I really wanted to start writing a blog to keep track of my adventures while travelling, but apparently I was lazy during the month of September. So, I'll try to wrap up Montréal in a single post, and continue with the rest of the journey.
3 Sept: My bus from Toronto arrived in Montréal at about 2200h. Cassie greeted me at the Megabus station with a smile, and promises of Unibroue beer when we reached our temporary new abode for my first time! The walk from the Greyhound station was a long one, but partly because we took a wrong turn once or twice. Fortunately, this resulted in our getting to see what looked like the King-and-John-Street-of-Montréal - later revised to St. Denis near Sherbrooke.
Upon arrival at our new place on Rue Hogan, I was surprised with how spacious it was! A flat just "north" of Rue Ontario, it had two bedrooms, a living room and an enormous kitchen! There was tonnes of interesting looking deco; it was nice to see that the place was well lived in.
4 Sept: In the afternoon, we visited Tyler in Griffintown. The lofts felt like a Montréal version of the Vulcan lofts in Oakland --- filled with tonnes of circus people, artists, and cool and interesting people of all types. As always, it was super fun to hang out with Tyler. We hung out in his loft for a bit and met his roommates, and then he showed us around while the sun set. We wound up on the roof of the loft (to get there, you have to climb the most rickety set of fragile-looking stairs I'd ever seen in my life), yielding an incredible-looking view of the surrounding area and the sunset, promising a surely fantastic place to spin fire [foreshadowing]. After hanging out on the roof for a bit and meeting more awesome people, we wound up walking to a nearby park on the canal to sit on a bench-thing, talking until it was time to part ways to sleep.
A cool building just outside Lucien l'Allier.
Park and sunset near the loft.
5 Sept: On the Friday, Cassie's sister blog tells me that we explored the plateau region. I definitely remember starting out the morning by walking down Rue Ontario to Papineau, where we found a really pleasant French-style café: La Fabrique Arhoma. There coffee was super delicious, the barista super friendly, and their baguette très savoureux. From there, our mission was Montréal-style bagels! And where better to go than Fairmount!? It started to rain very heavily in the later afternoon, so we ran into the first place we saw, which turned out to be a bar with an - interesting - aesthetic (it was a cross between a metal bar and a country bar maybe? With a mechanical bull).
In the evening, we made our way to John's place (I no longer remember where it is; maybe near Jarry?). It was a very nice place, with lots of cool knick-knacks. He made us a lovely dinner, and then we watched a couple episodes of Star Trek: TNG.
Also, there was some gorgeous street art outside our place that we got to enjoy every day.
6 Sept: It rained during the next day, so I did a bit of math, or something, while Cassie updated her blog. We then watched a couple episodes of DS9, at which point we got a call from Tyler around 1600h asking us if we wanted to go to "a thing where there's lots of lights in a forest". Sounding like it's right up our alley, we obviously said yes, and rushed over to his place. When we met up with Tyler, it was surprising to see that Katie was also there - someone I went to high school with!! Haley, you have cool friends! We also met Alisha, who turned out to be really fun, and very talented at silks.
The forest-with-lights-thing was called Foresta Lumina. It was about 2.5h outside of Montréal by car, and was an immersive art installation that creatively envisioned a Québecois legend that exists in the area. Something to do with a devil, and some girl, and the girl has to bring a rock into a valley in order to make her wish come true --- which has to do with making happiness come back to the land, or something else like that. What I remember most strongly is the quality of the installation. The aforementioned valley was illuminated by projections of thousands of tiny dots, which shone onto the rocks and the trees and everything around us. Another part of the forest had bright white bars of light attached to trees, whose rhythmic flashes served to mimic lightning, to which there were accompanying thunder noises from other parts of the forest.
Entrance to Foresta Lumina - tonnes of floating lanterns, with really neat signs that told the story of the Québecois legend.
A cool bird sculpture-type thing made out of sticks.
