Day 6: Science!

The weekend is here, and what's a nerd to do in Montreal? Go to the science centre of course! Read on...

First I met my cousin and her family and we met at Noodle Factory for lunch. They make all of their noodles and dumplings from scratch daily and this place is one of Montreal's hidden gems. We went around 1:30pm to avoid the noon rush.

Ellen and Vince have two insanely cute kids:

I told Loquinn to give me a big smile and this was the biggest he could muster. He looked at the picture after I took it and exclaimed, "What a big smile!"

When I brought my phone out to take pictures, Loquinn (the oldest) was fascinated. I showed him how to take pictures using the touchscreen and he took about twenty shots of the table in front of him just to see the screen go black for a second. He also managed to take a few pictures of me!

The only table shot that had food in it - the rest were empty patches of table.

In my head I was thinking "this is why I bought a protective case for my phone.. I don't know why your fingers are so wet but they are!"

I was planning to go the science centre anyway and I asked if they wanted to come along and they did! It was about a 20 minute walk to get there through Old Montreal:

Old church architecture - cool!

Horses! Cobblestones! Loquinn was racing the horse.

Science!

As it happens one of the exhibits was "Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition" which was interesting for how frank, honest, and visual it was. I am not sure if the Saskatchewan Science Centre would host it, but kudos if they ever do. 

For instance, here is a table of phalluses covered with condoms:

After I took this picture I saw a sign that said "no photos anywhere in this exhibit!" and I thought, "that's strange" but realized why when I turned the corner - 12 larger-than-life images of people (6 male, 6 female), completely naked, at various developmental stages (from infant to puberty to adult to old age). Another display ("we're all different") had pictures of real man- and lady-parts. Another digital display rotated between different combinations of naked body parts (see this pic on the science centre's homepage, warning: nudity). Elsewhere there were two life-sized naked people sculptures.

Plenty of people (including us) were cracking plenty of awkward jokes but the more we thought about it, the more we thought the display was a great idea. It's aimed at awkward kids in puberty who need some reliable information (see the exhibit FAQ; it's a really interesting read) and serves to educate kids (and parents, for educating their kids) about healthy sexuality. The displays - especially the nude portraits of people of all ages - prompted a lot of thoughts and discussion on the difference between sexuality (health and social issues) and sexualization and hyper-sexualization (of society, teens, etc).

Ellen & Vince's kids thought the sex displays were pretty boring so we moved on - they loved the display where you assemble a bunch of big foam blocks into a bridge. We couldn't pull them off!

All of a sudden it was 5PM and the science centre was closing. Time flies when you're having fun! We packed up and Ellen and Vince headed off to a metro, I headed back to the hotel.

I took a different route home and stumbled across these orbs:

They changed colours and the images on them changed too. When you got close to them they made creepy sounds, like howling combined with wind gusts combined with children screaming. Whatever it was - I liked it! 

That's it! I grabbed some groceries and some St Ambroise apricot beer and I am chillaxing once again.

I'm excited for tomorrow morning - I'm checking out an apartment, either on the 10th or 12th floor, that has a ~200 square foot terrace! If I'm in Montreal for a year, I would absolutely love a terrace. The apartment can be crap... but if I can barbecue and drink beer on a terrace, my life would automatically be awesome.

Day 5: Poutine!

The weekend! At last!

Today was a workday as was any other, but after work I went to Les 3 Brasseurs for beer and poutine.

I tried all of their microbeer brews, four in total: Blonde, White, Amber, and Brown:

And! Most importantly of all, I tried my first plate of Montreal poutine:

It was great overall: crispy fries, real chucks of chedder cheese curds that "squeak" when you chew them. According to reviews, this is far from the best, but leaps and bounds above the worst. On the weekend, I hope to try some of the extremely specialized poutines in the various corners of the city. 

At Les 3 Brasseurs I was sitting at the bar, and after a while a local guy named Manny sat beside me. He was an interesting guy and was fun to talk to. When I asked him what I should do this weekend, he told me an address where I should go hang out and watch for transvestite prostitutes. I told him that wasn't exactly my idea of a good time (or did I??!!?!?!!). Oh well. I forgot the address (or did I?!?!?!?!?!).

I also snapped a picture of this awesome pole poster. Ali Hutchings is my inspiration for documenting this pole poster; she takes pictures of interesting ones in Fredericton and Halifax. 

Don't believe their lies!!!!

Tomorrow is lunch at the Noodle Factory with my cousin and her family; after that I think I am going to go explore the Science Centre. Mostly because I am cool and awesome.

