Weekend Away
Sep. 22nd, 2019 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeMe and Jade went to Montreal for the weekend (and friday)! It was great!
This was a trip we put together within the past month, which is very quick for us. I definitely am a plan waaaay ahead person, and she tends to follow my lead on planning way way ahead for things. The most important thing was booking the dogsitter and after that went through, it was easy to get everything else done. We played it by ear a lot more than we normally would and it worked out great.
Friday, we loaded the car and drove up. I was driving because Jade was not going to do that. We wanted to take the train but it is literally 8 hours on both ends of a trip and we couldn't take that much time off work. But driving also meant we could see things outside the city and our first stop, where we spent the afternoon was Fort Chambly, which was pretty rad.
Old fort, looked cool, I touched the history, and it was just an absolutely beautiful area. The town was super cute too. It was a little odd driving up to it, the area is completely flat and there was soybean and corn fields, which, okay. And then suddenly on the horizon, was a line of apartment buildings. And there was the town! It was some intense zoning!
After that, we had planned to drive into Montreal and park near the hotel, but after driving through the town, I was getting nervous about driving right into the middle of a new city. So I pulled over and we did some very fast googling to find the subway system and parked near a university that was across the river with good parking and a subway station. That worked very well because it was two stops from the main subway hub and our hotel. Also glad I did that because Montreal has a reputation for randomly closed streets, which I found to be very true.
We stayed at a little hotel on a block of hotels, right near the Gay Village, which was pretty cool. The hotel was fairly meh, but I don't know if that's normal for cheap hotels in Montreal. The bed was creaky and the room was a little rough around the edges but I thought it was fine (Jade may have thought differently but she didn't say it)
The worst part was carrying our bags to the hotel but it was fine. We just had bulky backpacks for clothes, although Jade brought her laptop too. We went out for dinner and got poutine. I enjoyed mine but it was a huge bowl and very gravy covered to the extent that I felt a little nauseous. But delicious delicious cheese and meat, so not too bad.
The next morning (Saturday), I woke up super early after not sleeping well and did some googling to see if I could get breakfast somewhere. As it turns out, Montreal is a city that stays out late and sleeps in as evidenced by the dudes shouting at 4am and no breakfast places open until at least 9. I munched trail mix.
Then when Jade woke up, we went to a breakfast cafe (chain? or at least multiple locations) called Cora. We both ordered fruit crepes and they turned out to be enormous. I was struggling to finish mine, went to the bathroom and the waitress cleared my plate before I could find out if I could do it.
There were marathons being run down through the neighborhoods both Saturday and Sunday so that made walking much easier and more fun. Then we hopped the subway to the Jean Drapeau island in the St. Lawrence river where they held the 1967 Expo and just built a whole other fucking island. Wild.
The train seemed super crowded as we got on and it seemed like everyone was playing pokemon go, which we thought was weird and as it turns out, there was a pokemon go event happening on the islands that morning. We just stumbled into it. It was super hilarious. We wandered around a little bit but the tickets were sold out so we couldn't join in, so we headed to the biosphere, which was very cool and also a museum.
After that, we went to the Montreal Botanical Gardens, which were so beautiful and really wonderful to wander around. We were there for five hours or so and maybe got through a third of it. We saw a 275 year old bonsai tree. So cool. The whole garden was really well done and I highly recommend it. They had a lot of great signs and exhibits.
Hopped the subway back to the row of restaurants near our hotel and got dinner and dessert at Julitette & chocolate, which is a little chain. Savory buckwheat crepes are frickin amazing and I practically inhaled mine, it was so good. Then we got dessert, because of course. It was fun people watching on the patio. Mine was a turkey and cheese with bechemel sauce.
The weather the whole weekend was just so good. We couldn't have picked a better one. Warm but not too much and generally a breeze going and some sun. Just amazing.
Hotel and then when we got up this morning, we went to the 24 hours Tim Hortons aaaaaaand they were closed for cleaning? Or something, so we went to a little cafe and got coffee and pastries. Because of the car being not near the hotel, we needed to do something with them and as it turns out, the subway is really nice and convenient and runs well so we just took our shit back to the car and dropped it off and went back into the city. Maybe took a half hour. I was very impressed.