Magical gateway, guarded by Alisha and Cassie.
7-10 Sept: I have no idea what we did after this, really. I remember becoming progressively more aggravated that my Bixi key had not yet arrived in the mail, because I felt progressively more "stuck" in the east end of the city (since walking anywhere took ≥40 minutes). In retrospect, I should have sucked it up and took transit. Oh well! It was a productive week, math-wise, at any rate.
Oh, at some point, Cassie and I missioned out to MEC to get sleeping pads, and buy shoes. She also got her septum and nostril pierced, at which point I bought a pair of really cool-looking Octopus leggings (it's definitely not a squid.). Also, I got my hair cut at some point by Sarala, who we met at Tyler's loft on the first night. It looks amazing. Thank you, Sarala!
Some pictures of a square in Vieux Montréal.
On the way home, we took a tour of the ports further "east".
11 Sept: I remember doing something fun during the day, but no idea what it was. In the evening, we made tonnnnnnes of delicious vegan chilli and then packed for Harvest festival! Cassie rented a car, and volunteered very graciously to tackle the 7.5 hr. ride to/from the festival (in Burke's Falls, ON). Accompanying her would be myself, Jay and Daniel.
Potatoes for the festival!
12-14 Sept: On the morning of the 12th we woke up "early" to get the car, make breakfast and head off to the festival. It was a long ride, but altogether enjoyable. The countryside was very beautiful, and there was almost no traffic (only through Ottawa during rush hour, and while getting out of Montréal). We also got burritos just west of Ottawa --- what could be better!?
I'm still loving how prepared Cassie and I were for this festival! Harvest is known for being extremely cold (northern Ontario in mid-September), and it was supposed to rain, to boot. Fortunately, I had found a new pair of shoes by this point (at MEC, go figure!) and was confident they would serve me well. They are Keens, and reviews stated that they were "Jeeps for your feet". They certainly were! My feet stayed dry and warm all weekend, as did the rest of me. Our tent is a very light, very well-designed two person tent that was big enough for just the two of us and our backpacks - perfect for keeping warm through the night (less ambient air to heat up). We also have -7°C-rated sleeping bags from MEC which are hella' comfortable. Actually, we joked (but were serious) about how we slept better in that tent than we did on the horrible "mattress" we had at our place on Hogan. More gloating: the amazingness of this tent also appears in its ability to keep keep dry, even when the ground is wet. This saved Cassie once in the field, and both of us at Harvest. We slept soundly until around noon, at which point we were woken up by people loudly lamenting how all of their things got wet.
The Saturday was very rainy --- rained straight until around 1600h. As a result of this, the inside didn't get unbearably hot (like what usually happens at festivals). This made for a very comfortable experience overall. Upon leaving the tent, we adventured around for coffee, met up with friends, and then ran into a group of people setting up a Fraternity installation --- complete with kegs of cheap beer, and everything! They were really fun to interact with, but we eventually left to meet up with Dana, Roman and many, many others at their RV-thing for hot chocolate before the circus show. The circus show was unbelievable --- I knew most of the performers from either Tuesday night fire poi, or from CirQlar parties, but hadn't seen many of them perform before. It was really impressive to see the quality of some of their acts. Dan's stage presence and charm were fantastic during his fire eating routine; Wesley's silks routine was flat-out unreal; and Jasper's hand balancing act was very well put together.
The full Harvest festival experience was in full swing by the time the circus performance finished --- complete with Harvest soup, many stages playing many fantastic sounds and noises, and tonnes of general adventure! There was lots of running between fire pits, which also meant lots of potato roasting. Consequently, there was tonnes of great conversation with other Harvesters.
