[gallery] Lanterns at the Botanical Gardens
Tag: montreal
Branton Lab
I found a bunch of old photos of my grad school lab days. Good times, bad times. The lab went to Mont St-Hilaire for a weekend retreat with a collaborating lab once. 8am to 6pm, hardcore science talks. 6:01pm to midnight, hardcore drinking. 12:01am to 6am, preparing the following day’s talks…
Montréal highlightsÂ
Our trip started out with us all in good spirits. As expected, that didn’t last, but that’s another story. The flights were uneventful, except that I broke my cardinal rule of air travel and didn’t pack a lunch. The child, who could eat the meal choice that would have caused me pain and discomfort, didn’t like it and ended up eating half of the only thing I could eat (and then proceeded to rave about it for the rest of the flight). We landed, got our bags, and then had a “yes, we’re back in Montréal” cab ride to our airbnb. Let’s just say the cabbie was a bit high strung…
The apartment was in the mile end. Great location, perfect on paper. In real life… it was someone’s flat, with a very particular bohemian-chic decor and a door lock that could have been defeated by a sharp sneeze. I couldn’t have lived there full-time without needing to rebuild the whole flat from the ground up and fix everything that gave it “character”. But whatever, we only needed it for a bed and a toilet and both were perfectly serviceable. The location, however as mentioned, was great. We were a stones throw away from St-viateur bagel, several good coffee shops, a breakfast place where I had a breakfast poutine, and a gin bar where they make their own tonic water and where we had a superb ploughman’s lunch.
We did our usual Montréal things: Reubens, Ming Tao Xuan, Eggspectation, etc. etc. We went to the Cirka gin distillery with Michel and Christina, then spent a lovely afternoon on the St-Ambroise beer garden swapping stories, then carried on over an izakaya-style japanese dinner (and more cocktails).
We met up with Sara and Em, our favourite not-married old married couple and caught up with all the major life events we missed over the last few years.
The last day in Montréal, we walked in the Village before taking the bus to Ottawa and talked about how the city has changed since we were last here (seems like there’s been a nutter explosion and club Super Sex closed down!!!!) and how much we’ve been spoilt with the view of the lake, the mountains and all the greenery in Morges.
Canada Trip Redux
I had home leave this year and we went to Canada for 2 weeks in early October. My sister and some cousins had organised a big party to celebrate some milestones in our extended family, so we just had to go. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, seeing as it was the Bean’s first long-haul flight and all, but the whole trip went surprisingly better than expected.
We boarded the cats, left the house keys to a plumber who would be redoing our bathroom while we were away and went to Leicester for a few days prior to our departure. That way, Mel could be our chauffeur to/from Heathrow. We went to feed the ducks and geese at Groby Pond and saw deer in Bradgate Park.
The flight to Canada was long, but fairly uneventful. Bean was very good in the plane. He slept during take-off and giggled while there was heavy turbulence during the landing. It took a bit of fiddling to get the CARES harness properly setup, but once we figured it out, it wasn’t too bad. It was a good thing that we got him his own seat in the plane though, because he wouldn’t have stood to be sat on us for the whole flight. He kept getting up in his seat and waving to everybody, especially the poor woman behind him. Changing a nappy at 37,000 feed is interesting and lets just say that conditions are a bit cramped. Even though he didn’t sleep a lot, there wasn’t too much fussing. We managed to keep him fairly well entertained, even if we had to watch Shrek the 3rd about 5 times. In the end, when passengers were departing, Bean got complimented on hid good behaviour. It must be said, ironically, that this was the first time ever that I flew long haul with only one child present in the flight – and it had to be mine.
Bean was good at the folks’. He got used to little dog quite quickly, even if he was a bit reticent about her the first night there. Once he got over that, he kept chasing after her and kept feeding her food. We had to put the dog out at every meal because half his food went to her. Even then, he ate like bottomless pit. He was always outdoors, playing on the swings or in the sand pit, eating apples, and running through the leaves or grass piles.
