East Coast Trip Page 2... Montreal

Thursday, May 31 2007: We woke up in the camp to the sounds of, yes, more rain- and the big rigs driving by on the rural route out in front of us, as we're near the road. We got together, packed the crap into the car planning on moving to a tent site and in dire need of an internet cafe so I could do some critically needed banking and David could check to see if he had any news about his boards from NCCPA. We drove without much idea of where the hell we were headded other than into the city, me with 2 walking tours I had printed from a travel website (yes, GABE, it was Frommers- and screw you!) but no real map. We managed to find ourselves both a parking place ($3 an hour, max 2 hours street parking) near Old Town, which is also known by the locals as Vieux Montreal. I was a little bit shocked to see that we landed in a place called D'Youville Square- which, literally, was named after (who else?) Saint Margureite D'Youville, the Mother Superior of the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart who came down into northern New York to educate the women of the world and founded my Alma Mater, D'Youville College in Buffalo, New York. There were, last I was there, a couple of old and crusty nuns left teaching at the school as well.

We immediately went into the internet cafe and did business, me gulping down a grande cafe filtre- then went out with a new map of the Old Town for a walking tour of sorts. The streets of old town are so incredibly charming, more so i imagine if it would have been sunny and nice outside instead of rainy and overcast. Cobblestone streets and most architecture dating back to the 18th century, some 17th century. We oogled and meandered down the streets missing the charm of the many cafes lining the streets with their french windows shuttered up for the rain. We wanted the charm of Paris- and yes, i can see completely why Montreal is the Paris of the West- cafes and outdoor patios lining the streets and squares just wanting patrons and sunshine.

After our tour of Old Town, we moved the car and went to Downtown Montreal. We wandered around, actually looking for the tourist information center and wandered around finding things we liked instead pulling us off the track- and by the (new) Forum, home of the Habs- mom I paid homage in your honor.. and next door in this very cool building on the left below this text in what looked like a train station, were a lot of shops and we wandered inside to find that there was a beer garden and competition going on, for beer tastings, with about 200 vendors present. We went in, as admission was free, bought a booklet of 10 tickets and found some lunch. I had a great lunch of french fires with "mexican" dipping sauce for $3 at Frites on Fire (or something) while David opted for a sausage sandwich. I have always wanted to order a "saucisson." While we were sitting eating, a vendor came over and invited us (in French, of course) to a beer and cheese pairing. We finished up eating, wandered around the booths, where I sampled an awesome late harvest (i know, imagine!) CIDER, and David had a very smooth blonde ale. I found this place that had the BEST marketing, so in lieu of beer, I bought a posted of the Devil to make into a hanging for my future library... muhahaha!

At 2pm, we spent an extremely impromptu and enjoyable hour listening to a man ramble in French (me getting a few words here and there) looking at an evaluation form of various cheeses with lists of descriptors in French: nose: animal urine, mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower, herbs, earth. Etc, etc. I had to ask the server what almonds and roast peanuts were, as they seemed to look a lot like "roast arachnids" in English and I was sure they weren't likening the taste of the cheese to roast spiders, although David found that very amusing. This was the perfect way for David to spend an afternoon. Who knew beer and cheese did so well together? We guessed on what we were tasting, and as best we could guess (out of 6) we got a brie, white cheddar, bleu, gouda and two mysteries.

critical taster.

Back out into the rain and better fed with pomme frites and cheese, we wandered around downtown and came upon the tourist information place we were looking for in the first place, and went down into the underground city for some shopping. I bought shorts to wear around the house at a lingerie place called "La Vie En Rose." That underground shopping place is amazingly vast and great for a wet day outside.

The rest of the day we spent walking up University to McGill and the Medical center and college campus, one of my favorite places on earth.

I wish I went to McGill. We wandered around a slew of grads in caps and gowns, along with academic hoods and regalia which neither of us recognized. Sky blue. What a day. Back to the campsite and I got scared listening to the radio about a "monsoon" storm system causing thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow, as well as tomorrow night so I chickened out of staying in the tent and paid out twice the price for the rotten cabin again. David made up his famous chilicheesemac for dinner, we finished up the last of the Pearl Street beer, and I worked on this webpage for several hours. Shelby's usual travel nights... i need to do something easier than we sites for travel, it's so time consuming!