On Sunday, we hung out by one of the fires and drank coffee. A very cheerful and energetic woman invited all at the fire to her tent for crepes and music! Obviously we went. But we didn't want crepes. They were super friendly, and had very good music. Lots of fun to interact with. :-) The clean-up on Sunday was a breeze, since everything we brought fit into our two backpacks. Unfortunately, the parking lot had turned into a pool of mud over the weekend, and most people had to be towed out --- either by a pair of slightly disobedient horses, or by a tractor. Fortunately, Cassie and I lined up our path carefully, we she was able to make it to the far end of the parking lot with only a little pushing from myself and two very nice individuals willing to assist. Overall, despite the weather conditions, we both agreed that this is the best Harvest we'd been to (and some others said the same thing)!
The drive back was a long one, but we made it home! There was lots of loud music to keep us company, but both Jay and Daniel slept for most of the way. Actually, I think Jay slept for *all* of the way... The part of the trip that felt like the longest was probably after we dropped off Jay and Dan, and had to make our way back to our place --- on the other side of the city. At this point, it was getting quite late (midnight), and it was a little scary. But we made it 100% safely, with the help of way too much coffee (Mmm, coffee). Despite the absolutely horrid mattress, it felt incredible to lie down - fully showered and clean - after the long journey back from Burke's Falls.
16 Sept: Today we had Peachy and his friend Emily over for a barbecue at our place! The food we made was absolutely incredible. We barbecued portobello mushrooms, beets (beets!), potatoes, eggplant, and most importantly: veggie skewers. The veggies skewers had pepper, half-cloves of garlic, onions, tofu, and maybe some other things. They were marinated, and then basted in a delicious "lemon-ginger-herb marinade using rosemary/thyme/basil picked fresh from the garden" marinade of Cassie's concoction. John, Annamaria (slept on our couch for a few days), Peachy, Emily and Sheena were in attendance (at various points) during the barbecue, each there at different times. John and Sheena came later, while Peachy and Emily left earlier so that they could get ready for school the next day.
17 Sept: Today we went for Kouign Amann. Mmmmmmmmmmmm Kouign Amann. At this point, we also saw Max. Yay Max! We met him at St. Viateur for bagels and coffee. He then took off to move his car so he wouldn't get a ticket, while Cassie and I picked up Kouign Amann to take to Kendall's. There, we met back up with Max, and Kendall gave us the grand tour of her place --- which is huge, and is in the process of being re-done! The Kouign Amann was absolutely unreal. If there's one thing you should do in Montréal...
When we got home, we made samosa-inspired chili. It was super tasty! It featured peas and potatoes, as well as tandoori curry paste. Recommendation: always boil potatoes *before* adding them to your chili. We had to wait forever for them to cook. It was really, really worth it, though. See Cassie's sister blog for a recipe.
18--22 Sept: During this period of time, I went back to Pickering to: see friends, bring a few things back to Pickering and most importantly, to attend my grandmother's 90th birthday party on Sunday. It was really fun to go back, even though I apparently missed a really incredible loft party in Griffintown.