The party was more fun than I expected it to be. I ended up doing a fair bit of the catering, but that wasn’t too bad as it meant that I was certain that I’d be able to eat the food :) My boar roast marinade gravy got lots of good reviews as well, which is always nice for the ego. Bean got lots of fuss and compliments, and tried his first taste of beer. He also kept trying to get into ladies bathroom. That’s my boy.
Both Katy and I noticed that Bean seemed more grown up during this trip. He got more and more chatty, started eating with a fork and could drink out of a glass without giving himself a milk facial. He also discovered a very important word for him: “MORE!”, shortly followed by “JUICE!”.
Having 3 kids in the same house is chaos and Katy and I were taking bets on how soon it would take for all of us to get horribly sick. We were hoping we could hold out until after we did all that we wanted to do. We had a full calendar planned. We went to see horses at a neighbour’s farm. We tried feeding Ben to them but they weren’t interested.
We went to the Canadian Museum of Civilisation and for a jaunt to Ottawa. It was really funny to see Bean constantly run up to my mom’s car and try to get in for a road trip. The museum was fun. Bean rode saddles in horse display. We bought way too much stuff at the gift shop, including a beautiful ‘Children of the Raven’ rug. We went to the Byward market for a wander round and stopped for tea and a biscuit at a nice but very chaotic tea shop in the market. Bean has really taken to being carried on my shoulders, but we had a bit of an incident with a rogue tree branch :( That’s what gave him a scar on his cheek in the other pictures. On the way back to get picked up by my mom at the museum, Bean was waving to everybody, including dogs and pan handlers who – surprisingly – waved back :)
On Tuesday, we headed to Montreal. We had lots of things planned in very little time. We had a photo shoot with Isabelle at the Botanical Gardens. Bean got tired and grumpy part way through it but we managed to get some really nice pics in the end. I was impressed at how easy he was to put down for nap at my sister’s place while I tried to fix her wifi setup. In the end, I gave up and we went to our hotel. Very spanky! We got a suite upgrade with a jacuzzi for Katy. I had a boys night out with the old gang. Katy wasn’t in the mood to come so she stayed in, had a very nice meal (got a bit tipsy) and pampered herself (and accidentally ordered a PPV movie). We had a “Fuck it!” moment regarding the money situation when we realized that the holiday would cost a bit more than we expected, but sod it. We have one nice trip every two years. We’re going to enjoy Montreal. Boys night was fun, but we got old. We spent the evening in the kitchen, standing around a kitchen island and talking about work, kids and motorcycles while one of the guys was itching for a rant and really let rip at the poor St-Hubert restaurant that delivered his food one hour late and cold. That was impressive, especially considering that the restaurant is only 5 minutes away (this prompted the quote of the evening – “Would it be quicker if I just went there and cooked the damn thing myself?”)
The following day, Katy had her appointment with Norm for her tattoo and I had some time to do a few errands. I even managed to sneak in some tea at Ming Tao Xuan, even though all the shops open stupidly late in the old port. We had plans to meet Michel and Isabelle at Bishoku for dinner but those well through when Isabelle caught the man-flu that Michel had just gotten over. I’ve been going to Bishoku for over 10 years, when it was still called Tokiwa. When I was still living in Montreal, Michel and I used to go at least once a week. I’ve been living in the UK coming on to 6 years now, but I still go every time I have home leave. Amazingly, when I phoned up to make reservations, they remembered my voice and were thrilled that I was going. I was told that we needed to come!!! Going to a restaurant that remembers what you like after a two year absence and makes you stuff that is no longer on the menu speaks volumes for the service. I love those people, and they never disappoint :) We had sooooo much food, but damn, it was good. It was better than good. I wish them well – they need to be there when we go back in two years. We got a bit tipsy at Bishoku and Katy was dorphed-out from her 6-hour tattoo session, so we hailed a cab (yay! cabs everywhere! took 5 seconds flat) and we headed back to the old port. Katy was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I watched the glow from our fake fireplace for a while then did the same.
