le weekend adventure: montreal.

Kevin and I took the weekend to travel to Montreal. Only a six hour drive from Buffalo, but once there it felt a world away. For starters, everyone there spoke French. Unfortunately for Kevin and I we only knew how to say 'merci,' plus all the other words we made up. Either way the trip was fantastic. We crossed into Canada by the Thousand Islands and made our way towards the city. Once there, we drove towards our hostel and managed to catch a glimpse of St. Catherine's street and stopped the car to check it out. The street had strands of these pink plastic balls draping across the street and interesting street art and park areas to see. This street only allowed foot traffic and gave us great insight into what the rest of the city would be like: totally exploding with life. There were people everywhere, going to cafes and stores and getting haircuts. Also, oddly enough, these were majority regular people (i.e. not tourists). Coming from Buffalo it was so refreshing to see a city that actually acted like a city. On further inspection, we came across multiple strip clubs advertising male nudes and it dawned on us that we definitely booked our hostel in the city's gay district. In the end it totally worked out because it was centrally located to the city's night-life. Our hostel, M Montreal, was great. Very clean and accommodating, with a free breakfast that included deliciously fresh croissants and lots of interesting people to meet.
After struggling with the parking for a while due to our inability to read French, we went on to explore. First we headed to Old Montreal. This part of the city is all cobble stones and of course old looking. We stopped at a corner poutine restaurant and enjoyed an entire pitcher of sangria together. After, we walked through some art galleries and touristy shops and then headed to the harbor area. Again, this area was constantly busy with people walking, bicyclists and some odd horse drawn carriages. Later we headed back to the hostel and I watched the city's weekly fireworks from the buildings fire escape. After, we wound up going to a gay bar/club with our hostel-mates and had an amazing night. Overall, an awesome first day in Montreal.

The next morning, we left on foot to see all we could see. We stopped at a bunch of shops, posed with some moose statues and used the restroom in Montreal's underground mall. Eventually we made it to...another fabulous Olmsted park! Within the park is Mount Royal. We hiked to the top and enjoyed some pleasant views on some cozy Adirondack chairs. At the bottom of the mountain was the Sunday weekly tom tom drum circle. We watched from under a large tree as a handful of people did a rain dance to the music during a Montreal sun shower. There we asked some locals the ideal place to have dinner in Montreal and we made our plans for later that night. Ready to eat now though, we left the park and came upon a beautiful garden cafe. Kevin sat across from me on a pile of slate that functioned as a bench as well as the edge of the koi pond. 

For dinner we ate at Le Quartier General. This place was many blocks from our hostel and when we finally got there we were kinda soaked from the rain but in the end it was so worth it. We brought our our wine and were seated in the last available table for the night (it was fate). The whole menu was written on a chalk board and of course, it was all in French. We had the waitress read it to us in English one too many times and. really everything sounded amazing. All in all we wound up eating

mackerel, veal, venison, gazpacho, earthly mushrooms, odd cauliflower puree stuff and the most amazing chocolate mousse of which I actually used the word 'decadent' whilst eating it. Probably one of the better meals I have every had. One our walk back we stopped in at pub and watched a band with some of the sickest players I have seen in real-life. Kev and I had a great night.