Jan 07

Monday
Unfortunately, my first day in Montreal was overcast. I’d had awesome weather up to this point, so I was a little disappointed to be finally met with the prospect of a cold, cloudy city. Not too worry, this is the home of the Underground City, so I spent some time this afternoon exploring it from one end to the other. Turns out it is quite a good way of seeing real live Montrealers doing what they do best – avoiding the outdoors. This is probably best encapsulated in Montreal’s La fête des Neiges motto, “go outside”! I guess sometimes it pays to be blunt.

The Underground City proper runs between five Metro stations, linking about 8 shopping malls and numerous office towers in the process. Mostly they are separate underground passages that run beneath the buildings, but occasionally they sprawl out into wide open (covered) spaces in shopping malls and office lobbies. I heard later from Juliana that, because of the underground city, many office workers wear normal summer suits and just one coat to and from work, because the only time they are outside is waiting for a bus outside their apartment or at the Metro. Again, unfortunately (sort-of) as a tourist, I don’t have the luxury of merely commuting in this weather. Tourists, I’ve noticed, spend an inordinate amount of time outside admiring buildings, exploring cities or just getting lost. All this is mighty hard to do in -25 degree weather!

Tuesday
After yesterday’s issues with Museums being closed, I was determined to see more today. And, despite the weathers best efforts, I achieved it! My first stop was the Biodome, a remnant of the Olympics, displaying 4 separate and disparate ecosystems in the one building. The first, tropical forest, was probably the most lively, although it was so hot and humid in there (probably a 40 degree difference from outside) that it just wasn’t feasible to spend a long time there. The others, Laurentian Forest (modeled on a Quebec forest), St Lawrence Marine ecosystem and the Polar World, were all awesome and very interesting. I did find, however, that they were somewhat lacking in animals. I guess even indoors they hibernate in the winter!

The afternoon was spent largely in Vieux Montreal. Walking through Vieux (Old) Montreal, I really got an idea for why people live here. It’s a beautiful city, full of history, culture and amazing food. The difficulty is understanding all that when it’s FREEZING outside and your camera has just frozen!

I visited two museums this afternoon, both on the history of Montreal, and both very different. The first, Pointe-a-Calliere, focused more on the serious, archeological history of the city, looking at primary artifacts and the First Nations in the region. The second, the History Museum of Montreal, was far more tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at Bill 101 and other issues of Franco-Anglo rivalry. I actually think I preferred the second museum, even though there was less actual information provided.

Tuesday evening I went to see the Last King of Scotland. It was an awesome film, one of those movies that makes you realize just how bad the injustices in the world are. It looks at the rule of Idi Amin in Uganda and how a Scotsman managed to become his personal physicist. Whilst the country slowly degrades, he refuses to believe it’s due to Amin until the very last moment when his life is in danger. Definitely worth all the praises it’s been given!

Straight after the movie, I met with Angela’s friend Jenny, who has been studying at McGill University in Montreal. We went for dinner at a Tibetan restaurant, and then to a place called Juliete et Chocolat for some of the best fondue I’ve ever tasted. Great stuff!

Wednesday
Today was rather lazy, well at least judging it against yesterday. I woke late, spending most of the morning sorting things out online – including this stupid Greyhound bus ticket business. But now that it’s all sorted (sort-of), Dan & I can go off and eat at Schwatz’. This place, as famous in Montreal as La Maison de Bagel, is the renowned leader in dodgy smoked meat joints. Similar in appearance and style to Katz’s in NYC, Schwarz’ serves all manner of smoked meat sandwiches, and it does it well. It’s particularly notorious for coming down hard on cheapskates – splitting one dish between two people (which, given their portion size is entirely possible) is taxed heavily, as is not tipping. Dan was telling me that they have been known to chase people down the street for not tipping! Having dined there, I can definitely see that happening!

My final afternoon in Montreal was spent rather leisurely, enjoying the sunshine that somehow managed to poke its way through the thick cloud (& snow) cover of earlier today. My first stop was McGill’s McCord museum and it’s entertaining exhibitions on the weather, childhood in Montreal, Nuvisavik (weavers from Arctic Canada) and Montreal’s history as a city. To be honest it was largely a repeat of the other two museums, but it was nonetheless interesting. From there I walked around downtown again and managed to get some photos of Notre Dame cathedral before my camera died (of the cold, not because the batteries were actually depleted!).

I returned home with plenty of time to make my train, and so Dan & I decided to head to the top of Mont Royal to see the city from up on high. It was well worth it, walking past the requisite tubing lanes and skating rinks. I even had a chance to walk straight over a frozen lake. See Mum, I can walk on water! The photos speak for themselves, but the view was amazing. There’s nothing like natural hills to make for excellent viewing locations. No annoying reflective plastic windows to blur the view!

And that marked the end of my trip to Montreal. My train to Ottawa was non-descript and time passed fairly speedily. I decided a while ago that I wanted to travel by train for at least part of the trip, and this was the leg where the price differential made it a worthwhile alternative. It seems that only a few others had made the same decision as the 2-carriage train was only half full. Not too worry – more room for the rest of us! It seems to be the season for post-med/dentistry interviews. I met some people in Boston who were traveling around with suits taking interviews. The same occurred on the train to Ottawa – the three people sitting around me were all there for that reason!