Tea & Scotch (Day 4)

Robyn is getting everyone she knows hooked on this awesome tea from DavidsTea. There is no store in Saskatoon, but there's a billion in Montreal and it just so happens one is two minutes away from my office.

I went after work, intending to get three teas (one each for me, my mom and Robyn) and left with five - that's the magic of DavidsTea!

Left-to-right: Forever Nuts, Baked Apple, Coco Chai Rooibos, Organic Strawberry White, Through the Grapevine, Lagavulin 16 year. 

Robyn got me this AWESOME travel mug for Christmas. Picture a travel mug combined with a French press combined with a SECRET COMPARTMENT. The bottom screws off and holds extra loose tea, so you can carry and steep your loose tea all in one package. I've been drinking a lot of tea from it! The Montreal office doesn't have free coffee but it does have a hot water tap on the water cooler, that's all I need.

The Lagavulin isn't tea. It's a delicious bottle of single malt scotch from the Isle of Islay, Scotland. Very smoky and peaty - one of the best bottles I've had so far. It's a couple bucks cheaper in Quebec than in Saskatchewan, enough so that it was worth waiting until this trip to grab it.

 Here's a pic of the rest of my budding scotch collection from a week or two ago:

The two bottles on the left are my roommates' - we're classy.

Tomorrow is Friday, hooray! I think my cold is almost gone, I've just got the runny nose so I should be able to do some fun things on the weekend. On Saturday I'm going to have lunch at the Noodle Factory with my cousin and her little family, I'm looking forward to that!

Other stuff:

• Every Montreal man, married or not, includes "beautiful girls" in his list of things to like about Montreal. Without fail! It's endearing :-P
• I should know details about my one-year relocation soon. The email has been sent instructing that the paperwork be initiated. I still do not have said papers. But they're aiming to have me start January 31, which means I'd be back in Saskatoon for only a week before moving out here!
• On my first night here, housekeeping washed the dishes I'd used. Every subsequent day, they did not. They set the precedent and let me down! (Oh well. the only dishes I use are one glass for water and three knives to make my lunch sandwich every morning).
• Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you people of Montreal for being bilingual, because I'd be totally lost if you weren't. I'll learn some French, I promise. 

Reuben's Smoked Meat Sandwich

I did one interesting thing today: Reuben's Deli!

I went immediately after work, so it was pretty quiet. Maybe people eat later here. There was lots of wood panelling everywhere. Very intimate feel; it would be fun to come here while it was busy and lively.

I ordered an AWESOME smoked meat sandwich, my only complaint was that the fries weren't anything special. If you're going to make sandwiches this good, put a little effort into the fries!

I did not finish that massive plate of food specifically so I could try Reuben's famous cheesecake. Very delicious, though the strawberries tasted a bit off (perhaps because it's the middle of winter).

Very tasty meal overall! I'll be back eventually.

I heard a few details about my year-long relocation today. All of the approvables are approved, and now the ball is in HR's court to get me the terms & conditions. Tentative start date for my year-long term: January 31st!

Mont-Royal (Day 2)

Today was a fairly uneventful day. I'm still feeling sick. I'm well enough to go to work, but in the evenings I just want to put on sweat pants and sleep. I'm terrible.

The highlight of the day was when two of my co-workers took me on a "walk around Montreal," which turned out to be a walk up Mont-Royal, the big mountain beside the downtown core and McGill University. I'm all for climbing mountains, but going up lots of hills and stairs was pretty gruelling for a guy who blew through 2/3 of a full-size box of Kleenex over the last two days. No joke, I had a solid four inches of crumpled tissue in my garbage each day. Bletch.

Complaining aside, it was a fun hike with people who I could be working with for the next year, and the view from the top was really neat:

O hay thar lady

In the middle picture, my building is right beside the building in the exact centre (but you can't see it, because it's shorter) in the Place Ville Marie complex. 

A co-worker in Saskatoon sent me a detailed list of restaurants to check out - I've gotta try the best poutine in town, followed by the best smoked meat sandwich in town. I'm hoping to do that this weekend. 

After work I grabbed a bottle of scotch and scarfed down a quick Korean food-court supper. Now it's 7pm, I've got everything on my checklist (laptop, scotch, Kleenex) and it's time for a quiet night. 

Bonsoir (Day 1)

My first full day in Montreal is done!

Well, technically I still have time to go out and do stuff, but I'm still feeling stuffy and crappy from the cold... so I'm calling it an early night.

