Montreal Road trip: part I

Spouse & I packed up the ML 350 and were on the road by 8:15am on Thurs.  We made 1 brief stop in upper DE to get coffee, another brief stop in NJ for lunch, and another brief stop in NY for gas.  We encountered no traffic delays (even at the border) and really enjoyed seeing the beautiful fall foliage.  I didn't take any photos of the foliage since I was driving.  The GPS worked great, and we talked a lot of the way but also listened to some music.

We arrived at Tornwordo & Serge's house in Montreal shortly after 7pm, so it took us a total of 10 hours.  We visited with them and Georgie, and enjoyed a lovely snack with sparkling wine to toast our arrival which was very thoughtful of them.

The 4 of us made our way across town, brought our luggage inside our apartment, and then had delicious pizza at La Piazetta, then stopped in for a drink at Campus.  

Tornwordo & Serge

The open kitchen at La Piazetta

Tornwordo & Serge helped us get our bearings by providing us with a map and several nice tips.  Montreal is in the province of Quebec which is French-speaking.  Many people in Montreal can speak some English which is good since my French is quite limited.  Even when I am able to string together a coherent sentence in French, when the person replies in French I am over my head.

A neat thing about downtown Montreal is that the City has a lot of free wifi.  Most of the time I was able to find free wifi connections which enabled me to use my iPhone to post photos to Facebook.

Tornwordo & Serge took our car back to their house where it could be parked on the street for free and we settled into our little apartment.  It was a studio in a building I would estimate to have been built in the late 60s or early 70s.  We found it on AirBnB.com and selected it for its ultra convenient location and the fact that it had a balcony.  

The studio was located less than a block from a metro station and just 1 block to Ste Catherine St which is the main street of Le Village (the gay village) where many of the gay bars, restaurants, and clubs are located.  The studio was on the 6th floor of the building and the balcony offered a great view of Mont Royal, the tallest spot in the city.

Fri morning Spouse & I headed over to Ste Catherine St to have breakfast at Chez Cora.  Spouse had a traditional breakfast while I had a lovely French crepe filled with Nutella, apples, strawberries, kiwi, pineapple, grapes, and melon.  C'est magnifique!

Then we got on the Hop On/Hop Off bus for a narrated tour of the city.  One of the stops was the Oratory of St Joseph on Mont Royal.

I also liked the building across the street from it which is the College du Notre-Dame de Montreal.

The bus also stopped for photos from a hillside vantage point which offered great views of the city.

The St Laurence river on the right and the Olympic Stadium in the center

The Olympic Stadium on the right and the city on the left

After the bus tour we continued exploring on foot, stopping into stores and peeking at menus of restaurants.  In the late afternoon we returned to the apartment to rest up a little and change clothes, then we met Serge for happy hour at Sky Complex, then a 2nd drink at Lounge L'Un et L'Autre where Tornwordo met up with us.

Spouse

Serge

Next the 4 of us went to dinner Le Saloon, a chic bistro with very cool black and white wallpaper.

Serge & Tornwordo - check out the wallpaper!

Spouse & me

The food was great and the atmosphere was noisy and fun!  After dinner we bid adieu to our friends and Spouse & I went in search of something sweet to end our night.  Just down Ste Catherine St we found 1000 grammes where we shared an amazing slice of cake called 'Explosion Chocolate Praline'.  It was probably 1 of the most delicious cakes I've even eaten!  We walked back to the studio and watched a little TV before going to bed.

 

Weekend highlights

I was scheduled to work on Sat but I got a call at 8am letting me know the office was going to be closed. Turns out the Governor requested all businesses in our area to close on Sat so that employees could evacuate or at least prepare for the arrival of hurricane Irene. All non-essential driving was banned.

Vacationers were told NOT to come or try to check into their hotels or homes on Sat, and residents who live within .75 miles from water (ocean, bays, tidal lagoons, etc.) were told to evacuate further inland. We checked with our neighbors and found that none of them were evacuating because "we live .8 miles from the beach".

