After years of talking about it, we finally decided to visit Canada. We picked Montreal since its a easier drive than Toronto, at least it looks closer on a map. She had a week of leave from her job in Haiti, so instead of hanging around in New York all week and probably doing nothing, it was a better idea to keep active by taking the road trip to Montreal.
I found a decent enough hotel online for $75 a night in US Dollars and had to put a full tank of gas in the car, other than that the travel expenses were quite low. We probably spent more on restaurants for lunch and dinner, breakfast was covered with the box of Eggo Waffles we bought in a Canadian supermarket. The driving directions is quite easy as the bulk of the trip relies on the I-87 North which goes all the way up through Upstate New York and into Canada, which turns into the I-15 when crossing the border. The only grueling part is that its a roughly seven hour drive, dpending on how many stops and breaks are made. We only made about two stops, one of them was a small town Upstate to add more gas into the car. The interesting story there is that it was a pump where you pay after you gas up the car. I noticed the pump had no self-serve credit card option, so I walked inside and asked the cashier for $20 of gas, he looked at me like I was crazy and told me to pump first and then come back to pay. I'm guessing the trust level is quite high up there as I never heard of that practice before.
The drive includes great views of mountains, trees, and waters through the lands known as the Adirondacks. Most of the time it felt like I was the only car on the highway as there were stretches in which I wouldn't see any other vehicles for fifteen minutes at a time. The trickiest part is managing the gas usage as there's some parts along the drive where there's no exits at all, but a full tank and one stop to add a little more later on was more than enough to get us to Canada. Once we got to the border to get into Canada, we first had to drive up to a booth to answer a number of questions; As in our reason for entering the country, what will we be doing there, are we bringing in any firearms or weapons, etc. Then after we had to park the car and go into an office to see another guard who asked us similar questions before eventually passing us through. They provide a password afterwards which is needed to open the checkpoint blocker so we could drive into the country, the car was never searched.
We finally got to the hotel and it was located within the main part of the city, just two blocks away from a subway station, plus we always had the car as another option. The subway station (and basically every few blocks all over the city) also contained a rack of bicycles which could be rented out at twenty-four or seven-two hour stints. The hotel was having some construction work done on the front, so it didn't look great on the outside, but the inside was alright, nothing glitzy. Our room also included a nice balcony, but again due to the contruction it was being used to store a scaffold, so couldn't go out on it much. It also seemed like the construction workers, or perhaps the previous visitors, were using it to smoke and drink because there were crushed beer cans and cigarette butts all over the floor. An upside of the room is that it included a full kitchen with pots, pans, plates, and utensils included. Inside the freezer, they even included two ice trays fully prepared for our arrival that I was impressed with.
The top floor of the hotel is called the "penthouse" and included a simple gym, a laundry room, a tiny pool, and a sun deck that provides a nice view of the city. We arrived on a Monday afternoon, so after a quick lunch at a local Chinese restaurant(imaginitive for traveling abroad) and stopping off at a supermarket to buy some small foods, we went back to the hotel to take a long nap after the long and tiresome drive. Luckily I woke up, otherwise we would've slept the entire night away, so we went to dinner at a low key bar and grill place called '3 Brasseurs', translating in English to '3 Brewers'. This place brews their own beer on site and has large barrels filled with peanuts in which patrons can take take as many as they please to snack on.