We came back to Ottawa on Thursday, when we had booked ourself a night at the Hilton Casino. It took a bit of stress and faffing to get us there, but we got a suite upgrade when we got there and that more than made up for it. We had late dinner reservations, so we went to the cigar lounge to chill a bit and have a drink. The bar only had roasted almonds as a snack. When I informed the nice lady bartender that I was allergic to nuts and we were getting rather tipsy on the good red wine we were enjoying, she got the kitchen to smuggle some sandwiches into the lounge for us. Unfortunately they had loads of garlic in them but its the thought that counts. That’s the sort of service that you don’t get hereabouts. I didn’t have the heart to let her know I couldn’t eat them. I went to the little corner shop and bought a bag of crisps. Not as posh, but very effective.
We went back to the suite to get presentable before dinner and had an amusing encounter with the bed turn-down maid service. Poor lady, we must’ve made a bit of an impression. Having said that, I’m sure it’s not the first time something like that happened…
The evening ended on a bit of a sour note. Katy’s meal didn’t completely agree with her. The restaurant declined my credit card because the computer at the front desk had mis-scanned it and I had to call Natwest to clear everything up. The room aircon was being a pain. There wasn’t a kettle to make tea so I had to use their weird percolator, but the water coming through reeked of coffee and to top it off, the the teabags were already waterstained. When I called up for tea to be sent up to room service, it took 30 minutes before it came but once it did and I showed them the state of things, the attendant was less than impressed, apologized and said that his manager would be informed. We were comped the tea. Tea made it all better.
The following day, we went to Kinki in the market for a sushi lunch. I have to say, for as much as I hold Bishoku near and dear to my heart, Kinki is a cooler place to eat. The ambiance is a lot more hip and the food is a bit more avant-garde. We had really good panko chicken and wasabi calamari as starters, followed excellent rolls. I especially recommend the beef-fillet wrapped shrimp surf n’ turf roll.
On Saturday, we went to the Science and Technology museum in Ottawa, to show Bean the train gallery. Bean was a bit grumpy and a bit of a handful, but I think he enjoyed it. My mom has bad laryngitis and completely lost her voice and my dad’s back was playing up.
On Sunday, I met up with Michel in the market before Roger Waters show. Had “small” pint of Hoegaarden at D’Arcy McGees on Sparks St. then went for dinner at Kinki. I found out that previous meal there had garlic and sesame in it, but I was pre-loaded with antihistamines so no harm done. I ended up doing the same thing again and it was still good.
The Roger Waters show was kick ass. I had a little something to enhance the show but there was a ton of stadium security and they were acting as kill joys. We went outside during the intermission, along with a significant number of people. They were scanning people in and out. It was a mess. Let’s just say, however, that the second part of the show was more intense than the first.
The show was excellent and I can’t wait until May to see it again in London. It sounded just like the CD. Now, normally, if you go to a live show, you expect that things will be different, but in this case, different would have been disappointing because the album is so iconic. It didn’t disappoint. It was spot on and almost perfect. I cried, again. Sue me.
Monday was our last day in Canada and it was a bit hectic. Bean had broken my mom’s chain so I gave her mine. I knew it would make her feel good to have something of mine with her all the time. Thing is that I feel naked without it now, but xmas should fix that. After a bit of a packing, weighing and repacking frenzy, we headed to the airport. Even with all our best efforts, we still had one suitcase that was 3.4kg over its allowed weight limit. The lady at the desk told us that we could shift stuff around to our other two suitcases, who were a few kilos light each. Unfortunately, both other suitcases were packed solid and nothing would have fit (trust me, we tried). In the end, those 3.4kg cost us a flat penalty fee of $100. Fuck you, Air Canada.
The trip back didn’t bode well, when Bean had an emotional outburst at being restrained in his seat. It was probably just fatigue, and he chilled out when other people starting boarding the plane. I changed him into PJs after take-off and he fell asleep around 8 while we were watching Avatar. Things seemed to go smoothly, until he woke up round 10:30pm roasting hot. He must’ve finally caught what the boys had. Perfect timing… We gave him water and meds and, although he was a bit listless, he spent the flight chilling in Katy’s arms watching Sherlock Holmes and another movie after that.
