From the "greatest hits" compiliation...

Four Days in Montreal: A Tragic Shortage of Bras

Providence to Vermont

Leaving Providence on a hot Tuesday afternoon, we headed north. The planned stop for the first night was White River Junction, Vermont. We checked in to our hotel room and headed out for a drive to find a bite to eat around six o'clock. While the tin roofs on all the houses were amusing, we were soon too hungry to enjoy the scenery. THERE IS NOTHING UP HERE! Where do these people work? Where do they go for food? Everything in the downtown area seemed to be either closed for the night or completely abandoned.

We finally found a steak and seafood place close to the highway. It looked well populated and fairly safe. We sat down and looked over the menu. I ordered prime rib. Now, I don't know if it's because of all the nearby cows, but apparently beef is cheap in Vermont. I was brought a giant hunk of beef that must have been at least 20 ounces. It was comedically huge. I enjoy red meat, but there was no way I was going to ever eat that much meat and live to tell about it.

First impressions of Montreal

After a brief stop for the Ben & Jerry's factory tour, we said "goodbye" to Vermont and "Bonjour" to Quebec.

The 50 mile stretch between the border and Montreal is absolutely desolate. Nothing but silos and flat farmland. It was actually more depressing than the last few miles of Vermont, because in Vermont there was always the chance that there was a town just over the next hill. Here, the only breaks in the skyline were silos and barns.

As we finally arrived in the city, I was struck by how new things looked downtown. It's actually a much more modern city than I expected. The buildings were mostly new and shiny. I somehow wanted things to look older.

It was hot. Damn hot. I didn't realize Canada got this hot (and the forecast was for 31 degrees! Puh-lease.).

Lots of people in Montreal were getting around on bikes. Lots of people were making use of public transportation (the Metro was pretty much packed at all times of the day, which was no picnic with the excess heat).

Quebec has not yet discovered the joys of multiple designs for their license plates.

It occurred to me that Montreal must be a very poor city, for there seems to be a tragic shortage of bras. It seemed odd for a city with so many lingerie stores.

The sex industry is a big draw to Montreal. It didn't take long for me to figure out that, if you see a bright, shiny and well lit up storefront, it's probably a strip club. And they weren't on the outskirts of town or in the scary industrial districts like in Providence. There were all right downtown in the middle of everything. "Come on in for cold beer
and hot chicks" shouted one guy in a unique non-France French accent to the shoppers walking by.

Dining options for the downtown area seemed to consist entirely of coffee shops and cafes (the chocolate croissants were excellent). I've decided smaller, more frequent meals and snacks is the best way to go when traveling (as no one gets too cranky or bogged down... and no one likes walking around with 2 pounds of meat in their belly).

Language

Everywhere we went, people were able to converse with you in both English and French. I'm now convinced that everyone speaks a second language but me. Oh well.

The running joke for the week was putting "le" in front of a noun to make it French. Things just sound more French that way (and it was surprising how often that actually WAS the French word for something).

Shopping

It's tough to have any idea of what stuff is supposed to cost in Canada. Some things seemed fairly cheap, while others were overpriced. It's tough to do the Canadian dollars to US dollars conversion in your head, and then tack on about 15% sales tax on everything (even clothes).

Tourist stuff

The Biodome was one of the old Olympic stadiums converted to an indoor zoo. I thought the whole thing was actually pretty cool (although we learned that parents with strollers running other people over does not seem to be a uniquely American phenomenon). While we were there, we were annoyed by this one fat guy in an American flag t-shirt walking around with his fat wife and fat kid. He was berating the animals with cries of "Hey, entertain us!" , "Hey, do something!", and "Hey, wake up". He finally decided, "This sucks, I want my money back." And people wonder why people in other countries hate Americans... When you go on vacation, you are representing your country. DON'T BE THIS GUY.

Later that day, we visited the botanical gardens ("le Jardin botanique de Montreal"). All of the exhibits were very nicely done, but it was an awfully hot day to be walking around (I know the heat makes me cranky). Luckily, there was a little train driving people around the outskirts of the grounds. But long lines to ride the train and a shortage of seats almost lead to an international incident.

An American woman with her two kids did not want to make room or share laps so that a French Canadian woman and her six kids could sit (and I'm pretty sure they were all her kids). The Canadian woman began yelling, in French, that the American woman's family was taking up too much room. The American woman countered that it was too hot and that she should wait for the next train and that she didn't speak French. This argument went on for a good part of the train ride, with the Canadian woman reverting to French and the American woman reminding her that she still didn't speak French.

An older local Asian woman sitting next to Jen tried to discuss the whole situation with her in French. Jen just kinda smiled and nodded, which was apparently the correct response, because the woman kept talking at her.

Casino de Montreal was, um... interesting. After a long struggle to find a suitable dinner, we did a little gambling and went to a show at Cabaret du Casino. Now, maybe I got sucked in by the poster (and the "no one under 18 allowed" line), but it was not quite what I expected. In fact, I don't think anything could have prepared me for this.

The title of the show pretty much says it all: cinemashow. According to the bill, it "brilliantly recreates the best scenes" from some of your favorite movies through song and dance. Apparently, 10 dancers with wacky costumes dancing in front of a 12 foot
movie screen showing scenes from the movie they're recreating (just in case you couldn't figure what movie they were doing on your own) passes for "brilliant" in Montreal.

The show went on for close to two hours. The order of the songs in the show was based entirely on costume changes. The "Wild Wild West" number (yes, the Will Smith movie) went right into the "Moulin Rouge" tribute. The "Forest Gump" song went right into "Austin Power" (I don't know if that was a misprint, or if the movie was marketed internationally as "Austin Power", but that's how they billed it). The scene from "The Fifth Element" went into... well, I can't remember what that one went into. I was just so awestruck by this point (A musical tribute to "The Fifth Element"?!). The word "surreal" gets tossed around too much, but it was definitely a night I won't forget.

My first time

Finally, I'd like to finish up with a little story about "my first time".

It was my first time, and I was pretty excited. I'd heard about it from friends who'd done it. I'd read about it. I'd seen it on TV. I wanted my first time to be with someone special... Yes, of course, I'm talking about IKEA.

We stopped at IKEA Saturday after check out as sort of a last event of our vacation. Not only was the place enormous, it was PACKED with people. Young people, old people, people with families. Montreal loves IKEA.

Everything in the store seemed tastefully done and reasonably priced. Our only regret was that we didn't have more storage room in the car for taking stuff home.