Initially I parked the car in a public garage around the corner from the hotel, but after coming back we were able to find a spot on the streets. Parking in Montreal is extremely difficult as there's rarely any open free spots and overall its complexity of regulations to try to figure out. For example, some parts will say no parking on these certain days between a block of only two hours, and it's very obsure hours like 10am-11am on Wednesdays and Fridays or 4:30pm-5:30pm on Mondays and Thursdays, and only during certain months as well. Parkers also must be careful to only park between signs that contain arrows pointing a certain way. Plus some parts of the blocks are reserved for residents who live there, and all these signs are compressed together on one pole, so good luck finding out what the rules actually are. In the US, there are similar parking rules, but its much more clearly defined and less open to interpretation. Driving in Montreal could also be a tad bit tricky, overall most of the signs are in French and English(that goes for mostly everything in Montreal), but specially concerning the green signal, there too is open to interpretation. At first there would be a green arrow pointing straight, then the entire light turns green. I would guess it would mean you can't turn unless the whole light is green, but I saw other drivers turning on the green arrow and had cars beeping me from behind when I wouldn't turn on one, so either they were breaking the rules or that light system makes no sense. When it comes to driving and parking in Montreal, it's do-able, but there must have also been a brewery on site when they designed those arrangements.
The second day is when we saw most of the city during our stay. It begun with a subway trip for a few stops to the art district in which we went to a museum of modern art. The subway station for that stop, Place-des-Arts, was nicely decorated with museum pieces and a large colorful stained glass window. Passengers can purchase single ride tickets for the subway at $3 Canadian, but everyday riders use a special pass they sign up and pay for which allows them to take the train at a reduced fare. Also worth noting, the single ride tickets can only be used for certain train lines, so one must be careful when are where they're purchased/used, which goes back to the headscratching of the driving and parking rules. The trains run quite frequently and aren't too crowded, but they had the heat on quite high and wearing a coat made it a very sweaty ride. For lunch on that Tuesday we went to a chain-type place called 'Eggspectation' that specializes in eggs. I ordered poached eggs which came with ham, 2 crepes, slices of watermelon/pineapple,grapefruit. I ate everything except the piece of grapefruit. Also imaginitive when traveling to another country, she selected the hamburger. The rest of the afternoon we went to an area known as Old Montreal which contained many old buildings, cathedrals, and cobblestoned streets. There was also the Port of Montreal, a marketplace, and the Montreal version of Chinatown we passed by, although it seemed more Vietnamese focused rather than Chinese.
At night we had dinner at a Swiss resturant called 'Alpenhaus' which featured a long list of Swiss and German dishes, and after walked over to an AMC theater to watch an entertaining French movie entitled "L'Homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie". The interesting part about the theater is that it was converted from the old Montreal Forum which was home to the infamous Montreal Candians NHL hockey team from 1926 to 1996. Since hockey, especially the Montreal Canadians, is sacred in Canada they decided to make something of the place instead of entirely tearing it down. Although its a 22-screen theater now, it still contains many artifacts and memories of the hockey team and the arena before the team moved to a new location. One of the neat features of this night was that all these places were within walking distances of the hotel, so we didn't have to fuss over parking or subway rides.
The next day, Wednesday, we started out by renting bikes for $5 each and had a nice long ride up a hilly area which contained rows of trees, nice lawns, and a large monument. The city streets are well designed to handle the large amount of people who use bikes, and there are many who do. Bikers typically have their own well-defined lanes to keep them separate from cars and pedestrians. The good thing about renting the bikes is that users are provided with a key code, so a bike can be returned to one location, and another bike can be picked up elsewhere later in the day using the same code. For lunch we ditched the bikes for the car and drove to the Chinatown area to have noodle soups at a Vietnamese place. I also wanted to visit the Little Italy section afterwards and it took us about a half hour to get there, but with only seeing a few blocks geared towards Italians it didn't seem to be much of a Little Italy that as I was hoping for, so we went back to the hotel.
For the past fifteen years she has had a pen pal in Canada which developed from a multinational grade school program in which Haitian students were matched up with Canadian students. The two kept in touch over years and since we were in town, they planned to meet eachother in person for the first time. We had to take two different train lines to an area outside Montreal called Laval, and ended up eating at a resturant named "Elixor" which featured a mixture of Italian and Americanized foods. The three of us had drinks, dinner, and I alone had a nice slice of red velvet cake that was covered in powder sugar and surrounded by a layer of whipped cream. I didn't finish the whole slice by choice as I'm positive it was loaded with fat calories, but the place was very tempting with their desserts. They had a whole line of various types of cheesecakes they bake on premesis that I wish I could've sampled all of.