The only bad thing is that he slept the whole of 2 hours that night, when he normally sleeps 12. We went through customs and baggage with little hassle, and then we met up with Mel for the trip back to Leicester. Bean and I slept in the car and then we managed to make it through that day. The end of the story is here and here :)
All in all, a very good, very positive, very tiring, very expensive trip. But worth every penny, even if we’re broke now :)
Current Mood:
Contemplative
I think I know why I’m blue these days
I don’t regret moving to the UK. It was the right decision to do and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m applying for citizenship because I can see myself living here for a while longer. But for all of that, I’ve just come to the realization that one thing I really miss – aside from my family, of course – are the boys.
We used to see each other on a weekly basis. I miss the board game nights. I miss the gossip. I miss the general insanity that came along with having a close-knit group of friends that have known each other for years. This is something that I don’t have here, and I find I’m missing it.
Current Mood:
Pensive
Peeeeeeeeeeectures!
So I finally pulled the finger out and processed the picture backlog on my camera. The first set is from last xmas. Katy's dad commented on the fact that, shutterbug that I am, hadn't taken a lot of pictures on that trip. Meh. Those that did make it though, are really nice :)
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/montreal_xmas_2007/
These ones are from our recent trip to London to see Varekai. I'll write more about that in another entry, but I have to say that it was one of the best London weekends we'd ever had. For once, the hotel didn't disappoint and we probably had the best steak dinner we'd ever eaten. Hmmmm, grilled dead cow *slobber*
http://www.flubu.com/various_pics/london_jan_2008/
What I did on my holidays
Today marks my first day back at the office, after close to 3 weeks off. I can't really say that it's been all fun and games. There were some good time, there were some truly bad ones. The only thing I can really say is that I'm going to enjoy a bit of routine for the next little while and it will only do me good.
Katy, her parents and I spent 12 days in Canada: 3 in Montreal, the rest at my parents' place. I won't go into all of the gory details, because it involves a fair bit of drama and I can't be bothered to write it all down now. The highlights include:
– Salon des Metiers d'Arts in Montreal
– Brunch at Eggspectation
– Weinstein & Gavinos with Sara
– Sushi at Bishoku Montreal with Michel and Isabelle
– Lots of very good mom-cooked food
– Food poisoning, closely followed by putting my back out while puking at the Museum of Civilization
– Spending quality time with the 'rents
– The little yellow dog and the big dumb one who violated Katy
– Sushi at Kinki followed by beavertails during a much-needed day out in Ottawa
– SNOW!
My unfortunate bout of food poisoning unfortunately derailed our plans to pamper ourselves at the Casino Hilton, but I've promised to make it up to Katy when next we go to Londondinium.
Katy's parents had a blast, which was good and I think mine did as well, which is also good. Katy's cold/chest infection made her feel miserable for a good part of it, but she did her best to not let it show – even though she was really feeling rough at times :( I did my best to keep her in good food and good spirits (and throwing in a few movies here and there).
The flights on either way were uneventful. Groundhog Day was playing on the return flight. I love the suicide scenes :) Made me giggle, anyway. We were dead tired the day we came back to the UK and it was a loooooooooooooooong day. By the time we managed to stretch the day out to 9pm, we'd been up for about 37 hours with only about an hour of interrupted sleep. Harsh. We had to prod and poke each other to keep awake until it was late enough to go to bed on UK time – otherwise jet lag would have been an even bigger bitch.
Jan 1st was a pretty slow day. Stu came over to the in-law's house for the big dinner and we had a generally fun day catching him up about the trip.
Jan 2nd was the day we drove up to Worksop to pick up Irina, our new toxic waste kitten. I'll write more on her later on.
How could I have ever forgotten the Jazz??
I hadn't even realized that the Jazzfest is on. I'm shocked!
