< Previous Page

This was taken from the
back of the moving train
on the way to Montreal.
Sorry, I just missed a
young Indiana Jones
running down the tracks.
Call me crazy, but it sure
looked like the Cross of
Coronado to me....

Let's start with the queueing. Seated quietly in the terminal while waiting for the train, we watched a few avant-garde where-no-one-has-gone-before souls line up in front of the big VIA MONTREAL sign. Now, Canadians are generally an orderly bunch, and if there is a line that looks official then we will stand in it until either it begins moving or we die from starvation and dehydration. So more and more of us began to line up. This self-organization works well until people start trying to nose their way into the human file with a sense of entitled enthusiasm made all the more bizarre by the fact that we have assigned seats. It's not like the first ten passengers get a free lollipop or visit to the cockpit.

The oafish nitwits who were butting in line were puffy suburban manifestations of hidden-camera-show-quality assholiness. I practically started looking around for the Just For Laughs crew hidden behind potted plants. And, of course, it wasn't just one self-important suit; it was a Bermuda-short-wearing pudgeboy with his entire flower-print-clad family of four (we'll call them The Assholes) in tow. In a display of deliberate ignorance and inattentiveness to surroundings I haven't seen so perfectly acted out since a busy Saturday in Chinatown, they pretended not to notice the line that extended a good 15 meters behind me. They pretended, in fact, to not even notice me, which is hard because I am a muscular, sunglass-wearing, spiky-haired lesbian in a bright pink baby T propping up a giant suitcase interposed directly between The Assholes and the long suffering madonna-with-screaming-child in front of me.

9th floor hallway at Hotel
St Paul. Who designed
your hallways? Let me
guess. Was it.... SAAAATAN?

Before getting squished like a jelly sandwich in the back pocket of a construction worker, I managed to squeeze through the crowd and around the corner, hoping to postpone the inevitable escalator domino effect by at least one human domino. I'm not sure if I was successful, because as soon as I broke through the sea of humanity I discovered that the car had another entrance, which I used. It could be that everybody was smushed into a sweaty mass. Doubtful, because the train is full.

My seat was occupied by an Alpha Mother who was berating the attendant for the fact that her seat assignments did not provide her family the ability to gaze adoringly at one another for the next two hours. This somehow became my problem because, in protest, she and her offspring were occupying my seat. As I was approaching my row, I saw her literally drag a kid out of the seat in front of mine, protesting that the seat would have to go instead to her son, who was, one assumes, smarter/cuter/more athletic/genetically superior to this poor kid and therefore entitled to the seat to which they had accidentally both been assigned. The other kid's mom, perhaps sensing an opponent that would likely kick her in the box and cackle madly if the confrontation got physical, chose instead to leave the seats and deal with the issue out of the vicinity of Alpha Mother.

I arrived at my row to find one of her kids' bottoms firmly planted in my seat. "Sorry", I said, "but I think that's my seat". I showed her my ticket and she begrudgingly made her kid move to the seat that had been vacated by the vanquished mom. "Fine", she huffed, "but you're taking the window seat".

Um, excuse me? My ticket says the aisle seat.

"Whatever", she spit. "You'll just have to move every time I have to get up for my kids".

You mean your husband, who is sitting in the same row of seats as your three kids, is incapable of taking care of them?

I strategically agreed to take the window seat, secure in the knowledge that Alpha Mother is going to have to move every thirty minutes so that Alaina "Tiny Bladder"--who has just consumed an entire large bottle of Perrier--can do her business. Happy to help! Pip pip! Am I not swell?

I'm in Montréal at the hotel, which is unbelievably stylish. So hip it hurts.

The view from my 9th
floor room. Fuckin'
gorgeous, yo.

I've returned from three glasses of wine (oh, and an excellent, excellent meal) at Chez L'Epicier, a place recommended by the hotel staff. The food was amazing, as was the wine, and I think I probably consumed a good 2000 calories in the space of 90 minutes. I sat at the bar and finished my Matt Taibbi book while I nibbled on Quebec cheeses and the most incredible beef tenderloin.

BTW, run, do not walk, to your local bookstore and pick up Spanking the Donkey: Dispatches from the Dumb Season. Matt Taibbi spent the election season following around the candidates in the Democratic primaries, and even spent two months volunteering for the Bush/Cheney campaign in Orlando. He writes with incisive wit; he is to the political left what P.J. O'Rourke is to the right, except that Taibbi is still funny and O'Rourke stopped being funny about ten years ago. There were many, many places in the book that made me laugh out loud.

