So we went to Montreal.

[kiya]

Trip report.

Friday
teinedreugan and I got ourselves packed up and semi-mobile by the early afternoon, so whispercricket came to get us and we hung out at TI for a bit waiting for arawen to get off work. There was some flailing, and then we got on the road and promptly got stuck in rush hour traffic.

arawen needs more zen; however, I was the only one who had a stick to hit him with. Thus, I don't think there was much enlightenment to be had.

I waved in the vague direction of lylythe_strega, Tzeenj, chelidon, and C as we drove past the relevant exit for Casa Chaos.

We stopped at Simon Pearce's glassworks, pottery, and restaurant in Quechee in the hopes of getting dinner, but they were full up, so we just puttered about in the store for a bit. Which turned out to be an oddly religious experience, as Hethert informed me when I saw a version of this carafe in the 'slightly damaged so cheaper' section that I should get Her one when I get to the point of getting specific altar space for it. (I frequently deal with Hetharu-Nut, so the carafe resonates with Nut's water jar, and the snake motif is of course appropriate.) This went off into noodling about proper ways of handling the Festival of Intoxication and a strong mental image of the carafe filled with blood-red wine. Okay then.

(Hetharu doesn't ask me for things much; I get the impression that She has very particular preferences for things, and if it isn't available She will be content with whatever is so long as it's of reasonable quality -- but if it's for Her, it must be The Correct Thing.)

We went back to another restaurant that whispercricket knew something about and sat out on their porch watching the juvenile red squirrel who kept puttering by within arm's length of the people there and listening to the fellow at the table one over lecturing his children about principles of leftist economics. The food was okay -- excellent materials, mediocre preparation on the meat. The loaded fries were really good, though. The mashed potatoes were sweet, in a very starchy sort of way. At least I thought they were; I think everyone else thought I was a bit mad.

We got back on the road, and my gut, which had been slightly questionable all week, decided to throw a hissy at excessive potato consumption or something. We stopped at a rest stop to check times at the border crossings, determined that $5 was too much when we could just duck into Burlington and get it for free, and went in to Burlington, where we puttered about a bit, discovered that our first destination was closed, and eventually settled into a tea shop. teinedreugan and whispercricket sat down for a pot of tea and to check the border crossings, I perused the chilled teas for something with ginger in it for my stomach. I eventually settled on a spiced rooibos (ginger, cinnamon, clove, cardamom, probably some other stuff) with fizzy water, which was both quite good and stopped my internal whingeing. I watched a fellow assemble a nargila for use, which means I have a better mental figuring of how to put mine together for use.

We got back on the road, hit the border crossing late, and crossed into Quebec without incident. I commented that I thought that was the crossing brooksmoses and I went through, confirmed this with a 'Sucre Mais' sign somewhere that looked familiar, noted that if we could see the silos in the dark they'd be labelled in Polish, and informed people that somewhere ahead there was a cabaret with nude dancing.

We reached Montreal at about midnight and promptly got stuck in traffic again, because apparently our route took us through a nightclub district. Was sstruck by the way the language pidgins, as spotted a sign for [name]'s [noun-in-French] (I forget the specifics). Favorite word of that sequence was "strip-teaseuses". We reached the apartment, unloaded most things from the car, and collapsed.


Saturday
We got up at a reasonable hour to go get three-day Metro passes and bagels. I had my cane -- I honestly can't remember if I brought it on this little jaunt, though I suspect I did -- because my joints had been behaving flakily all the previous week (to go with my guts being flaky all that time). It was a pleasant little walk, a lot of interesting wrought iron on the way, and we got our passes and headed off for bagels without incident. There was an interesting import shop next to the bagels, but it was closed until noon, and we had things to do, so we flagged it as something to return to later, and returned to the apartment to consume bagels. I called montrealais and left a message about arranging lunch or something.

Next, we went up to Jean-Talon Metro for perusing the market there. Encountered a cidery vending things, had some tasting in mixed pidgin languages, and my, that was some damn fine ice wine. (I have learned that I really, really like ice wines.) Pointed out signs, including "Burger au Bison", which I found profoundly satisfying. Explored another liquor store, and picked up a shot bottle of an apple ice cider fortified with scotch on the 'this may be very weird or interesting' principle.