I had a look at the lineup this year. I'd have loved to go see Bela Fleck and George Thorogood/Buddy Guy.
I sometimes miss Montreal in the summer. There was a recent picture on ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
montreal showing a packed subway with people coming home from the Jazz and the fireworks. Brings back memories :)
So lets recap, shall we? [Part 1]
I've been wanting to blog stuff since the wedding, but generally, the last 3 weeks have been, in a word, chaotic. We're flying back to London as I'm writing this out at 35k feet. I've now lost all sense of time. It's the 21st. We got married on the 2nd. It seems that everything since then has been one big blur. I've been keeping little bits and pieces and notes on random scraps of paper, so I figure that now is a good time to try and sort through all of them.
The weekend before the wedding
Things started to get a bit nuts from the time Michel arrived, with his B&B not being ready for his arrival (in fact, being closed). We got him settled in to our place, but the plan of going to do a final suit fitting and go to the Cambs wine merchants went out the window. Instead, Katy and I went to run some errands. Here beginneth the dress saga.
Just over two month prior to this day, we'd bought Katy's wedding dress from Monsoon. At the time, she couldn't fit in it but the plan was to start a diet/exercise regime to get in shape. Now I'm really proud to say that Katy lost over two stone (24 pounds for people in North America) but we found out the hard way that Monsoon bridal dresses are cut really, really small. (We later found out that we should have gotten the dress a full size larger than the size she normally wears, but we didn't know this little tidbit at the time).As the wedding date drew nearer and Katy was still one critical zipper inch from fitting in the dress so we decided to get one that would fit nicely. We found a really nice one, which we actually ended up liking more than the original one. We were now however stuck with an unwanted wedding dress and since we were past the 30-day return period, we were kinda at the mercy of Monsoon's return policy.
We ended up being really lucky though because the dress was still in the system at the full price (which was probably an oversight on their part because it was last year's collection and no longer on the website). Because of this, we were able to get a store credit for the full price (250 quid), so Katy had a bit of a shopping spree at Monsoon that afternoon :) She got a nice skirt (shocking, I know!), a belt, two bags (one which was a gift for my sister), a pair of dress trousers, some Monsoon jeans (that she'd been lusting for since forever) and a baby top and some lion-headed mittens for Gabriel. A good haul, indeed!
We got back home and, after the cat crap incident which has been previously mentioned, had a nice evening at the Red Lion with Michel and then dropped him off at his B&B.
On Saturday, I went to Heathrow to pick up the 'rents and while they were recuperating at our house, we drove to town to do the suit fitting. That turned out to be another unplanned adventure because neither dress shirt would fit us and they didn't have any more in stock. After about 46 minutes of faffing around waiting for people at the other branch of Moss Bros to call back to see if they had our sizes available, we decided to just go to Debenhams and buy some. In the end, we found some really nice ones for a decent price, so that's not too bad. Besides, since I now have a pair of cuff links, it makes sense that I have the shirt to go with them. However, seeing that we spent an extra hour at Moss Bros and another hour in the Grafton centre, we ran out of time to go to the Wine Merchants again. That ended up being the running gag of the whole week – we never got to go while Michel was in town. We did manage to stop at M&S to get some grub, so we introduced my parents and Michel to not-just-food-but-M&S-food (meat pie and dripping-roasted spuds).
On Sunday morning, we took my parents to see the city centre and to hopefully get to the Wine Merchants – which turned out to be closed on Sundays. It had been sternly suggested by Michel's better half that he go and take pictures, so we just had a nice pootle in town but had to cut it short because Rita, Tim and Katy's parents arrived at our place in the meantime. We made it back to Hinxton just in time to go to lunch at the pub. Everybody seemed to have a nice time getting to know each other. I was surprised to see just how well my dad and Katy's uncle caught on. We all went back to ours for tea and small talk. Katy made a quick batch of gloop and sausages for dinner and people went on their merry way to their hotels while Katy and I went to pick up Anna at the train station. Poor thing, it took her more time to get from Manchester to Cambridge than it took us to cross the Atlantic and get to Canada. What should have been a 4-hour train ride mushroomed to an 8-hour ordeal because of missed connections, delays, cancellations and general train madness.