On the Thursday I went back to Pickering and slept in my supremely comfortable mattress, which I missed a lot! Even if I went back to Pickering solely to sleep on that mattress, it probably would have been worth the trip, given how awful the Hogan mattress is/was. But even better: I woke up on Friday, and got some studying done. Then I went downtown to meet up with Chris and Victor - we got delicious burritos (how I miss Burrito Boyz), and then we went to Victor's new place to play board games. I got to meet Isabelle and Ben for the first time. Isabelle is super cool and incredibly generous (with the amount of food- and space- and story-sharing that she does). I really enjoyed that she sings all the time. It's inspired me to sing all the time. I think I am slightly less bad at it now. Around 22h we went out VIP billiards at Yonge and Gerrard. It was in a basement that smelled musty, and maybe sort of like mould... But the pool was fun. At some point, Chris and I decided it was a good idea to play snooker... ahaha, it was super difficult (as expected). Fortunately, Anton came part way through, and helped us clear off the table! I hadn't seen him in ages, and it was nice to catch up. I hope I get a chance to see him sometime soon. On Saturday, I hung around for a while, and then hung out with Gaelan in the afternoon. In the evening, I visited Fractal Ocean - Eric and Ryry's Trance party, but had to leave early to catch the last train back to Pickering. On Sunday, I woke up early to meet with Bhautik for coffee in Ajax. Bhautik, you're the coolest. Thank you for coming all the way from Oshawa at 09h on a Sunday for hangouts over coffee. It was super pleasant to see you, and I really enjoyed our conversation! Afterward, it was 90th birthday partytimez. Both of my Aunts and Uncles were there, as well as most of my cousins (Matthew has been in Australia for ~ a year now, and may continue his travels for another!). My grandmother's friends (Pat and Clyve) of 57 years were also there! They hadn't seen each other in 4 years, so she was thoroughly surprised and delighted to have a chance to see them! Overall, the whole thing was lovely. In the evening, I went to the beach with my mother, where we played Scrabble over a cup of coffee, and chatted --- I feel like such an adult! When we got back, I started making a thing - a projection mapping thing. Processing seems to be a good tool to use, but it's like Mac OS X in that if you want to delve under the hood, it's difficult to find the more advanced documentation (and not all standard Java methods are shared with Processing). On Monday, I saw my father until it was time to go back. We had breakfast in Ajax, and then played three games of Snooker, and they all went pretty quickly (i.e., we didn't suck too badly)! Then commenced the long trip back to Montréal. I coded for basically the entire ride, and got a working prototype. It's far from being complete, but it feels good to have achieved a tangible goal.
When I arrived in Montréal, I met Cassie in Parc Mont-Royal with Hunter, Iris and... someone whose name I forget. Cassie brought me "soup" she had made (it was more of a stew :P), I very thankfully consumed the delicious hot thing. Fire spinning was lots of fun!!
23 Sept: Today, Cassie and I explored McGill University, which was very beautiful. She finished knitting her hat today while we sat in a McGill library (so that I could study). Afterward, we went out for dinner at Lola Rosa. We each got their burrito, which was super fancy, and very, very tasty. From here, we hiked up the trail at the back of McGill to the top of Mont-Royal. An incredible view, as always. Except this time, I recognized more of the city, and it felt neat to be able to recognize certain landmarks.
On the way back from Mont Royal we found an immersive art installation about labyrinths in the Village!
24 Sept: We went to the Botanical Gardens. They were unreal! So many beautiful, beautiful plants!! I loved the "usable plants" section the most --- everything from edible plants (Pumpkin, Eggplant, Corn), to herbs and spices (oregano, basil, 'n' stuff), to plants used for fabric (hemp, jute) and fabric dying (yellow dyes, brown dyes, and more!). There were also so many plans and herbs and stuff that smelled super delicious!
The gardens were absolutely enormous. Towards the back of the gardens, there were forests of different kinds of trees: Spruces, Poplars, Maples, Birches of all sorts, and so much more. At the very back was the Arboretum or Tree House, where they had a lot of information about trees, as well as an adorable Bonsai garden, with so many cute plants! After this, we walked back through more beautiful gardens to get dinner at their restaurant. It was both super tasty and super fresh, as well as reasonably priced! From here, we grabbed tea/coffee, and went to check out the Japanese gardens, and Chinese gardens, where there was a Chinese lanterns exhibit which was really beautiful to look at.
This day was so much fun. Exactly what I needed to take a break from studying, and from big city Mtl. Awesome idea, Cassie :-). On the way home, we explored the Olympic Stadium grounds. They were massive. They also had a really cool outdoor park-looking thing (giant obstacle course basically), but we never had to time to go back to try it out. Next time!!
26 Sept: There was a sushi party this evening. I missed most of it so that I could study for the GREs. Sheena's friends seemed cool. We met some of them later at Tams on Sunday.