We woke late today, so our time in Mont Tremblant was not what it could have been. That was mostly my fault, owing to my pressing need to do laundry (I had absolutely no socks or underwear left! Probably TMI there, but hey!), but I’m a sharing guy, so let’s all accept the blame!

Regardless, we got to Tremblant, Quebec’s most famous and arguably best ski resort at 1:30pm. I hired my gear (with shoes that fitted perfectly!) and we all bought our 2pm onwards lift passes. We got to the lift, reached the summit and Juliana’s nose began to bleed. We guessed this was due to the altitude or the extreme cold, but we never really found out. The short of the story is, after dealing with completely inept first-aid attendants, we didn’t begin skiing till 3pm. For Tremblant, this was the last ride up, so we drove for 2hrs for one trip down the mountain!

Shit happens, so it’s not an issue at all. And the weather was absolutely amazing, so that made it all better. Wearing Dan’s uber ski-jacket and orange glasses helped too. As did our decision to take the green run, which took (no joke) 90mins to ski down. This run was HUGE and went from the absolute top of the mountain to the ski hire place right at the bottom. Impressive, eh? It was the first time I had skiied properly and without an instructor so I was stoked. Dan took some awesome photos too, so it’s all recorded for posterity!

Dinner was eaten at a crepe place Juliana had been raving about all day. It certainly lived up to expectations, and to top it off we had Timmy’s!! My first Timmy’s in over a month … is it right to be suffering withdrawal symptoms for really bad coffee and bagels? I must be turning Canadian!

To my surprise, Dan & Juliana offered to take me to Quebec City today. I had really wanted to go there myself, but thought it would be just too cold to do it via public transport. Luckily, D & J had a heated car and a similar interest in seeing Quebec in the winter.

It turned out today was the first main day of Carnaval – Quebec City’s big winter festival. These events are fantastic ideas. It’s -35 outside and typically no one in their right mind would spend any more time than completely necessary, however for the few weekends when the weather is typically at its worst, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE comes out to play. The cities put on concerts, sledding, public ice rinks, ice sculpting and tubing, not too mention loads of chocolat chaud cafes. Mmm…hot chocolate at -35!

So it was that we ended up hurtling down a ice slide in an old wooden sled, spinning down snow in an inflatable tube and eating beavertails. I’m converted! This weather has its benefits after all!

(FYI: Beaver Tails aren’t as bad as they sound! I can just see Gabe and others out there going “what!! Tristan you’re a bad bad man!”. They are like stretched out donuts – take that sugary pastry, add maple syrup and nutella or more traditionally lemon, sugar and cinnamon and you have it. Brilliant invention, eh?)

Before too long it was nightfall (one of the downsides of being winter) and subsequently dinnertime. We opted for Aux Anciens Canadiens, a ‘typical’ old-style Quebecois restaurant. It was amazing – located in a converted house, with most of the tables in the loft, the food was hearty, unique and so Quebecois. We dined on buffalo, pheasant, bison and other meats, all prepared in thick, rich stews and gravies. Just how I like it!

To top it off, on the way home we visited the world-famous Ice Hotel. It was just as touristy as we had imagined, but it was special nonetheless. We’d missed the last tour for the evening, but we had a chance to wander around and see all the nifty sculptures, and take a ride on the mini ice slide there. We also went to the bar and had cocktails served in ice-glasses. As you do. The bar was pretty awesome – everything that could be made out of ice was – but it was just too cold to spend any substantial time there. Juliana kept ourselves amused by dancing around just to keep warm. Well, we thought we were clever!

I nabbed one of the special Heineken ‘bottles’ made of aluminium so as not to freeze, but I left it at D&J’s place. Ah well, that’s what memories and photos are for.

Our final stop for the evening was the 24-hr Maison de Bagel back in Montreal. This place is world famous and rightly so. There are queues there round-the-clock for the super-fresh bagels. Mmmmm… bagels

A fairly uneventful day spent almost entirely in transit from Boston to Montreal. It steadily grew colder as we traveled northwards, as emphasized (as if it was necessary) by the ever-increasing cover of snow on buildings and on the roadside. People on the bus were talking often of going home to ski – seemingly for the first time this season. It’s going to be a cold one, methinks!

I think the coldest it reached (before arriving in Montreal) was a balmy 7 degrees – Farenheit – in Lebanon, NH. Gotta love that town name, eh? Bet they’re annoyed at it now!! I can just see it at the airport security checkpoint: “so you’re born in Lebanon I see”. “Wait! It’s Lebanon, New Hampshire!”. “Of course it is, sir … just step right this way …”

Dan met me at the bus station and we went straight back to their apartment. They live fairly downtown – especially for a sprawling metropolis like Montreal – and have an amazing view of Cote-des-Neiges and its cemetery. We had dinner – a really nice Romanian dish of rolls of cabbage and meat, sort-of like Vietnamese spring rolls – and reminisced about our time together in Central America. Not exactly your typical Australia Day, but I never expected that in Canada!