Hiked over to the other side of Jean-Talon so whispercricket could look at fabrics. The first fabric store had tube lights vibrating on the exact frequency that makes them instantly migraine-inducing, so I retreated outside and sat for a while while folks pottered about inside. Then we went down the pedestrian mall in that area looking for a store that did not exist, and peering in the occasional import shop of interest. (One of which was full of paintings of small children crying. I was confused by that.) I stopped every so often to sit because the joints were giving me guff.

I believe after that we went to Saint Louis park, which whispercricket is quite fond of, dithered about something, and then hiked up to Schwartz's for lunch, which was mostly uphill. Was not doing so well by the point we got there. We got in very quickly after we queued and ordered some smoked meat sandwiches, at which point someone behind us broke a plate. (A couple of shards hit me in the foot. I picked them up.) My basic thought on Schwartz's smoked meat sandwich goes something like, "... Okay. Clearly I don't have the grounding in smoked meat to judge why this is considered spectacular."

Somewhere in here, montrealais gave me a call while we were in a chocolate shop saying he was unwell and dinner wouldn't work out, but maybe we could do something tomorrow? He sounded deeply unwell; I wished him good health and agreed on the scheduling-something-tomorrow plan. I also made note that the phone doesn't ring in a way that I recognise when roaming.

Took a slightly different route back, which brought us by an interesting import shop thing, which whispercricket and I looted for clothes. Well, I looted successfully, coming away with two jeweltone things and two earthtone things, which is about typical, including a lightweight pair of pants that I considered worthwhile to wear the next day because my normal pants were a bit too hot to wear and pantslessness is still socially questionable. whispercricket did not acquire loot.

We walked through Saint Louis park this time, and then went down to the Notre Dame basilica. arawen and I spotted a pigeon on a statue that was exactly the colour of the statue. We got tickets for the light show thing, and did a bit of wandering through shops in the vicinity, including one that was full of giant wooden penises which I sort of contemplated as a Feri altar piece. teinedreugan and I got some Moroccan tea glasses, because they were pretty.

Then we went to the basilica, and watched the light show. Which ... when I'm sitting in the church contemplating a comparison-and-contrast of the decorative styles to Egyptian tomb and temple decoration, the resounding conclusion of the thing with "and a strong Christian faith!" mostly just makes me crack the fuck up. My comment afterwards was, "I feel ... slightly propagandized?" which got whispercricket to reply, "Slightly?" The way they removed the sheets they were projecting onto was the nifty part of the presentation, though. Some nice touches there. We looked at the spectacular decoration in the basilica for a bit, and then resumed the wandering.

We found an indoor market which we peered at a bit, but it was a touch on the upscale side. I forget the name. A bit more wandering produced restaurants we weren't interested in and finally a crepe place where we settled for dinner. Then a tiny bit more wandering, enough to determine that we couldn't really see the waterfront, and we went back. I cannot go through the Sherbrooke Metro station without starting to hum "Barrett's Privateers".

whispercricket cleaned the hot tub, and arawen and I soaked me in it until I stopped hurting quite so much. We tasted the ice cider/scotch mix and declared it Good. Then, there was the sleeping.


Sunday
arawen and I got up and were dressed and such before whispercricket and teinedreugan were out of bed, which was commented upon. (But we went to sleep pretty much right after oozing out of the tub, and they soaked themselves and were up late.) Got a call from montrealais arranging meeting for drinks in the Village at three. We wandered down to the bagel place so teinedreugan could get a sandwich; whispercricket got a coffee that was almost drinkable; we poked into the import shop that had been noted before. (Which had a bunch of interesting things, none of which quite hit the threshhold of 'I should get this', though a Ganesh statue came reasonably close.)

I think somewhere in here was where we stopped in another clothing shop, this one heftily hippieish and full of tie-dye, and this time both whispercricket and I successfully hunted clothing. I got some stuff in blue. She got some miscellaneous stuff. arawen got a brilliantly coloured drape in a fit of Discordianism.

Went wandering a little on Saint Denis while dithering, and I came to the conclusion that what I truly wished out of the universe was an Italian soda. Did not find the shop we were looking for, wandered back to the bus, came to the conclusion that making it to the central park was going to crunch timing on getting to the Village in time to see montrealais, so arawen and I got on the Metro and headed down to Baudry and whispercricket and teinedreugan went back to Jean-Talon to hunt down ice cider scotch.

Found the instance of the Second Cup as arranged and noted that it was packed. It was about an hour before we were meeting montrealais, though, so we puttered about to peoplewatch. About a block further down there were a pair of women with djembes, drumming fit to thunder between the buildings. They were amazing.