Friday, June 1, 2007: Of course, after having upgraded our site to a cabin and shelling out the cash ready for a "monsoon" according to the woman on the radio forecast, it lightly rained most of the night, but again, lightly. I think with my finely engineered tarp system we would surely have been fine. Perhaps a tad soggy, but fine. We left around 9am for the Olympic Village from the Montreal summer Olympic games which were held in 1976 the buildings for which still stand. One is filled with the "Biodome" attraction and the others are miscellaneous things. There is that famous ships' mast type structure which justs out of the main stadium, which you can pay to ride up in the outside elevator but you can't get into the actual main stadium without paying for a group tour. We opted out and simply toured the large grounds and went into the smaller stadium which is now a spots center with 4 pools, diving, a 50ft deep scuba pool, wading pool., lap lanes, etc. We got to see a little bit of the Canadian Synchronized Swim Team practicing on land. We also wandered away from eachother and spent at least an hour in great, great frustration both of us looking for the other across this huge massive campus.

We parked near the Biodome on the street for free and took the metro into town. A $9 all day, one day tourist card got us everywhere we needed to be today. The Montreal Metro is antiquated for such a huge city! There are *no* automated stations to buy tickets! Crazy, so you all file in this line by a teller, and tickets are sold only in cash. None the less, the subway system is wonderful and is as good as any large European city like London or Paris to get where you need to go. We headed to the Latin Quarter for lunch and some sights- this is where i remember staying with the family when I was a kid and we came up- the smaller, quaint streets lined with shopping and eateries is now a bustling student area with a lot of the gay members of Montreal making it home. We were quite hungry and ate lunch at the place pictured below, Pacifique which was forgettable food (pan asian- I had Bun salad which was okay and my own is much, much better, and David had a chicken salad) but our little french only-speaking waiter was lovely and tried so hard to talk to us. We had a rudimentary conversation with my french and managed to really impress him with being from San Francisco. I think he was from France and has been in Montreal 2 weeks- but I could have gotten that all wrong...

Next we went for a hike into Mont Royal Parc which is an uphill park in the middle of the city, also designed by Central Park Architect Fredrick Law Olmstead for a great view at the very top landing. It was drizzling at periods, but about the time we got into the park our wet weather seemed to take a promising turn and the sun started to actually burn through the cloud cover and peek out into the gloom. We were left sweaty in the 99% humidity and al that uphill climbing, but the views really are worth it.

So after our walk round in the park, where I mistakenly wanted to see a cemetery thinking it was designated by a cross on the maps and labeled "croix." What I didn't realize is that croix means cross, and literally at the top of a hill buried in the park is a large metal cross. As in Jesus on the cross. Not a cemetery. I was extremely disappointed. We hiked back down and out into the city, through the museum district and past a row of historic architecture including single family homes (at least at one time they were) and are now museums or buildings for professional organizations.

After this still, we got back onto the train to Old Town, which is supposed to be absolutely sublime at night. We were both pretty hungry and our feet were killing us, both developing blisters with all the walking all day- but we hoofed it from the Place d'Armes metro station several blocks down to the main town square with a big piazza-type feel lined with row after row of restaurants and shops. In the center of the square is a grassy strip with buskers (one guy singing Neil Young) and other street performers for tourists to watch. David wasn't wowed like I was- he felt it was "too touristy" much to my disappointment. He's good at dashing my feeling of charm.

Nonetheless, we continued in old town down the cobble streets looking in shops and searching for a restaurant to have dinner.

A corner of the Old Town, just at dusk, and the square with an obelisk at the head. Below on the left is the restaurant we ate at: we split a half carafe of Canadian Merlot which was grown in Lake Okanoben (or something) which was actually very good. Shocker. I had a goat cheese on crostini salad which was amazing, and an entree of goat-cheese stuffed ravioli which was unfortunately forgettable. David had blue fin tuna pan-seared and crusted with sesame seeds which was also unfortunately disappointing. We wanted our one taste of the endangered species tuna to be nothing short of a culinary orgasm. I'll go back to my Monterey-Bay-Aquarium approved seafood list now, thank you.

The artwork below was in the UQAM (university of quebec at montreal) metro station and it was backlit- all stained glass and it was so beautiful I had to take a picture of it. It was really beautiful. The 3 women above were in bronze and they were sitting outside an art gallery on the streets of Old Town and they were so cute. The window on the left was a very charming little restaurant with those big french-type windows that are shuttered on the inside and open onto the streets and originally when we walked by before dinner there was this dour-faced woman sitting alone with a glass of wine and I thought "Gee, I wish she wasn't there, that would be a great picture" and lo and behold, when we walked by again after dinner, she was gone and the table was alone.

I would like to say that this lovely evening capped off a lovely Montreal trip, but we metroed back to the car by Olympic Stadium, and the entire metro police force had blocked off virtually every street going north, south, east or west and you were forced into this totally bizarre traffic jam like a bunch of sardines and what should have been a 15 minute trip back to the camp turned into a 1.5 hour miserable nightmare of traffic and police for no apparent reason. Damn them.

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