The weather in Montreal is absolutely perfect. It's about a tenth as humid as Philly was before we left, and about twenty degrees cooler. If I had to estimate, we've been averaging at about 75 Fahrenheit, but the breeze has made it feel like a steady 70. Sunshine, light rain occasionally. Beautiful.
Anyway, I've got a few days to cover so this might be a long one.
HOKAY. So we woke up just before 5am on Friday to board the MegaBus at 30th St Station bound for New York. There were a bunch of fire trucks parked at the subway station by Will's house, so we booked it to the next station in hopes that we'd catch the next one and not miss our bus.. We made it just in time somehow, and we boarded our double-decker bus. Our driver went on a comical rant about menopause in the middle of the safety instructions before our departure for NYC, and two hours later, we had arrived. The bus dropped us off at 7th & 28th, and from there we walked to Penn Station to meet our Rideshare. We found the red GMC Savannah parked on 31st, and we were greeted by a friendly Ukrainian guy named Stav. He drove us and a third passenger named Alix aaaaaall the way to Lionel-Groulx station here in MTL. The trip was about six hours long, minus the two gas station stops, the lunch stop, and the half-hour queue at customs.
We only really started chatting once we got to the border, which is a shame because it turns out that Stav and Alix were pretty fascinating. Alix is probably 24. I didn't ask. Her dad is from Longmont and her mom is French. She was born in France, but since her dad was a diplomat, they ended up moving every three years. In addition to French and English, she also speaks Russian and Arabic. She went to McGill, and has spent the past few years working as a consultant in Lebanon. She's headed to Libya in a few weeks to gauge what can be done by peace groups in the next year. Stav lives in Quebec with his wife, they own two school busses and a van, and they want to make Ridesharing their primary source of income. After hearing that Will has just finished studying Music Industry at Drexel, Stav excitedly busted out his iPod to share his music with us (and employ Will to be his band's manager, lolz). His band's called Magical Crimea, and they sound like Gogol Bordello. #winning
So the ride into Canada went really smoothly. From Lionel-Groulx, Alix paid for a taxi to drop Will and I off at Michael's house on St-Urbain, which was incredibly nice of her. We knocked on Michael's door aaaand we got no response. Our phones are out of commission now that we're outside of the US, so we had no way to contact him. I knocked again, and a person I didn't recognize came to the door. It was a new roommate named David, and through jumbled Franglais we established that we were in the right place, but Michael was out somewhere at the time. So we set our bags inside and walked across the street to Second Cup were we sat for about 45 minutes until Michael happened to waltz in. Just by chance! Craaaaaaazy! A couple hours later, Fran arrived by Greyhound, and at that point it started to hit me that I actually made it back here. I've been pretty giddy ever since. I love this city. Anyway, we spent the evening at the park by Sherbrooke, got dinner at Buns, and retired somewhat early.
Saturday we walked to Kyle's new(ish) loft. It's on the top floor above Schwartz's, HUGE, with exposed brick and rooftop access. He's living there with Ashlin and Sabine, so naturally it is decorated beautifully, with all sorts of artwork and things on the walls. We met up with Kyle, and walked to a little lunch spot by La Montagne. We sat on the terrasse and drank coffee and ate sandwiches and caught up. Afterwards, we walked to Parc LaFontaine to meet up with Ellen and Geneviève. I lovelovelove LaFontaine. It's possibly my favorite park here. We spent an embarrassingly long time trying to set up the slack line before we just decided to sit down and enjoy the weather. Before long it was dark, and we were preparing for the Blood On My Nikes party down in Vieux-Port. The party was pretty sweet, highlights were definitely Inspector Dubplate and Sinistarr, also the other crazies in attendance. Didn't see many people from last year there, which was pretty disappointing, but kind of expected after realizing I had been referring to Wally and Wampa interchangeably. Oops.
Sunday afternoon, we walked to the mountain for Tams--a loooooong-awaited journey for me and Will. We'd been talking about it since last year, and it was pretty much everything we could have hoped for. Following Tams came poutine from Belle Pro (C'est NOM) with Fran before his departure for Ottawa. After he left, we went to visit Will's friend Vanessa at the GoGo Lounge. It's a really fantastic cocktail lounge decked out in fruit-shaped lights and mirror balls, pink lights galore, with a DJ spinning the hottest hits from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Basically I just want to go there with Nate Hout every day for the rest of forever. Après ça, nous sommes allés chez Kyle pour une petit fête sur le toit. Il y était des DJs comme Bus et Wampa, avons dansé beaucoup et avons bu "bière". lolz.
Yesterday we went to Jeanne-Mance aaaaaaand we cooked steak fajita burritos and I cleaned and Will and I watched Enter the Void and now I'm getting sick of typing.
On an irrelevant side note, the Epic Meal Time guys live here. I am determined to find them. SAUCE BOSS.
I'm gonna try to upload des photos. Booyakasha.
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