Canadia part two
Hello kind readers, here comes part five of my epic journey. I arrived in New York last night and that part of the trip has gone quite wrong and I want to go home, but more on that subject later.
Before that, Montreal was pretty great.
It didn't start so well though; getting up at 5:30am to leave Vancouver and flying three hours into the future left me tired and depressed, and I got a rare bout of bad insomnia the first night in Montreal. Getting into town was a little confusing as the first bus I got on kicked everyone out after five minutes near some local train station and then the second kicked us out in a random part of town round the corner from a sneakily hidden metro station. At least the same ticket worked for all parts so it was cheap. Soon discovered that most people are speaking French and all the adverts and signs are in French too. The first night I was in a youth hostel near Lucien L'Allier metro and this was ok apart from the insomnia which followed. After internet times I walked up and down St Catherine Street to find some food, which took longer than anticipated, but I found some good Chinese. Back in the room intending for an early night I was amused to meet three room-mates from Ontario, who were in town for Montreal Fetish Weekend. I had noticed the large platform boots on my arrival, and the owner of these turned out to be a "fetish model", and was outrageously stuck up and unfriendly. Maybe it was something I said. The other two were ok though.
Monday I went to Vieux Montreal, which turned out to be extremely impressive and made me feel like I was in France (or maybe Belgium). I had croissants in a cafe and spoke some dodgy French and then wandered all about the streets looking at different buildings, including various cathedrals whose names I forgot and the Chateau Ramezay. Also wandered about the waterfront on the massive St Laurent river, and the weather was hot and my feet were tired. Also, the women of Montreal are so attractive that it filled my lonely heart with despair. I went back into the main downtown area, which also has some impressive architecture, and cheered myself up a little with icecream and then an over-priced pint in a microbrewery pub Les Trois Brasseurs. In some places, like the pub, the Quebecois did not understand my rubbish French and asked me what I wanted in English, which also made me unhappy.
The evening improved my mood somewhat when I met my host Yann, back from Ottawa, and we had a fun evening and his accommodation provisions were much improved on the difficulties of Vancouver. Together with his friend Fred we had some food and plenty of beer at home (in the gay village next to Papineau metro) and then headed out to the Catacombes club for a small Monday goth night. This place was newly done up and quite decent looking, if a little unfinished in places, and the music was an interesting mix, but no dancing. Also met a few interesting friends of theirs and had some good chat, although didn't attempt any French. Didn't stay too long as Yann had work. Fred also stayed the night as he lives further out of town, and I was impressed that he washed the dishes before bed.
So then I managed a good night's sleep and had a big lie-in into Tuesday afternoon. Getting out late I took the metro to Mont Royal station and then walked up Mont Royal road to Mont Royal park. Here I wandered around winding paths up the steep hill through maple woods. It was a bit confusing and there weren't many open spots, but when there were, the views over the city were pretty fine. I saw a giant light up cross and two TV masts, but didn't find any other landmarks. I also sat a while in an open meadow area full of squirrels and then stopped on the lookout garden/plaza area by some big house which I didn't work out what it was called or for. Then I met Yann for dinner and we went to an Ethiopian restaurant, which was surprisingly posh in decor but reasonable in price, and shared a veg meal with four different stews mopped up with slightly sour pancakes. After we went home to welcome other guests, George and Kate from Washington DC (who I know from Maschinenfest) on their way back from Quebec City (where Kate is from). This was a fun evening with a lot of drinking and laughing and I was also invited to DC later.
Wednesday I headed up to McGill University to visit the Redpath museum, and it was curious to see the grounds filled with students and think that my old ex, Vio, studied here over ten years ago. The museum attracted me as it was free and had dinosaurs, and although a little small it did quite a good job of displaying what it had in the busy cabinets style of older museums. They had an insane amount of mineral and crystal samples. After this I headed to the Contemporary Art museum, only to find it was free after 6pm on Wednesdays, so I killed two hours visiting the St James (?) Anglican cathedral and then the totally over the top Catholic Marie-Reine-Du-Monde (Mary, Queen of the World!) cathedral, which made me feel I was in Italy or somewhere. I was glad I got the art museum for free as it was rather dull and lasted me only twenty minutes.
After that I met Yann and we had quite a long walk through the underground city, which is really just a load of shopping centres for when it's really cold and snowy in winter, to get the metro. This night it was time for a Quebecois speciality, poutine, which is really just chips with a kind of cottage cheese and slightly spicy gravy on it. Normally the gravy is meat but this place had it in veg, and also a crazy friend of Yann's was working there and he brought us half a frankfurter in a box of ice with a bone stuck in the end and ketchup on it to imitate a severed finger, which was nice. George, Kate and their local friend Elie then joined us for a quick drink, before it was back to Yann's to have a break before the night out proper. We started at Les Foufounes Electriques ("electric buttocks"), a famous large rock pub, where we shared pichets of ale in the yard and were joined by another guy Bob, who is from Toronto so not a Quebecois. Then onto Passeport for a goth night, which was the usual fake EBM business, although I did get one dance in to And One. Then we drank a lot and got silly, but not so sill as to stay very late, but the walk home was slow. Good times with good people.