By Thursday morning it was time to get ready to go back home to New York. We had been lucky with the weather during our stay with temperatures very reasonable for November in Canada, but on the day we were leaving there was steady rain and dark clouds covering the sky. After a quick breakfast in a local diner across the street from the hotel we hit the road. Getting into Canada was quite simple, in terms of dealing with border security, but getting back into the United States we were anticipating a tougher go of it. When approaching the booth there's a large sign, "United States of America", hanging overhead the complex, and I was expecting a full interrogation with the car being searched with all type of scanners and devices. I drove up to the booth, an automatic camera took a pitcure of the front of the car, the guard asked me two easy questions and then just said "Welcome Back!". Again, the car wasn't searched.
It was a great trip that felt very fulfilling as the three days we spent there seemed like two weeks. Montreal itself is an interesting mix of modern features within old building structures. I've never been to Europe, but if I had to guess it seems like Montreal is a good example of what to expectIt was also amusing to see how stripclubs and adult stores weren't relegated to a redlight district or a certain block, but were instead spead out across the city next to a bank or grocery store like it was any other establishment. In terms of money, the Canadian dollar is worth a little more than the US Dollar, as in we exchanged $160 US cash for $157 Canadian, but its close enough. Happily I had no issue using my US-based debit card, and for the resturants, if paying with a card they bring a hand-held device to the table and scan the card right then an there which saves alot of time. It is a little awkard typing in the tip directly in front of the server, but they don't seem too hung up on tips in Canada as there's more politics involved with that in American eateries. Entering both countries I was surprised at the ease of passing through in this post 9/11 world, unless we looked extremely innocent or were being scanned by sophisticated hidden machines we didn't notice. I would like to return to Montreal someday, but next time my car might tell me to take a plane instead...
I found a decent enough hotel online for $75 a night in US Dollars and had to put a full tank of gas in the car, other than that the travel expenses were quite low. We probably spent more on restaurants for lunch and dinner, breakfast was covered with the box of Eggo Waffles we bought in a Canadian supermarket. The driving directions is quite easy as the bulk of the trip relies on the I-87 North which goes all the way up through Upstate New York and into Canada, which turns into the I-15 when crossing the border. The only grueling part is that its a roughly seven hour drive, dpending on how many stops and breaks are made. We only made about two stops, one of them was a small town Upstate to add more gas into the car. The interesting story there is that it was a pump where you pay after you gas up the car. I noticed the pump had no self-serve credit card option, so I walked inside and asked the cashier for $20 of gas, he looked at me like I was crazy and told me to pump first and then come back to pay. I'm guessing the trust level is quite high up there as I never heard of that practice before.
The drive includes great views of mountains, trees, and waters through the lands known as the Adirondacks. Most of the time it felt like I was the only car on the highway as there were stretches in which I wouldn't see any other vehicles for fifteen minutes at a time. The trickiest part is managing the gas usage as there's some parts along the drive where there's no exits at all, but a full tank and one stop to add a little more later on was more than enough to get us to Canada. Once we got to the border to get into Canada, we first had to drive up to a booth to answer a number of questions; As in our reason for entering the country, what will we be doing there, are we bringing in any firearms or weapons, etc. Then after we had to park the car and go into an office to see another guard who asked us similar questions before eventually passing us through. They provide a password afterwards which is needed to open the checkpoint blocker so we could drive into the country, the car was never searched.