We sat down at the other end of the Village and watched people and talked philosophy of enlightenment and similar vagaries for a bit, and then wandered back towards the Second Cup, which was much emptier now and most of the population was out on the street listening to the gay men's chorus performing across the street. I gave montrealais a call to let him know we were there and give some identifying information, and we went in. And lo, they had Italian soda, which was served to me by a fellow with a gorgeous shaded-blue spiked mohawk. (I complimented him on the colour. It was amazing.)

Got a text message back from montrealais a bit after that with identifying info and ETA, and he turned up a bit after and got himself some green tea in the hope that it would be drinkable and not offend his stomach. We chatted for about an hour about politics, what do the people on the tour bus get told about the Village, not stripping naked due to spontaneous combustion risks, and similar matters, and then hiked up to Berri-Uqam to catch the Metro because Baudry is under construction (and frankly, the longer walk was probably easier on my hip and knee than the stairs would have been).

We called teinedreugan and whispercricket, failed to get through, and took the Metro back up to Laurier to crash in the room for a little bit. Discovered that they were there already. We were flat for a bit, then started moving again slowly (despite some distractions of the Civ IV variety on teinedreugan's part) and got on the Metro to meet rysmiel and guest at De L'Eglise. We found them, introductions were had, and we went to Villa Wellington and stood for a good long time in the 'My, this smells good, my, I'm hungry' state before sitting down and being fed vast quantities of really excellent food, which whispercricket tried all of with enthusiasm. rysmiel and I talked writing and residency and relationships and related matters while waiting. After dinner, we repaired to the tea shop across the street for tea and conversation mostly about politics; I had a nice jasmine tea. We returned to the Metro after a while, rysmiel commented on the fact that this one appears to be decorated in "early first person shooter" but the little panels do not in fact issue one with higher-quality weaponry.

Returned to rental, fell down.


Monday
After the reasonably mellow Sunday, we planned to do much more stuff on Monday. The place we hoped to get breakfast was, alas, closed, but I averted crisis by noting that we could stop there on the way out. We had some bagels, and headed off to the Biodome.

For which the line was godawful. After some dithering, we decided that we would not spend the afternoon in the queue, and wandered back to putter through old Montreal and its assorted tourist traps. Nearly failed to find the cafe whispercricket wanted to locate, managed to find it after some dwama, had food.

More wandering. Stopped for maple sugar candy. Puttered about in a store full of indigenous craftwork; managed to get a good comparison on turquoise colours to explain to people about, because I felt that it needed to be known. Some really nice engraved copper bowls. Got the name of a group that does some really gorgeous vocal harmonies, figured we could probably get it via other means. arawen got thingies. More wandering. Found the indoor market again and looked at the other half. Still too upscale, though there was a really nice raku pot that manages to not meet any of my needs for the raku pot I'm looking for for religious purposes and I could probably get a good one that does meet those standards for a fifth the price by not looking in a bloody boutique, so I didn't bother pursuing the thought. It was pretty, though.

We went to the Labyrinthe attraction thing on the waterfront, because whispercricket quite likes it. Fortunately, most of my need for the cane was muscle ache rather than the joint fuckup of earlier in the weekend, because some of this was complicated to get through. Several times, we sent whispercricket ahead on a scouting mission. Eventually we got through and achieved nearly success at the puzzle we were attempting to navigate.

Then the wandering up Saint Denis. Which included stopping in a microbrewery for food for me because I was going to start chewing on lampposts soon enough. I got some French onion soup which was among the best I've had (not oversalted) and we got a dish of poutine to split around the table. (One of those 'you're not in the United States' moments: there was an advert for Plan B in the loo stall. Leading to the critical question of whether 'oups' is French for 'oops'. ;) )

More wandering, with occasional pauses to let me sit on something for a few minutes. Stopped in Saint Louis park again to lie down on the grass, which I did until the cold stopped being 'Oh, that feels so soothing on my back' and went to 'kind of unpleasant'. Peered at a few shops, but most of them were closing by the time we got by them; eventually we took the Metro up to Laurier and started for the place we were having dinner, which was a fancy French place. I was, by this point, wrung out enough physically that climbing the steepness of sidewalk cuts was slowing me down dramatically, alas.

We had extensive food of excellent quality. Steak tartare was declared "cow sushi". There was duck and lamb and some steak. We had a good wine with it, which riffed in my head off the carafe I hadn't gotten in Vermont. arawen wound up stroking my neck lightly at one point and it dropped me into a fairly deep subspace because I was too exhausted to control the reaction, which was kind of amusing.