The wedding day
Things started out ok but went downhill fast. Mel, Stu and I were supposed to go to Chilford hall to drop off the wedding album and the music CDs to make sure that everything would work on the sound system. We also needed to go to a chemist to pick up some supplies for Katy's mom. Chilford was ok, but we got hopelessly lost in Saffron Walden and couldn't find the chemist. We found what we needed in a little hole-in-the-wall shop, but then got caught in morning deliveries and the traffic they spawned. When we finally made it out of town, we got caught behind a tractor going 10 miles an hour on the only road back home. I was going rather nuts by that time. When we finally got home, Katy and I realized that we had put her stocking suspenders in such a safe place that we could no longer find them now. I still think that the cat ate them, but I can't prove it. I hate to admit it, but I was sort of running around like a headless chicken for a while that morning. Finally, it was time for Michel and I to get dressed and for most of us to get to Chilford. We needed to get to the hall for 12:30 and Katy for 12:45, so we hired a minivan to get everybody except Katy, Rita, Anna and Mel to take us there. Another cab would come a bit later for Katy and her party.
That's when the biggest (and honestly, the only) hiccup of the day happened. Stephane was supposed to come up from London that morning with the lighting equipment that he'd hired for the day. He'd called earlier that morning to say that he should arrive around 11:30. However, because of train delays, he made it to Whittlesford after we'd all arrived at Chilford. We hadn't had any news, so I checked my voice mail (my phone was not on me and was also on vibrate, so I hadn't head it). Poor guy was stuck in Whittlesford, didn't know the place where we were getting married (he'd forgotten his invitation that had all those mundane details, like name and address of the hall), couldn't call a cab and even then, only had euro on him and no pounds :)
Things got sorted out in the end. I called him on his mom's France-registered cell phone, gave him directions and the number of a cab company and gave some money to the people at Chilford to pay for the cab. All and all, he was only 30 minutes late and that time was actually useful to settle my nerves a bit because I was becoming a bit of a wreck. He finally arrived and we all got a good chuckle because he was wearing ripped jeans and a skull-and-crossed-bones tshirt, hehe. He got changed and took on his duties and official photographer and we things got back on track.
The ceremony itself was, well, honestly, I don't really remember a lot of it. Mostly flashes. I did not expect to get so emotional, but I think that it was the release of months of preparation stress and just happiness at finally being at the moment. As soon as the opening notes of Pachelbel's canon (Katy's entrance music) started playing, I choked up. Even though we wrote our own vows, I don't remember a word of them. Thank god that the registrar led us through them. I know that I had a bit of trouble getting them out past the lump in my throat and I think I was whispering them at some point. I happily did not faint, nor did I drop the ring (though I had a bit of trouble figuring out which finger it was supposed to go on, even with the subtle prodding from Katy “it's the finger with the engagement ring, you big sap”) Katy says that I snotted all over her when I kissed her. I maintain that it was not that bad, though I know that my cheeks were… humid. I will say in my defence though that I was not the only one that shed a few tears or had trouble saying his/her lines.
We signed the registry and that was that. We were married.
We walked down the aisle and were out in a glorious sunshine. We were really lucky with the weather. It had drizzled a bit in the morning and it was forecast to rain all afternoon, but we had a lovely sunny break to take all the pictures outside and have canapes and champagne. The menfolk had cigars outside. When people sat down and started eating the buffet, it started pissing it down with rain.
We ended up having waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much food, but it was YUMMY! The buffet menu was posted previously and it was all that it promised. We need to send thank you cards to the people at Chilford because they gave us wonderful service, above and beyond what we expected. We spent the whole afternoon and most of the night eating and drinking and being merry. It was a really, really nice day; one that I will cherish forever. It was nice to meet a lot of Katy's friends – many of which I only knew from stories and I can now assign a face to. Michel had to make a speech, but emotions got the better of him in the middle of it. The same thing happened to Katy's dad during the toast.