Then we went to Old Montreal! We saw all the cool old buildings, wandered around the port area, ate more crepes and took a bunch of pictures. It was awesome. We should have spent more time there. We bought Timbits before we left and they were generally unimpressive but I also don't remember how they are in comparison to dunkin munchkins because I haven't eaten those in years.
We left a little after noon, and headed back to the car. Hit the road early and it looked like we'd be home at 4:30 or so.
Well.
We spent over an hour sitting at the border. Just. Sitting. I put the car in park for a decent chunk of that time. I was so bored and irritated because I needed to pick the dog up from the sitter at 6 and here was all our extra time disappearing. We weren't the only irritated ones, some folks got out of their cars for stretch breaks. As far as we can tell, the slowdown was because they searched all Canadian vehicles that cross. They just asked us some questions.
No joke, the guy asked if we were in town for the pokemon go event so all the nerds that went to it had told the border guards about it. But we got on the road and it was an easy drive back down 87.
It was perfect timing then, I hopped out of the car and into my truck and went and picked up Mara right at 6, who had a much less fun weekend. Apparently there was a poopbutt incident so a bath is on her horizon. (by the way, the key to having a dog who is terrified of people and does all sorts of weird shit and having her stay with someone, is to give the sitter a bunch of extra cash, because they will appreciate it. they charge 30 dollars a day, so it was about 100 dollars through rover and I tip 40-60 bucks in cash after the trip. they are an excellent dog sitter.)
And now I'm home. It was fun! We picked a great weekend for it since the weather was so nice. The only complaint I have is the border crossing going to the USA, which is our own fucking fault, so nothing I can blame Canada for. Everyone was very friendly and cool and overall it was great.
This was a trip we put together within the past month, which is very quick for us. I definitely am a plan waaaay ahead person, and she tends to follow my lead on planning way way ahead for things. The most important thing was booking the dogsitter and after that went through, it was easy to get everything else done. We played it by ear a lot more than we normally would and it worked out great.
Friday, we loaded the car and drove up. I was driving because Jade was not going to do that. We wanted to take the train but it is literally 8 hours on both ends of a trip and we couldn't take that much time off work. But driving also meant we could see things outside the city and our first stop, where we spent the afternoon was Fort Chambly, which was pretty rad.
Old fort, looked cool, I touched the history, and it was just an absolutely beautiful area. The town was super cute too. It was a little odd driving up to it, the area is completely flat and there was soybean and corn fields, which, okay. And then suddenly on the horizon, was a line of apartment buildings. And there was the town! It was some intense zoning!
After that, we had planned to drive into Montreal and park near the hotel, but after driving through the town, I was getting nervous about driving right into the middle of a new city. So I pulled over and we did some very fast googling to find the subway system and parked near a university that was across the river with good parking and a subway station. That worked very well because it was two stops from the main subway hub and our hotel. Also glad I did that because Montreal has a reputation for randomly closed streets, which I found to be very true.
We stayed at a little hotel on a block of hotels, right near the Gay Village, which was pretty cool. The hotel was fairly meh, but I don't know if that's normal for cheap hotels in Montreal. The bed was creaky and the room was a little rough around the edges but I thought it was fine (Jade may have thought differently but she didn't say it)
The worst part was carrying our bags to the hotel but it was fine. We just had bulky backpacks for clothes, although Jade brought her laptop too. We went out for dinner and got poutine. I enjoyed mine but it was a huge bowl and very gravy covered to the extent that I felt a little nauseous. But delicious delicious cheese and meat, so not too bad.
The next morning (Saturday), I woke up super early after not sleeping well and did some googling to see if I could get breakfast somewhere. As it turns out, Montreal is a city that stays out late and sleeps in as evidenced by the dudes shouting at 4am and no breakfast places open until at least 9. I munched trail mix.
Then when Jade woke up, we went to a breakfast cafe (chain? or at least multiple locations) called Cora. We both ordered fruit crepes and they turned out to be enormous. I was struggling to finish mine, went to the bathroom and the waitress cleared my plate before I could find out if I could do it.
There were marathons being run down through the neighborhoods both Saturday and Sunday so that made walking much easier and more fun. Then we hopped the subway to the Jean Drapeau island in the St. Lawrence river where they held the 1967 Expo and just built a whole other fucking island. Wild.