Eventually we took a cab back to the apartment due to my ache and generalised exhaustion. Hot tubs are good things. So was sleep.


Tuesday
Got up reasonably early, packed things up, had a dispute with the woman we were renting the apartment from about the nonexistent maid service that we hadn't been informed of, were scolded for being out doing things when she wanted to drop by (?!?), and generally sorted ourselves out, then drove off to the Iranian place for brunch.

Where we had these omelettes -- sort of midway between 'omelette' and 'scrambled eggs' -- which were really excellent. And then we started heading off, winding our way through the city to the highway and then out and around towards New York.

Border crossing into the US was slow. Border guard told us we should have crossed over in Vermont, due to being Red Sox fans (to at least a reasonable approximation); teinedreugan defused a potential significant intra-division conflict with an apologetic noise. After we rattled off what we had purchased, the guard waved us through with a "Welcome home."

We stopped in Burlington for lunch and used bookstores.

Waved at the Casa Chaos again as we went by.

Stopping at the NH liquor rest stop later produced some ranting from arawen about the stability of stone benches.

Eventually we made it home and were greeted by cats. Arthur seems to think that my absence demands vast quantities of snuggles. Lennon deliberately snubbed teinedreugan several times to demand scritches from arawen instead. Watered the fountain on the house shrine and the plants. Need to check on the garden; haven't yet.

And that was my weekend.

Comments

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you enjoyed Montreal. I'm glad!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

It was lovely to see you all, I am glad you found so much of the trip enjoyable, and now I can do the correlating of usernames with people, yay.

Favorite word of that sequence was "strip-teaseuses".

There is something dementedly charming about that. There is one about ten minutes out past my apartment beside a supermarket we sometimes use called "Cabaret des Amazons" - I have always felt the appropriate compere would be St. Sebastian, but never actually checked - which has a gigantic sign outside, a young woman in a cocktail dress and cloak on a magenta background. Some of the locals apparently tried to have that taken down on the grounds that it was indecent, which is patently ridiculous as this time of the year half the people in the Plateau are wearing less, but I think they'd have a much better argument on grounds of "It's a fifteen-by-ten slab of electric sodding PINK !!!"

[helenseidolon.livejournal.com]

I live about 5 minutes away from there!

Also, it cracks me up that, while many American towns declare there can only be sex shops far away from the city, we make sure they're all on St. Catherine between Atwater and Berri.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense to me; it's a logical application of Jane Jacobs' principle, that the best way to make a street or neighbourhood safe is to have as broad as possible a mix of uses, and therefore people there with legitimate business over as much of the day as possible so it's never deserted.

[wednesday]

How much time did crossing in NY add to your trip?

(Fiancé makes the trip from NH to Ottawa by way of Montreal on a regular basis, and generally crosses in Vermont; 'm now curious about viability of alternative routes.)

[kiya]

I'm not sure what the difference would have been at the crossing times, especially as we hit the Vermont border at 11pm and the NY border from the other side at like 1pm.

I want to say it added maybe a half hour? Forty minutes? We were stuck behind someone going fairly slowly across the islands -- we took the different route specifically for sightseeing purposes, really.

Okay, now teinedreugan is off the phone -- he says about 45 mins.

[redbird]

You were definitely better off skipping Metro Beaudry, as the stairs were designed by someone who lacks an understanding of human anatomy: repeated sets of six or seven steps, then a (maybe 20 foot long) landing that slopes slightly downward. Every single landing has that slope, which could easily be eliminated by adding one more step to some (possibly not all) of the flights of steps.

I went from astonishment to loud indignation at discovering this, a few weeks ago.

[jenett]

I am envious of your weekend, really. It sounds lovely.

[whispercricket]

Some additional names in case people are curious:
Indoor market in Vieux Montreal = Marche Bonsecour (very pretty, very expensive, kind of like a cross between art gallery and stores).
Pedestrian market up near Jean-Talon = Plaza St-Hubert

Restaurant with mostly bland food on Friday = Farmer's Diner in Quechee, VT
Restaurants on Saturday = St Viateur Bagels (bagels), Jardin Nelson for dinner crepes
Tea shop across the street from Villa Wellington I think was called Cha Noir.
Really good restaurant Monday night = Restaurant Lemeac - and scarily enough, I think it's termed a more of a really good bistro than fancy French, although it definitely was fancy enough for me too. :)