We started taking pictures of everybody who was there and had a bit of fun with them. I was wearing a top hat that day and Katy a tiara, so all the people who posed had to wear either item, but it wasn't gender-specific :) To maintain tradition, there's also a picture of Stephane and I that will surely come back and bite me in the ass, but hey, some things you just gotta do.
I was really happy that my dad made it overseas. I think he had a good time overall there. I was really worried about his back, but he made it without too many problems. It was good having them there, and I think I made him cry that day :) Being a bit sensitive and emotional runs in the family after all :D
At 7:30, even more food was brought out, including a plate of scones that didn't last all that long. By the end of the evening, too much food had been eaten, just enough drink had been consumed, as well as some really nice cigars for the menfolk. People were just chilling and chatting in groups. That's one thing we were really happy about. People didn't seem to have too much trouble mingling together. My parents and Katy's got along really well, which didn't surprise us, but with more ease that we'd expected, to be honest.
People stared leaving around 9:30 and we were all home at ten-ish.
The days prior to leaving for Canada
You'd think that the following days would have been relaxing. You'd have been wrong. We were in town bright and early the following morning to return the suits and drive Michel, Stephane and Anna to the train station. We introduced my mom to the Early Learning Centre, which I think was a costly thing to do, but she loved it and bought tons of stuff for the kidlet. Things got a bit hairy for a while when we couldn't get in touch with the cattery to confirm Tolstoy's booking, but that got sorted out in the end. We dropped him off on Wednesday morning just before we went to Whittlesford to head off to London.
We got my folks on the Picadilly line to Heathrow and we headed to Victoria station to get to Gatwick to take a shuttle that would take us to our hotel . After being surrounded by a mad rush of people that intensely for a few days, it did us a lot of good to be on our own for a while. We were starting to get people'd out. The night we spend at the hotel in Gatwick was uneventful really. Nothing spectacular about it. The hotel was clean, the food was ok, but the service was crap and snooty. No kudos to it, so I won't even mention it anymore. We took off for Canada the next day.
The Christening
Katy and I are the godparents of Gabriel, my sister's son. We landed on Thursday and spend the next 4 days at my parents'. The christening went well, and it was a nice ceremony as these things go. I think that most of it was lost on Katy who is not catholic and doesn't really understand the rapid-fire french that was spoken during the ceremony. Still, I nudged her to sign on the right line, so all is well. My mom was in manic-mode that weekend, making sure that everything got done. She'd organized a wine & cheese with my extended family so that they could come and meet us, the newlyweds. It went well and though most of them aren't fluent in english, we still managed to get some nice conversations going and showed the wedding pictures a lot. I wasn't expecting them to be so generous, but we got quite a bit of unexpected money for our vacation, which was all well spent in the next two weeks
Montreal
We left for Montreal on Monday morning and went to get the keys of the crash pad we'd rented for the week. It was good to be on our own. Don't get me wrong, I love my family but after all the stresses of the previous week, we needed us time. We hadn't really had the occasion to just be on our own since prior to Michel's arrival. We needed this time. We had a good time in Montreal, even if it was a bit rushed at times and we didn't get to do all we wanted to do. We didn't get to see the biodome or the planetarium, poo, but those can be targets for next time we're in town.
