Day 2: Exploring Montreal

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post - Yanessa is the shutterbug for this leg of the trip. I'll have some pictures of my own soon.

Tuesday we woke up with the sun shining through the window in the study where Sophia and Lil set us up - not a bad way to wake up for the first morning of our trip. We wandered into the kitchen and found them on their cute little porch having morning coffee. They gave us some suggestions for where to walk to, and we set a time to meet with Sophia later in the day.

Armed with some basic directions, Yanessa and I set out to explore downtown Montreal on foot. Their apartment is on Rue St. Jacques, near Avenue Atwater; After walking up a sizeable hill along Atwater we soon encountered Rue St. Catherines, one of the main drags in Montreal.

As we walked along, a few things stood out - the people who are out and about are generally thin or fit-looking (more thin than fit; slim pants and shirts more than lean muscle), which makes one feel like they stand out as an American. After a while we noticed that there are a ton of places to eat, but the proportion of restaurants and bars vs. chain fast foods was very high, especially when compared to Boston or most dense suburbs in the States. Also, I don't think you really have chain bakeries in the U.S., and if they are, they have mostly processed foods. In Montreal, there's a chain bakery (we stopped to ogle pastries and pick up sandwiches) but everything seems fresh.

The other thing that's hard to miss along St. Cat's is that the advertising for sex shops and strip clubs is much more brazen than pretty much anywhere I've been in the U.S. Even most of what I've seen in San Francisco is discreet on the street; in Montreal you get a pretty good idea of what's inside.

Our first stop was an art supply store so Yanessa could pick up a few items for her oil painting; we got a new brush, a tube of raw umber and sap green, and a few canvases for what seemed like very reasonable prices.

We wandered around for a while, and then got pretty hungry, so we stopped into a bakery around noontime. There was a pretty decent line, and everything is in french, so we picked some things of the menu which seemed reasonable - Yanessa had grilled chicken with cheese, bacon and lettuce, and I had a ham and brie sandwich, both (of course) on baguettes.

After stopping to eat, we went in search of McGill University to meet up with Sophia. McGill was founded early in Montreal's history, so despite being very close to what felt like the city center, the campus is very green and expansive. Quite beautiful, really.

Once we found Sophia, we stopped by a smoothie place - the name escapes me - which was essentially Jamba Juice, but with different branding. Quite delicious. I found out that debit cards in Canada are different from U.S. debit cards, so we stopped by an ATM to pick up some cash (fee free, I think).

After that, we struck out on a tour of various parts of the city, seeing how much trouble we could get in before Soph went back to class. We passed through a closed off section of the city set up for the Jazz Festival, which was featuring Stevie Wonder as a part of the opening festivities that night. Apparently it's the 30th annual Jazz Fest in Montreal. Very exciting. The place where it's set up is a nice open plaza - it reminded me of Government Center in Boston, except a lot more attractive, and with restaurants and such around the perimeter making it much more of a destination.

Continuing along St. Cat's, we next found a section of the city closed to road traffic for the summer known as the Village. It was great to be able to stroll down the middle of the street, checking out the shops and such on either side.

After reaching the end of the village, we turned north to Rue Ontario and began heading back towards downtown. Sophia soon had to leave us for class, but as we walked along we found the 'Quarter Latin', which was packed with restaurants and cafes, very much like sections of Newbury Street with lots of outdoor seating, varied cuisines, and people watching.

By the time we found our way back at the Jazz Fest, a few opening acts were under way, and there were a lot more people. We thought aboug sticking around, but by that time we were pretty exhausted from all the walking - better to head home for the day.

The walk back was quite long, and felt much longer than the initial exploration - whether from our fatigue, or the lack of exploration and curiousity, I'm not sure. But we made it back safe and sound.

Montreal's architecture is very interesting - there are parts that feel old, other parts that feel very updated with modern but perhaps understated architecture, all transitioning and sometimes clashing along the same miles-long street. All in all, we walked about 9 miles - the map is below. By the time we got home, I pretty much passed out from exhaustion, and slept through the next morning. Wednesday is Canada Day, so we might take it easy - not range too far afield, but check out some fireworks in the evening. More to follow, as always.


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