New York woes next time, but hopefully I'll get some good touristing in and then off to DC to see George and Kate again and go to loads of free museums (they are all expensive everywhere else in North America).
Before that, Montreal was pretty great.
It didn't start so well though; getting up at 5:30am to leave Vancouver and flying three hours into the future left me tired and depressed, and I got a rare bout of bad insomnia the first night in Montreal. Getting into town was a little confusing as the first bus I got on kicked everyone out after five minutes near some local train station and then the second kicked us out in a random part of town round the corner from a sneakily hidden metro station. At least the same ticket worked for all parts so it was cheap. Soon discovered that most people are speaking French and all the adverts and signs are in French too. The first night I was in a youth hostel near Lucien L'Allier metro and this was ok apart from the insomnia which followed. After internet times I walked up and down St Catherine Street to find some food, which took longer than anticipated, but I found some good Chinese. Back in the room intending for an early night I was amused to meet three room-mates from Ontario, who were in town for Montreal Fetish Weekend. I had noticed the large platform boots on my arrival, and the owner of these turned out to be a "fetish model", and was outrageously stuck up and unfriendly. Maybe it was something I said. The other two were ok though.
Monday I went to Vieux Montreal, which turned out to be extremely impressive and made me feel like I was in France (or maybe Belgium). I had croissants in a cafe and spoke some dodgy French and then wandered all about the streets looking at different buildings, including various cathedrals whose names I forgot and the Chateau Ramezay. Also wandered about the waterfront on the massive St Laurent river, and the weather was hot and my feet were tired. Also, the women of Montreal are so attractive that it filled my lonely heart with despair. I went back into the main downtown area, which also has some impressive architecture, and cheered myself up a little with icecream and then an over-priced pint in a microbrewery pub Les Trois Brasseurs. In some places, like the pub, the Quebecois did not understand my rubbish French and asked me what I wanted in English, which also made me unhappy.
The evening improved my mood somewhat when I met my host Yann, back from Ottawa, and we had a fun evening and his accommodation provisions were much improved on the difficulties of Vancouver. Together with his friend Fred we had some food and plenty of beer at home (in the gay village next to Papineau metro) and then headed out to the Catacombes club for a small Monday goth night. This place was newly done up and quite decent looking, if a little unfinished in places, and the music was an interesting mix, but no dancing. Also met a few interesting friends of theirs and had some good chat, although didn't attempt any French. Didn't stay too long as Yann had work. Fred also stayed the night as he lives further out of town, and I was impressed that he washed the dishes before bed.
So then I managed a good night's sleep and had a big lie-in into Tuesday afternoon. Getting out late I took the metro to Mont Royal station and then walked up Mont Royal road to Mont Royal park. Here I wandered around winding paths up the steep hill through maple woods. It was a bit confusing and there weren't many open spots, but when there were, the views over the city were pretty fine. I saw a giant light up cross and two TV masts, but didn't find any other landmarks. I also sat a while in an open meadow area full of squirrels and then stopped on the lookout garden/plaza area by some big house which I didn't work out what it was called or for. Then I met Yann for dinner and we went to an Ethiopian restaurant, which was surprisingly posh in decor but reasonable in price, and shared a veg meal with four different stews mopped up with slightly sour pancakes. After we went home to welcome other guests, George and Kate from Washington DC (who I know from Maschinenfest) on their way back from Quebec City (where Kate is from). This was a fun evening with a lot of drinking and laughing and I was also invited to DC later.
Wednesday I headed up to McGill University to visit the Redpath museum, and it was curious to see the grounds filled with students and think that my old ex, Vio, studied here over ten years ago. The museum attracted me as it was free and had dinosaurs, and although a little small it did quite a good job of displaying what it had in the busy cabinets style of older museums. They had an insane amount of mineral and crystal samples. After this I headed to the Contemporary Art museum, only to find it was free after 6pm on Wednesdays, so I killed two hours visiting the St James (?) Anglican cathedral and then the totally over the top Catholic Marie-Reine-Du-Monde (Mary, Queen of the World!) cathedral, which made me feel I was in Italy or somewhere. I was glad I got the art museum for free as it was rather dull and lasted me only twenty minutes.
After that I met Yann and we had quite a long walk through the underground city, which is really just a load of shopping centres for when it's really cold and snowy in winter, to get the metro. This night it was time for a Quebecois speciality, poutine, which is really just chips with a kind of cottage cheese and slightly spicy gravy on it. Normally the gravy is meat but this place had it in veg, and also a crazy friend of Yann's was working there and he brought us half a frankfurter in a box of ice with a bone stuck in the end and ketchup on it to imitate a severed finger, which was nice. George, Kate and their local friend Elie then joined us for a quick drink, before it was back to Yann's to have a break before the night out proper. We started at Les Foufounes Electriques ("electric buttocks"), a famous large rock pub, where we shared pichets of ale in the yard and were joined by another guy Bob, who is from Toronto so not a Quebecois. Then onto Passeport for a goth night, which was the usual fake EBM business, although I did get one dance in to And One. Then we drank a lot and got silly, but not so sill as to stay very late, but the walk home was slow. Good times with good people.
New York woes next time, but hopefully I'll get some good touristing in and then off to DC to see George and Kate again and go to loads of free museums (they are all expensive everywhere else in North America).