We did manage to hit all the high notes: having sushi three days running, seeing Michel and Isabelle, Sara and Em, going to the old port, walking on the mountain, finding a really lovely tea shop in the old port, discovering a french pastry shop on St-Denis that makes mille-feuilles to die for, going to Eggspectations, seeing the lanterns at the Botanical Gardens. On Thursday night, while having drinks at Hurleys, Michel told us that Isabelle had to drive to Quebec early the following morning for work and we could have a lift if we got to their place for 7:30 am. That involved us going to bed at 1:30am because of all the packing we needed to do and getting up at 5:30 so as to not be late. Harsh, but we managed to sleep a bit in the car on the way to Quebec
Quebec
Quebec was wonderful. I did not expect to have that much fun in Quebec. I hadn't been there since a high school trip in 1991, but I still managed to remember some of the spots from that trip, like where we sang Christmas carols in june at the foot of Champlain's statue and the fountain where I chased Khaled with a trash can because he wouldn't give back my hat…
Anyway, I digress. The hotel we were in was really nice with lovely people running it. We ate like kings, we ate like pigs! Two really nice restaurants had been recommended to us by our hotel: le Cochon Dingue and le Lapin Saute. Both were NUMMAY!!! Steak frites, french onion soup, rabbit in mustard sauce, porc loin in maple syrup, hot chocolate galore! We would a little crepe shop that was overcrowded but really, really satisfying if you know what I mean :) That was also the night she scared some locals by saying “lets go to the hotel. you can rub cream on my shoulder and we can have sex with bad tv in the background” as a way to end a bit of a not-argument :)
We ate so well and so much that at one point, Katy started saying things like “yay, salad!” and “I'm looking forward to going back home and not eating”.
We mostly stayed in the old town, because that's where most of the sights are when you're a tourist without a car. Even then though, we had more things to see than we had time, so we did the major bits and took lots of pictures.
We decided to head back to Ottawa directly and not stop over in Montreal, mostly because we didn't have anywhere to crash.
Ottawa
We spent one night at my parents' before going to the Casino Hilton in Hull, our last major treat to ourselves. We'd booked two night in the executive-level rooms with the king-size beds. Finally, we had room to sleep!!!!!!! All of the beds we'd been in so far had been doubles, if not smaller, except for the hotel in Quebec which had a queen. We had room to spare in that bed. It felt wonderful :)
We'd gotten lucky weather-wise so far, because while it had rained non-stop in Ottawa, Montreal was mostly fine (except for some patches of drizzle here and there) and same for Quebec (we got moist one afternoon, that's about it). Ottawa was a bit grey, but we still had nice weather to walk in the Byward market and around Lemay lake.
[At this point, my laptop battery died so I'll finish it later]
Montreal – day 3
We started the day at the McCord museum. We'd noticed the night before that it had a Haida exhibit that tickled my fancy, so we had a gander before going to Eggspectation for breakfast. I think I've found inspiration for my next tattoo.
After eggy goodness, we spent the next 4 hours on St-Laurent (but I'll let Katy say why on her own terms). I almost got mugged by two constuction workers, a stockboy, a pharmacist and a cashier because I was carrying a box of Tim Hortons doughnuts. Hmmmmm, dognuts.
Once that little errand was done, we walked down St-Denis to Camelia Sinensis. I have to say, that place is the tea shop equivalent of C.M.O.T. Dibbler. You know it's bad, but you can't help yourself. No more though. Between the noisy ambiance with coffee-house music, snooty staff, overcrowding and generally holier-than-thou attitude, it's a place that I don't need. The tea salon in the old port is so much nicer, with friendlier staff (that bring you unasked for cashew nuts) and better tea. Cheaper too. So there. Fuck off, pretentious asses.
Teapots are rapidly becoming our latest collector trend. We found a cute one in a little curio shop hole-in-the-wall for next to nothing, so we just had to buy it. We just did.
Katy and I met up with Michel, Sara and Em at Bishoku (for our third sushi meal in 3 days…) which was, as per usual, damn good. Katy made the hostess really happy by asking for deep-fried ice cream and we actually tried new sushi. Hmmm, raw fish. We all went to Hurleys for a few drinks and the usual tales.
Michel dropped a bit of a bombshell when we told us that Isabelle was driving to Quebec and would gladly give us a lift. At 7am. That meant that we had to pack everything and get all the crap we'd bought to fit in two already groaning suitcases. That was fun, but we got it to work with no space left. We went to bed at 1:30 am and woke up at 5:30… fun fun fun, but cheap travel :D