Canada Trip, Part Two

Woke up in bed and breakfast.  Took showers.  Had breakfast with three British people: a couple from... somewhere... and an older woman from... somewhere.  Three classic English stereotypes: the sweet, gentle matriarch, the witty, dry patriarch, and the somewhat terse and surly single woman, who wondered if it was an American thing to put syrup on everything.  I was thinking, yeah, it could be!

We left for Toronto.  One and an half hour drive, Lake Ontario on the right for much of the way.  Stopped at a gas station and used the ATM to get some Canadian money.  Canadian money has translucent areas and the Queen.  Canada needs to stop being really into the Queen!  At the Guildwood station we boarded the Via Train to Montreal.  Canadian trains rule.  Had a Falafel wrap.  Did a crossword puzzle.  Read about Montreal.  Eavesdropped on the couple sitting behind us, who were Australian.  (Much of all trip in general was spent eavesdropping on people with funny accents.)

Montreal looked a lot more graffitied than I thought it would.  From the train station to our Airbnb, a mile or two stretch of Rue Rene Levesque, which was split between semi-soulless looking restaurants, massive developments in progress, old-ass churches.  We followed a bunch of tourists for much of the way.  As we crossed the street we saw some window-washing people rushing in the street to "do their work" on some strangers' vehicles.  We would see the same people again a day later doing the same thing.

The Airbnb was funky.  A hollowed-out old apartment/dorm building.  Our room (and it was only one room, plus a very small bathroom) had a pointless dishwasher, pointless because I can't imagine why you'd ever have more than two people over and ever be using more than like a spoon to eat your Kraft Dinner at their shitty little table.  The mattress was hard and squeaky.  We took a nap, and then explored a bit.  Crescent St had a lot of fun-looking places, so of course we went to a somewhat lame English pub called Winston Churchill's.  Ok, not lame... The patio was great, and allowed me a perfect view of the massive drawing of Leonard Cohen they've plastered on one of the tallest downtown buildings.  (Nice tribute!)  But the food was no great shakes.  There was a "Football Sunday" menu (in Canada!) which my insanity forced me to order from.  Had the first of many somewhat overpriced beers.

We wandered up Mont Royal, truly one of the great nights of this year (or any!).  Dark paths and scariness, seemed like there was nobody around.  The vistas kept getting more and more spectacular.  We got to the top, to this uninhabited Chateau thing, where hundreds of folks milled around.  All kinds of people and cultures in Montreal.  Scores gathered around to hear a man play a sad, beautiful piano song.  We took selfies as we gazed out onto the spectacular stretch of Montreal.

Back down the hill, one more bar, a "futuristic-retro" themed place.  First placed where we said out loud, "hey, the servers here are all really nice" (we'd do this again).  Had cocktails and watched American football with French subtitles.  Just unreal.