Spouse & I didn't want to evacuate anyway. Although it might have been fun to hang out with friends at their house, no one knew how long it might be before we could return to our house. Would it be a day? A couple days? A week? Remembering what it was like after hurricane Katrina, we just didn't want to impose on friends for an unknown amount of time. Plus we have Jordan the dog. It might have been easier to stay with friends if it were just the 2 of us, but bringing a dog along seems like a much bigger favor to ask. But mostly I didn't want to evacuate because I wanted to be here to try and fix something relatively small so it didn't turn into something huge. For instance, if a tree limb crashed through a 2nd or 3rd story window, I could throw the limb outside and cover the window up, preventing hours and hours of rain from coming in the window, ruining the wood floor and drywall on that level and the one below it.

So we made the decision to stay. Spouse went to the grocery store several times and purchased food that didn't require refrigeration or cooking, like Poptarts, pretzels, apples, and cookies. He also bought 24 bottles of water, a box of 16 candles, and 2 lighters. Seeing the box of 16 candles I asked him "Instead of 16 small candles, why didn't you just buy 1 of those large jar candles?" to which he responded enthusiastically "Oh, I did!"

My husband, the drama queen.

So while it rained and the wind began to pick up we watched TV and ate. Then at 6:15pm on Sat the electricity went out. Shortly thereafter Steven called us to say that a tornado had touched down about 2 miles from our house, destroying 1 home and damaging several others. Ironically, after having an earthquake on Tues. and the the hurricane on Sat. folks had joked "What next - locusts?" No, a tornado!!

The news of the tornado nearby amped up Spouse's anxiety level and he declared that we needed to prepare a "safe room". He informed me that we should find a place nearest the center of the house on the 1st floor with no windows and be prepared to seek refuge there if we heard or suspected a tornado. I usually accuse him of over-reacting and he usually accused me of under-reacting so this time I just decided to 'go with it'. I told him the closet in the TV room was the best place. Using a flashlight he removed the vacuum cleaner and carpet cleaner stored in the closet and placed bottled water, candles, and a knife in the closet.

"Ummm, exactly what is the knife for?" I asked him, picturing the 2 of us trapped in the closet for weeks and weeks after a devastating tornado, him being forced to stab me to death and eat me to save his own life.

"Oh, that's just in case... the door got jammed and we needed to cut the drywall to get out" he replied. Thank goodness it was dark and he didn't see me giving him a suspicious eye.

Once the "safe room" was prepared we returned to the living room and sat in silence. Just the sound of the relentless pouring rain and the leaves being raped by the wind. It was only 9pm or so but I started getting sleepy so I laid on the couch and dozed off a few times. Spouse got his mp3 player and listened to news reports on the radio. I was awakened over and over again by text messages from friends who'd seen the news report of the tornado or were simply concerned about us being so close to the coast with Irene. I assured them we were fine and were prepared. At 11:30 I suggested we go upstairs to bed but Spouse said we should remain on the main floor, near the "safe room", until the eye of the storm had passed us at 1am. Apparently he'd heard this on the radio. So I dozed off again, still on the sofa, until I was awakened again by a friend checking on us. At 1am we went upstairs and climbed into bed with our flashlight and cellphones on the night stand.

Sun morning the electricity came back on at 8:30am. It was still raining a little but you could tell the worst had passed and the clouds wanted to break up. Eventually they did. We went outside to assess the situation and were a bit surprised but happy to find our house and our neighbors' houses intact. We had definitely been spared. We learned that the hurricane had shifted a bit to the east so the more destructive winds were over the water instead of over the coastline.

The driving ban was lifted at 10am but the decision had been made to keep the office closed on Sun so we met up with Steven & Thad and drove to the beach. Again I was surprised that the water wasn't more wild and that the waves weren't as high, but it was low tide. It could have been a very different scenario if Irene hadn't shifted to the east or if Irene had arrived during high tide.

So, within 1 week we had an earthquake, a hurricane, and a tornado! Shouldn't we get some sort of award for that?