal wasn't all sunshine and rainbows at first. 

In The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, Harris reveals that she wasn't happy with her move from California to Montreal at the young age of 12 but that eventually, she got used to it.

Harris made clear, however, that the desire to return to the U.S. never went away.

Editor's Choice: The Pandemic Led To An 'Explosion Of Kittens' In Montreal, Here's How You Can Help

“

Moving away from sunny California [...] to a French-speaking foreign city covered in twelve feet of snow was distressing, to say the least.

Kamala Harris 

One thing that is sure to be familiar with all new Montrealers is trying to navigate the French language.

Harris's experience was no different. She called it a "difficult transition."

Though her mother was enthusiastic about her kids learning the language of Molière, Harris said that her time in French school was no walk in the park.

"I used to joke that I felt like a duck because all day long at our new school I'd be saying 'Quoi? Quoi? Quoi?'"

Like many Montrealers, Harris had a political streak, protesting with her sister in front of their apartment building to let them play soccer on the lawn, and like many protest attendees, Harris spent some time at a fine arts school. 

"By the time I got to high school," Harris wrote, "I had adjusted to our new surroundings."

But the "constant sense of yearning to be back home" persisted, and, to her, "there was no question" about attending university in the United States.

Harris's desire became a reality. She went on to attend Howard University in Washington, D.C.