We finally got to the hotel and it was located within the main part of the city, just two blocks away from a subway station, plus we always had the car as another option. The subway station (and basically every few blocks all over the city) also contained a rack of bicycles which could be rented out at twenty-four or seven-two hour stints. The hotel was having some construction work done on the front, so it didn't look great on the outside, but the inside was alright, nothing glitzy. Our room also included a nice balcony, but again due to the contruction it was being used to store a scaffold, so couldn't go out on it much. It also seemed like the construction workers, or perhaps the previous visitors, were using it to smoke and drink because there were crushed beer cans and cigarette butts all over the floor. An upside of the room is that it included a full kitchen with pots, pans, plates, and utensils included. Inside the freezer, they even included two ice trays fully prepared for our arrival that I was impressed with.
The top floor of the hotel is called the "penthouse" and included a simple gym, a laundry room, a tiny pool, and a sun deck that provides a nice view of the city. We arrived on a Monday afternoon, so after a quick lunch at a local Chinese restaurant(imaginitive for traveling abroad) and stopping off at a supermarket to buy some small foods, we went back to the hotel to take a long nap after the long and tiresome drive. Luckily I woke up, otherwise we would've slept the entire night away, so we went to dinner at a low key bar and grill place called '3 Brasseurs', translating in English to '3 Brewers'. This place brews their own beer on site and has large barrels filled with peanuts in which patrons can take take as many as they please to snack on.
Initially I parked the car in a public garage around the corner from the hotel, but after coming back we were able to find a spot on the streets. Parking in Montreal is extremely difficult as there's rarely any open free spots and overall its complexity of regulations to try to figure out. For example, some parts will say no parking on these certain days between a block of only two hours, and it's very obsure hours like 10am-11am on Wednesdays and Fridays or 4:30pm-5:30pm on Mondays and Thursdays, and only during certain months as well. Parkers also must be careful to only park between signs that contain arrows pointing a certain way. Plus some parts of the blocks are reserved for residents who live there, and all these signs are compressed together on one pole, so good luck finding out what the rules actually are. In the US, there are similar parking rules, but its much more clearly defined and less open to interpretation. Driving in Montreal could also be a tad bit tricky, overall most of the signs are in French and English(that goes for mostly everything in Montreal), but specially concerning the green signal, there too is open to interpretation. At first there would be a green arrow pointing straight, then the entire light turns green. I would guess it would mean you can't turn unless the whole light is green, but I saw other drivers turning on the green arrow and had cars beeping me from behind when I wouldn't turn on one, so either they were breaking the rules or that light system makes no sense. When it comes to driving and parking in Montreal, it's do-able, but there must have also been a brewery on site when they designed those arrangements.
The second day is when we saw most of the city during our stay. It begun with a subway trip for a few stops to the art district in which we went to a museum of modern art. The subway station for that stop, Place-des-Arts, was nicely decorated with museum pieces and a large colorful stained glass window. Passengers can purchase single ride tickets for the subway at $3 Canadian, but everyday riders use a special pass they sign up and pay for which allows them to take the train at a reduced fare. Also worth noting, the single ride tickets can only be used for certain train lines, so one must be careful when are where they're purchased/used, which goes back to the headscratching of the driving and parking rules. The trains run quite frequently and aren't too crowded, but they had the heat on quite high and wearing a coat made it a very sweaty ride. For lunch on that Tuesday we went to a chain-type place called 'Eggspectation' that specializes in eggs. I ordered poached eggs which came with ham, 2 crepes, slices of watermelon/pineapple,grapefruit. I ate everything except the piece of grapefruit. Also imaginitive when traveling to another country, she selected the hamburger. The rest of the afternoon we went to an area known as Old Montreal which contained many old buildings, cathedrals, and cobblestoned streets. There was also the Port of Montreal, a marketplace, and the Montreal version of Chinatown we passed by, although it seemed more Vietnamese focused rather than Chinese.
