oh Canada

It was my first time in Montreal, and Jake's first time this century. We were both hopeful and, oh Canada, Montreal did live up to it's reputation. We bumbled our way through French dialogue. We stayed in Old Town at the Hotel Champ de Mars, and took the incredibly clean Metro all over the city. We walked along the Old Port and I felt colder just looking at the water. We went to a museum- Château Ramezay- and spent time in the underground mall. We ate delicious food. French food. Polish food. Persian food. We're so full and plump with food.

And we laughed. Oh, did we laugh. I love laughing with my husband. We can drive each other bonkers, but we can also love each other pretty well.  On New Years Day we spent 5 hours walking all over the city. It was a beautiful and brisk, and we were absolutely pooped by the end. Eating dinner in the hotel restaurant sounded warm and simple, so in we stayed. Unfortunately, there were a couple Russian, thug-types sitting just 10 feet or so from us, and they kept eyeing me. I felt uncomfortable. Then one of them yelled across the room at me. In Russian. I felt more uncomfortable. Then my husband showed me the face he'd make at them to scare them away- it was a quietly mean face initially, and then it went WILD, teeth bare and cheeks twitching. We broke into such wrenching laughter, I practically forgot the eyeing-thugs were there. It feels so good to laugh.

On our last night, both restaurants we still wanted to try were closed. We ended up at a distillery- suitably called La Distillerie- and asked them for a dinner recommendation. They asked if we'd had "poutine" yet. "Pout-what?" Off we were sent to La Banquise for the quintessential Montreal, French-Canadian dish. Have you had poutine? Its the ultimate version of gravy fries. La Banquise has an entire menu of different variations of the fries-gravy-cheese curd dish, and although I can only attest to 2 of them personally, I bet the entire menu is delish. Then we metro-ed our way back to Champ de Mars and had ourselves some vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce. 

On vacation you can have gravy fries and ice cream for dinner. I love vacation.

It was a lovely trip. We'd totally go back and do it all again. And I liked our travel approach to New Years. It kept all the hype of the transition at bay, and kept my heart and head in check. I'm thankful that New Years Eve was just one night a lovely long weekend, and that the celebration didn't end at midnight. Midnight isn't all that exciting, really. You know what is? A-whole-nother year ahead of us.

PS: Favorite photo of the trip: my pretending to be angry waiting for the metro: