Montreal
Arrived in Montreal yesterday afternoon about 3pm on a real (or American) freeway that was seriously congested as we got closer to Montreal. Highest speed limit was 100km, but it took us less than two hours to get here from Ottawa. I don’t know if that was rush hour traffic, but if it wasn’t I’m glad I wasn’t here during that time. Coming into Montreal, it felt like a fairly contemporary city with lots of apartment blocks, billboards, construction, etc. I was expecting something more like paris, but appearance wise the parts of Montreal we’ve seen are not like Paris. The buildings aren’t that old or that close together. The streets aren’t cobblestone or narrow.
We followed Sally’s (GPS) instructions and arrived at the apartment in the Little Italy area about 3:30pm. We were a bit worried about the neighborhood but having spent two days here now, it seems fine. It was raining when we got here and there is a park across the street. Some seriously scary hoodlums seemed to be hanging out at the park and several teens on bikes were eyeballing us (probably kesh and Asha—I don’t think they were worried or interested in Vive or I). Kesh dresses like a hoodlum so perhaps he seemed to be infiltrating their territory. Today, though, the park is filled with kids playing and mothers and it’s really quite a nice park.
The apartment is a small one bedroom apartment with a kitchen/living area with a pull out couch and table with four chairs. The complete kitchen (no micro) is very useful. It’s a simple apartment but we wanted a pretty authentic Montreal location (where people live not just where tourists hang out). And this feels pretty authentic. No hotels, no strip malls. But it feels more like northside Chicago than paris. The buildings are mostly three flats in this area undergoing various stages of gentrification. Lots of markets on the corners and the fantastic street market Jean Talon is only about 6 blocks away.
the apartment has no AC, no heat but it does have fans and we were comfortable in the evening with the windows open. The pull out couch is adequate for kids but I don't think adults would enjoy it. We started our night with Kesh on the floor on some cushions but in the middle of the night Rakesh spotted a bug. Now, Kesh loves bugs and all day today he wanted to look up the bug on the internet, but in the night, he was not so fond of it and so we had to move him to the couch with his sister. We are discovering that our kids are not of an age where they have any desire to share a bed and they are letting that be known!
We went to Jean Talon this am to get croissants and coffee and stroll through the food markets. The amount of food is incredible, such beautiful veggies and fruits. I wanted to buy everything but what would we do with it. Instead we purchased some beautiful blueberries, strawberries and black berries from a very friendly lady. Everyone speaks some English so far, but there are several people we’ve bought from where we could not quite understand them, but we managed to work things out anyway. We use our French when we can. Truly, Montreal is a French city (all signs are in French, most without English translations). It’s fascinating that this one province in a country would decide to stay French.
We had coffee and a croissant, chocolate croissant and an almond pastry there. It was called Au Pain Dore (it is a chain). We sat outside and watched the people in the market. The coffee there was better, Vive said and I enjoyed my tea.