At night we had dinner at a Swiss resturant called 'Alpenhaus' which featured a long list of Swiss and German dishes, and after walked over to an AMC theater to watch an entertaining French movie entitled "L'Homme Qui Voulait Vivre Sa Vie". The interesting part about the theater is that it was converted from the old Montreal Forum which was home to the infamous Montreal Candians NHL hockey team from 1926 to 1996. Since hockey, especially the Montreal Canadians, is sacred in Canada they decided to make something of the place instead of entirely tearing it down. Although its a 22-screen theater now, it still contains many artifacts and memories of the hockey team and the arena before the team moved to a new location. One of the neat features of this night was that all these places were within walking distances of the hotel, so we didn't have to fuss over parking or subway rides.
The next day, Wednesday, we started out by renting bikes for $5 each and had a nice long ride up a hilly area which contained rows of trees, nice lawns, and a large monument. The city streets are well designed to handle the large amount of people who use bikes, and there are many who do. Bikers typically have their own well-defined lanes to keep them separate from cars and pedestrians. The good thing about renting the bikes is that users are provided with a key code, so a bike can be returned to one location, and another bike can be picked up elsewhere later in the day using the same code. For lunch we ditched the bikes for the car and drove to the Chinatown area to have noodle soups at a Vietnamese place. I also wanted to visit the Little Italy section afterwards and it took us about a half hour to get there, but with only seeing a few blocks geared towards Italians it didn't seem to be much of a Little Italy that as I was hoping for, so we went back to the hotel.
For the past fifteen years she has had a pen pal in Canada which developed from a multinational grade school program in which Haitian students were matched up with Canadian students. The two kept in touch over years and since we were in town, they planned to meet eachother in person for the first time. We had to take two different train lines to an area outside Montreal called Laval, and ended up eating at a resturant named "Elixor" which featured a mixture of Italian and Americanized foods. The three of us had drinks, dinner, and I alone had a nice slice of red velvet cake that was covered in powder sugar and surrounded by a layer of whipped cream. I didn't finish the whole slice by choice as I'm positive it was loaded with fat calories, but the place was very tempting with their desserts. They had a whole line of various types of cheesecakes they bake on premesis that I wish I could've sampled all of.
By Thursday morning it was time to get ready to go back home to New York. We had been lucky with the weather during our stay with temperatures very reasonable for November in Canada, but on the day we were leaving there was steady rain and dark clouds covering the sky. After a quick breakfast in a local diner across the street from the hotel we hit the road. Getting into Canada was quite simple, in terms of dealing with border security, but getting back into the United States we were anticipating a tougher go of it. When approaching the booth there's a large sign, "United States of America", hanging overhead the complex, and I was expecting a full interrogation with the car being searched with all type of scanners and devices. I drove up to the booth, an automatic camera took a pitcure of the front of the car, the guard asked me two easy questions and then just said "Welcome Back!". Again, the car wasn't searched.
It was a great trip that felt very fulfilling as the three days we spent there seemed like two weeks. Montreal itself is an interesting mix of modern features within old building structures. I've never been to Europe, but if I had to guess it seems like Montreal is a good example of what to expectIt was also amusing to see how stripclubs and adult stores weren't relegated to a redlight district or a certain block, but were instead spead out across the city next to a bank or grocery store like it was any other establishment. In terms of money, the Canadian dollar is worth a little more than the US Dollar, as in we exchanged $160 US cash for $157 Canadian, but its close enough. Happily I had no issue using my US-based debit card, and for the resturants, if paying with a card they bring a hand-held device to the table and scan the card right then an there which saves alot of time. It is a little awkard typing in the tip directly in front of the server, but they don't seem too hung up on tips in Canada as there's more politics involved with that in American eateries. Entering both countries I was surprised at the ease of passing through in this post 9/11 world, unless we looked extremely innocent or were being scanned by sophisticated hidden machines we didn't notice. I would like to return to Montreal someday, but next time my car might tell me to take a plane instead...
hard to believe that, that dinosaur was intimidating. it looks like a waxy statue from what I can tell on my computer screen. i wonder how robotic their roars were..
ReplyDeleteI would like to see you talk tough like that to the dinosaur's face
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