The train seemed super crowded as we got on and it seemed like everyone was playing pokemon go, which we thought was weird and as it turns out, there was a pokemon go event happening on the islands that morning. We just stumbled into it. It was super hilarious. We wandered around a little bit but the tickets were sold out so we couldn't join in, so we headed to the biosphere, which was very cool and also a museum.
After that, we went to the Montreal Botanical Gardens, which were so beautiful and really wonderful to wander around. We were there for five hours or so and maybe got through a third of it. We saw a 275 year old bonsai tree. So cool. The whole garden was really well done and I highly recommend it. They had a lot of great signs and exhibits.
Hopped the subway back to the row of restaurants near our hotel and got dinner and dessert at Julitette & chocolate, which is a little chain. Savory buckwheat crepes are frickin amazing and I practically inhaled mine, it was so good. Then we got dessert, because of course. It was fun people watching on the patio. Mine was a turkey and cheese with bechemel sauce.
The weather the whole weekend was just so good. We couldn't have picked a better one. Warm but not too much and generally a breeze going and some sun. Just amazing.
Hotel and then when we got up this morning, we went to the 24 hours Tim Hortons aaaaaaand they were closed for cleaning? Or something, so we went to a little cafe and got coffee and pastries. Because of the car being not near the hotel, we needed to do something with them and as it turns out, the subway is really nice and convenient and runs well so we just took our shit back to the car and dropped it off and went back into the city. Maybe took a half hour. I was very impressed.
Then we went to Old Montreal! We saw all the cool old buildings, wandered around the port area, ate more crepes and took a bunch of pictures. It was awesome. We should have spent more time there. We bought Timbits before we left and they were generally unimpressive but I also don't remember how they are in comparison to dunkin munchkins because I haven't eaten those in years.
We left a little after noon, and headed back to the car. Hit the road early and it looked like we'd be home at 4:30 or so.
Well.
We spent over an hour sitting at the border. Just. Sitting. I put the car in park for a decent chunk of that time. I was so bored and irritated because I needed to pick the dog up from the sitter at 6 and here was all our extra time disappearing. We weren't the only irritated ones, some folks got out of their cars for stretch breaks. As far as we can tell, the slowdown was because they searched all Canadian vehicles that cross. They just asked us some questions.
No joke, the guy asked if we were in town for the pokemon go event so all the nerds that went to it had told the border guards about it. But we got on the road and it was an easy drive back down 87.
It was perfect timing then, I hopped out of the car and into my truck and went and picked up Mara right at 6, who had a much less fun weekend. Apparently there was a poopbutt incident so a bath is on her horizon. (by the way, the key to having a dog who is terrified of people and does all sorts of weird shit and having her stay with someone, is to give the sitter a bunch of extra cash, because they will appreciate it. they charge 30 dollars a day, so it was about 100 dollars through rover and I tip 40-60 bucks in cash after the trip. they are an excellent dog sitter.)
And now I'm home. It was fun! We picked a great weekend for it since the weather was so nice. The only complaint I have is the border crossing going to the USA, which is our own fucking fault, so nothing I can blame Canada for. Everyone was very friendly and cool and overall it was great.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 01:24 am (UTC)Legal cannabis means every single everything gets searched now. There are brand new signs in the train station about not taking any over international borders.
If you do it again, there are still a couple of traditional smoked meat places in Montreal. (At least one of them did smoked meat poutine last time I was there, which is getting to be awhile now.)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 06:55 pm (UTC)Smoked meat was on our list but we didn't see a place in the areas we were walking. So that will be for next time we go! Jade also wanted to buy ketchup chips but we forgot to grab them.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 08:13 pm (UTC)(I would consider a lack of ketchup chips a mercy but am probably a tastebuds weirdo. :)
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 09:02 pm (UTC)lol
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 02:10 pm (UTC)Still, awesome.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 06:58 pm (UTC)I heard about that shopping mall but ehhh malls. Maybe if we were there when it was colder we might have, but the weather was So Nice that we didn't want to even sit around in the hotel room at all.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 07:12 pm (UTC)We found a creepy exhibit about Barbie dolls just randomly in the middle of it, and it went on for ages and ages and we were like whaaaaaat is thiiiiis and never really found an explanation.
no subject
Date: 2019-09-23 09:02 pm (UTC)