I heart Montreal

This city is so chill. If I had even an ounce of style, I would want to live here. As it is, I am on par with the Montreal homeless population, so I guess I will stick with the original plan of going back home to Seattle, where I am average.

Thursday, 16 October: After an eleven hour train ride, I arrived at the hostel in Montreal in time for the weekly Thursday bar tour. It was interesting bar-hopping with a group of 23 people, but we managed to stick together until the bars closed at 3 am. Then everyone scattered in search of food.

Friday, 17 October: I awoke in time for the Mont Royal/ poutine walk. This isn't the cheapest hostel around, but they have activities all of the time, and the people who work here are really nice and fun, so I'm happy. After all the hard work of walking over to Mont Royal Park and climbing the "mountain" for a spectacular view of the city, my first encounter with poutine was excellent. I went with the classic gravy and cheese curds, but they offered many other interesting looking combos.

Saturday, 18 October: I spent all day getting tattooed by Yann at Glamort. I am completely enamored of the work, but hadn't considered how old and faded my other tattoos would look in comparison. I had thought they were holding up pretty well...

Now my legs are burning with the fire of a thousand suns.

My friend from Ottawa and her husband (an ex-labbie) came to meet me in Montreal, and we stayed with her cousin, who lives near many good food shops. We ate like kings.

Sunday, 19 October: After sleeping in a bit and having a leisurely breakfast of croissants and pastries from a fantastic local bakery, we went to Mont Royal Park for a walk in the sunshine. Although I had just been there on Friday, I was glad to go again, because it is a huge park, with many trails and a lot going on. Every Sunday while the weather holds there is a "tamtam jam"-- basically a big hippie drum circle that waxes and wanes throughout the day. We stopped for a bit to watch them on the way into and out of the park, but didn't hang around long enough to get a contact high. At the same time, nearby, there is a weekly medieval battle. There was an interesting range of warriors present: from people with full costumes and crests on their shields to dudes in KISS T-shirts who like swords. One guy had a door for a shield.

We went out to eat, and I had to try the Mexican poutine. It basically had nacho toppings, with a sort of salsa-ish chili-ish sauce in place of the regular gravy that is usually on poutine. It was not as good as the classic.

Monday, 20 October: I wandered around for a while today, and got Vietnamese food in Chinatown. I attempted to go to an art exhibit that I had heard good things about, but the place is closed on Mondays. C'est la vie...

Tuesday, 21 October: Another ten hour train ride back to New York. It rained on both of my train riding days, but was nice the whole time I was in Montreal. It's like my time there was favored by the travel gods.