O Canada!

[REPOST from my MySpace blog on May 9, 2005]

Took my first roadtrip to Canada (specifically Quebec) last week. Val met me at the border around midnight or 1am to have me follow her to her house about 45 minutes towards Montreal. The weather was pretty crappy most of the way, but I made really good time, considering. What was so cool about visiting Quebec was that it felt like I was somewhere in Europe instead of North America because of the french signage. Basically, I was able to visit "Europe" in 5 hours' time without crossing the big pond... and that's really convenient. lol

That Sunday (my first full day there), we took a trip into nearby Montreal to check out her stompin' grounds. We parked in a vacant lot and walked to the subway station, passing a poor and unfortunate discarded umbrella in the lot garbage can. *sigh* First stop was the old port of Montreal where we strolled the cobblestone streets, took pictures of the old (very french) architecture and had lunch at a quaint little place with a hot waitress. Again, we both witnessed yet another gruesome discovery; a skinless umbrella laying lifeless in a dry fountain. *shakes head* Not far off in the distance, I saw some blue and yellow-striped big-top tents -- Val said that's where Cirque du Soleil is based, and where they practice their routines before touring...which I thought was super cool. I'm pretty easy to impress that way.

The second half of the day was spent in the Gay District down St. Catharine's Street. She took me to her favorite club, The Drugstore, where I commenced to kick her booty at pool and she returned the favor with a mean game or two of foosball. The rooftop bar/balcony seemed like a great place to relax and get a tan while cruising for unsuspecting victims.

On the way back to the subway station, we stopped in Mado's club (infamous local drag queen) to see if the bar served Buttery Nipple shots. Actually, during the whole trip, we couldn't find a single bar that carried butterscotch schnapps. Val still has yet to try one, but I'll probably end up making her one the next time she visits Boston. Muuwahahaaa!

I forgot to mention that, while walking from one end of the city to the other, we encountered a huge Union protest march, though it wasn't exclusively for Unions, apparently. There were labor Unions, teacher and student Unions, political groups and just plain hate groups. Once this group of "Communists" wearing red bandanas over their faces, holding red flags (with the old CCCP hammer & sickle) chose to occupy the corner we were standing on in order to spout their banter over an amp. Val and I thought it best to start walking elsewhere. Down the street a ways, a separate group of Anarchists, wearing black, decided it would be fun to throw rocks at police officers. Large numbers of police in riot gear were convening at the intersection we ended up at, so we (along with other innocent bystanders) stood still, under the cover of a construction walkway, until the coast was clear. What fun!

On Monday, Val wanted to take me to an "Artsy" area of town where I had yummy poutine, saw numerous futon stores and had pie to die for. "What's poutine?" Well, I'm glad you asked. Poutine is to Quebec as chili cheese fries are to the USA. Simply put, you generously pour special hot brown poutine gravy over cheese curds and hot french fries. What you get is this enormous pile of fries under hot, gooey deliciousness. Try it sometime. The "pie to die for," by the way, was at a little place called Rockaberry. A friend of ours on a chat program told us that we MUST go to it and have some pie, so, naturally, we did. I'm thinking that I'll visit Montreal every month just for the pie and poutine alone -- no offense, Val. I can't remember what she got at the shop, but I had something called the Chocolate Cheese pie and brought home a slice of the Caramel Fudge Cheese pie *drool* Val brought home Chocolate Truffel pie and it was JUST like the inside of a truffel. Sooo rich that my taste buds were almost in pain. Mmmm. Got Milk?

Tuesday was spent mostly relaxing and watching movies. We did a lot of walking the first couple of days; more so than we did in Boston. Wednesday was relatively short, since I had to drive back home in the afternoon. Val's parents are wonderful people and I hope to meet up with them at least once while they're visiting Boston soon. Her mom makes the most incredible hot dessert EVER - seriously, EVER. I pigged-out up there, so I'm in for a grueling health/exercise regime ahead, I'm sure. Must... keep my mind... off... of.... Rockaberry.... and...mom's...hot....dessert.... (help meee)