27 Sept: GRE day!! To cheer me up afterward, Cassie and I went for brunch at Café Coop Touski. It was really delicious! Waiter was also super charming. And there was another server part way through who was unfathomably attractive. After this, we headed to the open house at l'Ecole Nationale du Cirque, where we saw several amazing performances from students, and got to learn some new juggling skills from a friend that we met at Tams, who works as an instructor at the school! After this, we went to a vegan food festival at UQAM, but it wasn't very good (it was too busy and the venue was too small). But eventually, we wound up at Dieu du Ciel on Laurier - the Unibroue home base! So many ultra-delicious beers :-) I got a stout and another thing, and Cassie got a ginger-y beer and the stout (because mine was so good).
28 Sept: Today, we woke up and went to la Musée des Beaux Arts. There were many exhibits that ranged from 13th and 14th century works of art, to 20th and 21st century furniture design. The museum is laid out such that the top floor is the oldest stuff, and the bottom floor, the newest. We were led on a tour of the Romanesque period, through the Baroque, Rococo, Realist, Impressionist, and Neo-classicist periods (surely with some others in between; order may not be entirely correct). Then we got dinner at a nice vegan place downtown, whose name I forgot to remember. Copper something? It's on Bishop, just south of de Maisonneuve, I believe. From here...
Tams!! The last one (for now)! It was super fun. Spun lots of poi and juggled quite a bit. Eventually Matt showed up, whom I hadn't seen in a really long time. We wound up trying to learn how to juggle three pins between us. It was really difficult, but we made fantastic progress and had a lot of fun. Can't wait to practice again :-) We hung out until evening, where we watched some of the fire jam that was going on near the gazebo, and then Cassie and I left the group to buy Fairmount bagels and get Froyo. We couldn't find a Froyo place, so we settled on Gelato (SO DELICIOUS) and split a "Bozo" bagel from Fairmount. It was enormous --- two bagels twisted together; one side sesame, the other poppy seeds.
29 Sept: In the morning, I took Cassie to l'Oratoire St-Joseph. A giant church-thing on the "west" side of the mountain. The view is absolutely spectacular, and the architecture itself is incredible. We made it just in time for sunset!! Afterward, we went for dinner at a delicious Middle Eastern restaurant. The prices were great and the food was amazing. I think it was called Al-Amine near Côte-des-Neiges.
After this, we went to Tyler's to visit him one last time, under the guise of having a fire jam on the roof! We ran into Katie on the subway, who was headed to the loft for Art Night. There were a bunch of people who were all really talented at drawing, and tonnes who were very talented at fire spinning! Overall, it was a fantastic way to end our time in Montréal. At some point, after one last goodbye, it was time to head home so that we could pack before having to wake up early for our ride share to Québec.
A non-exhaustive list of things I'm happy to have done:
• get much better at reading, speaking and conversing in French
• Watching MLP:FiM in French and being able to understand almost everything.
• getting to strengthen existing friendships with friends I rarely get to see, and to get the chance to form so many new ones.
• learn more about what it is to live in a city with a different underlying culture, tone, set of values, etc.
• explore many neighbourhoods of Montréal, as well as shops, café's and pretty sights
• have a list of things to see that has grown in size, to be looked at the next time I get to visit.
• I'm really happy with the amount of cooking I've gotten to do. It's been so nice to have time to invest in culinary endeavours, rather than running an optimization problem for (nutritional value)/(preparation time)
• I'm really happy we visited Propulsion, a vegan restaurant in the village. Unfortunately, I forget which day we went, but it was also unbelievably delicious. We had a molé, which is a type of Mexican dish which has chocolate, chili and maple! So exciting, and so different :-) The server was a little awkward, but very kind. And, for the price of 2 dinners, an incredible slice of vegan cake, and two Americanos, it was cheaper than Lola Rosa (and more tasty). Highly, highly recommend. When we visited here, we also got to take a tour through The Village, which was very fun. Somewhere, I have a bunch of photos of a cool art installation that was somewhere along Sainte-Catherine.