Oui, Montreal

We went to Montreal. In May.

Yes, I've been a bad blogger.  Mainly because it has been the end of the school year, though not mine, and the kids and I have been on the road a lot.

J had a work trip and E is enrolled in French Immersion for Senior Kindergarten next year, which is just regular old kindergarten in America, so we thought we would drive the 6 hours and meet him there.  It is actually a great drive up the St. Lawrence River, past the 1,000 Islands along the border with New York state.  E and S watch movies most of the way, so I got to listen to a David Sedaris book on my iPhone and the first part of Bossypants by Tina Fey on the way home.

Everything was fine until we crossed over into Quebec.  As most of you know, Quebec is a French-speaking province, and I took Spanish in high school. Because, I thought, 'Hey, I live in California, next to the border with Mexico. Why would I ever need French? They shouldn't even teach French!'  Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

We stopped at the most inspired rest area ever.  It had... a playground. For small children. Who are restless after spending hours cooped up in the car.  I would show you the pictures I took, but little gremlins deleted them from my phone.  We also ate the most delicious chicken croquettes ever (they are not nuggets in French, no, no!).  St. Hubert was the chicken place we ate at in the rest area. The rest area even had sculptures. As in, real life artwork. Can you imagine that on the New Jersey Turnpike? And the conversation Snookie would have with the Situation about it?

I couldn't understand the French to pump gas, even though I have been pumping gas for my entire adult life, but eventually we figured it out and continued on. And our adventures in Montreal continued.

I know people love Montreal, and it is nice and all, but overall I think I am glad I live in Toronto.  I think that they are underserved as far as the Canadian dream.  Toronto is uber clean. True story: one night J and I drove home in the pouring rain around midnight to see someone powerwashing municipal garbage cans.  Montreal was plagued by a lot of graffiti*, and just overall looked like another large North American city, just one that spoke another language.   They pay a lot of taxes in Montreal, like in Toronto, but it doesn't look like they get the same level of services as we get in Toronto.  Who knows, though?

We went to this awesome environmental museum:

and the kids got to learn all about how water works, different fuels for cars, and how to make a dress out of hair (which was sort of gross).  The museum is in a park in the center of the river, so you get a great view from the lookout point.

There was a station about how most of the world got their water, which included filling up a bucket at a pump and then filling a bathtub. I loved this station. My kids worked so hard to fill it, and they made it realistic enough that is was a real walk.  It prompted some good questions about water usage and the world.  Manual labor is good for kids.

At this station, you could adjust the flow of the water through the community through adding canals, dams, and building or removing shoreline.  It was super awesome.  We could have stayed at just this station all day.  I recently found this toy for home use.

I don't remember the point of this exhibit, except that it poured water out of the toilet when it tipped over and my kids thought it was hilarious!

We also ate poutine in Montreal, at a hot dog bar with some of J's colleagues.  I am not a huge poutine fan.  I tend to enjoy french fries plain, so I don't need to add gravy and cheese curds to them to make them better.  They were fine, but I enjoy other things in Canada more, like skiing and smoked meat at Caplansky's.  Oh, and Olive et Gourmando.  This was my favorite place in Montreal. We ate so many meals there. I actually took a picture of my yogurt and fruit, but it seems weird to post it.  They had amazing coffee.  Delicious baked goods. Amazing sandwiches. The brownies!  Worth a trip back alone. It was always packed and full of people eating food that was making them happy.

    

We saw the church that Celine Dion got married in.  It was big and fancy. They were advertising a light show, so J and I looked at each other, shrugged and bought tickets. Normally we wouldn't really go for the church thing with the two small kids, but a light show sounded OK.  This show was heavy on the God and the history of the church.  Interesting, but not what we were expecting.  We weren't going to go in otherwise, so it was good to know, and helpful to get an overall picture of Montreal, but we laughed at ourselves that we were that gullible.  And then we were also gullible enough to go on the carriage ride around old Montreal, but we have a 5 year old girl and she is into princesses, so what do you expect?

S and E both got to feed the horse, which was an unexpected surprise and perhaps not a welcome one in the end.

We went out to the mountains outside of Montreal one day, where Mont Tremblant and the skiing regions are, to scope it out for next year. It was late May. People were still skiing. Because it is cold in Canada.  This is why hockey playoffs aren't until June.

J had the biggest coffee ever at a little shop that roasted its own beans, and we stopped at another village with the most beautiful grocery store ever (below).  

 

J had to work some more, doing important lawyerly things, so E, S and I went to the olympic village. They have converted the old biking arena into a museum hosting several habitats. Here are S and E in one of them. I think they are pretending to be animals.  It was really remarkable.  It is also remarkable what kind of infrastructure you are left with after the olympics are over.  Montreal has done a great job of turning them into public parks, but losing their baseball team to Washington has meant that part of that park goes unused now. Oh well.

On our way home, I took a wrong turn because listening to Tina Fey and the Garmin can sometimes be challenging.  We ended up in the area of 1,000 Islands, which is so beautiful.  I was on a side road and found this beautiful outdoor shrine/meditation area. I drove away, and then turned around and decided to go back and take a picture of it.  The owner of the house was out this time and gave me permission. Beautiful, eh?

*Including one that in my head I call my first swastika.  Someone had tried to draw one, couldn't get the two pieces to fit together right, and then did it again. Ah, success! If you are going to try some hate graffiti, please practice it at home first.