Here's the view I woke up to:

Not great but not bad! At least we get the sun about 1.5 hours earlier here than in Saskatoon.

My hotel/apartment has a decent little cold breakfast, and then I went to work:

Cube city... just like Saskatoon, but higher walls.

The Montreal office is pretty nice and full of great people. I couldn't get started on much meaningful work though, because the guy I'm going to work with was out for the day. My workday ended up being like most workdays - there's nothing in Saskatoon I can't access from Montreal.

At lunch a colleague took me to the Montreal Underground (La Ville Souterraine) for lunch; it's pretty neat. I wanted to take some pictures but it was to busy - I didn't want to drop my phone! I did take a picture of a place that baked artisan bread, almost directly below my office:

Mmm.... bready.

On the way home I walked a different route and walked past this neat old church (the Anglican, I think):

Church-tastic!

And I also walked past this classy joint:

SUPER SEXE. I think my boss told me to go here. Mmmm no. Nice sign though!

Here are some other things I learned today:

• The stereotype of Montreal drivers being bad is wrong; the pedestrians are terrible. They run out everywhere and practically stand in the middle of the road waiting for lights to change. 
• Elevators don't have licenses posted in them. 
• You can buy a case of Molson Dry (hated by Quebecers, loved by me and my pals) for $15 here; the SLGA sells it for $22 but you can usually only find it at Sask offsales for $26-28. Also, you can get it at grocery stores. Win! 
• Today I learned about the "McGill Ghetto" - slang for the area by McGill University. My hotel is in the "ghetto". This isn't evident until you go to the grocery store after 6pm and can't see a single person over 25 buying groceries. It's kind of a strange feeling. 
• Update: a crowd of people just walked past my building chanting "More beer, more beer more beer more beer."

Bienvenue à Montréal (Day 0)

I'm in Montreal for the next two weeks (at least) for work. I could be in Montreal for a year, but I still don't know that yet - hopefully I will find out this week.

I flew Saskatoon->Edmonton then Edmonton->Montreal, leaving at 10:30am Saskatoon time and arriving 7:00pm Montreal time - a bit of a long day.

When we left Edmonton it was super bright so I closed my window shade and watched a movie or two. It blew me away when I opened it and it was pitch black - I guess flying east is like time travel. Here's a neat pic I snapped of the rainbow spectrum in the sunset:

It looked better in real life. 

After waiting an hour for my bags then waiting through a 100-person taxi queue, I caught a ride to my hotel/apartment from a cabbie who was angry I didn't have cash. Tough luck buddy, I guess when I charge it to my Visa you get audited on the tips. Deal with it. 

My apartment/hotel is nice; it's paid for by the company and has a little kitchen so I don't have to eat restaurant food every day: 

A 10-minute walk from company headquarters, but I guess I'll figure that out on Monday.

I asked the front desk where I could grab a quick donair and was told that most restaurants are closed on Sundays (at least downtown at 9:30pm, I guess). Damn! So she recommended the hotel restaurant across the street. 

I sat down in a lonely booth, one of maybe five people in this huge empty restaurant. I could hear the guy two booths down complaining about something and the server was being apologetic. Off to a good start! 

They tables have lamps so it is CLASSY.

I ordered about 5 minutes after sitting down and I took the above photo immediately after ordering. It's Montreal, so I ordered a smoked meat sandwich (more on this later). My food came disturbingly fast; if you examine the EXIF data between the above and below photos you will find they are exactly FIVE minutes apart. So this is like a wood-panelled McDonalds? 

Smoked Meat* and coleslaw hiding behind Starch Mountain. Coleslaw is a vegetable, right?

Supper was... bad. Sorry, there's no other polite words for it. But here's the upside: I now have a terrible smoked meat sandwich as my baseline experience when I go out for a fancy smoked meat sandwich! At one point, my server came by and meekly asked, "is everything... okay?" I felt sorry for him; he knew it wasn't okay. I told him it was good and tipped him well. As I left a party of four walked in and they all ordered the same Smoked Meat Combo. I held my tongue. 

Two other gripes: I feel like a weirdo not knowing any French. If I am here for a year, I promise (to the INTERNET!!) that I'll sign up for a class and put in a legitimate effort, but I feel like losery when someone says "bonsoir," ("bon swa") and I say "err.. hi." My other gripe is that I'm sick with a head cold and that just sucks all around.

To summarize: crappy/boring travel day, but I'm feeling optimistic about the trip in general. I am looking forward to what's ahead at the office, and doing some exploring in the evenings and this coming weekend!