Now that I've completed my humour break, it's on to Guns, Germs and Steel. And bedtime!

Come on, this TOTALLY
looks like a scene in Paris
Just ignore the baseball cap

*ring ring*
*ring ring*
*ring ring*

I dash from the bed to the other side of the room where my phone was charging. "Private number", the caller ID says, so I pick it up just in case Kyle--house-sitting friend extraordinaire--has called to tell me that there is a nuclear meltdown in the house next door and he and the dogs are fleeing to Timmons.

"Hello?" I croak into the phone, barely awake.

"Hey", says a man's voice. "Were you asleep?"

"Yes."

Long pause. It's not Kyle (so no nuclear meltdown), it's not Chris (so, um, well, no nuclear meltdown), it's not Rick or Osama or Paul or any of the guys in the NOC with some work-related emergency. I try to think of a guy I know--any guy--who would dare to call me on my cell phone at 1am while I'm out of the office. I fail.

"Who is this?" I ask.

"Tony", he says. "you gave me your number tonight."

I think back to my interactions. I did give some dude my business card at the restaurant, but that was after we discovered that we were both staying at the Hotel St. Paul and had engaged in a conversation about SAP. His name was Alex, not Tony. Emmmm no. You got the wrong girl, buddy. This one doesn't scribble her number on cocktail napkins for strange men. Strange women, on the other hand....

"Uh, I think you have the wrong number", I croaked, hoping that would end it.

Tony persists, either unable or unwilling to accept that I'm not the same girl he was chatting up a few hours ago. "How's it going?"

"You have the wrong number", I repeat.

"Is this 905... uh... 416-903-5303?"

"No."

"Um." I can hear party noises in the background. Tony is obviously trying to get some nookie while his friends are whooping it up at some bar with exceptionally bad taste in music. ("Got any Eagles?")

"You've dialed the wrong number", I reiterate, getting more annoyed that it's 1:15am and the guy won't let me off of the fucking phone. "I'm going to hang up." So I do.

Resentfully, I crawl back into bed.

*ring ring*
*ring ring*
*ring ring*

I spring to action, diving for the phone with a fury reserved for neo-conservative television commentators, people who abuse animals, and those who interrupt my sleep. Private number. I answer. "This is the wrong number", I say acidly. "You're not even calling the number you said. It's 1am, I'm in Montréal on my vacation, and you woke me up. Dial carefully. Don't call here again." Click.

I crawl into bed again. Can't sleep... clown'll eat me.... DAMN IT. This guy managed to ruin the most comfortable sleep I've had so far.

If you call me at 1am on my vacation, you must meet one of the following conditions:

• One of my friends or family has been in a terrible accident. ("What's that, girl? Timmy fell down the old well?")
• You're Ed McMahon and you want to tell me that I've won ten million dollars. (Anything less than ten million can wait until tomorrow morning after I've had my coffee.)
• You're a cute, athletic, smart, witty and kind queer girl with nerdy tendencies who is tidy and cooks well and likes little dogs and has just finished reading my vacation narrative, which made you decide to propose marriage to me because you also like to travel and make fun of other people. Oh, and you're right downstairs, because otherwise you can just send me an email and the response can wait until tomorrow morning after I've had my coffee.

The digital DJ booth in
the lounge at Hotel St Paul.
That's just how hip this
place is.

The elevators are dark, claustrophobic, ebony-walled deals with funky ceiling lights and an inexplicable caribou's-head feature at the back. All wood surfaces are dark, all lines straight and clean, and all handles that operate something are the kind that take a few seconds to figure out how they should work. I can't quite figure out the hallways, which are lit by red lights in every room doorway. It's like the whole hotel is under red alert. Mr. Worf, we're under attack by the Starship Hotel Intercontinental. Re-route auxiliary power to the rear deflector shields, target their warp engines, and fire photon torpedoes!

The service is exceptional and everything is high quality. I especially love the weathered blackwood tables that were made either from railroad ties or from majestic African trees that took hundreds of years to grow before they were chopped down and turned into decor features at Montréal's coolest hotel.

Tonight I might try to see some of the Just for Laughs festival, which is going on right now near the university. I will also, at some point this afternoon, figure out the subway system.

It's convenient that everything on this vacation is in Canadian dollars because that way I don't have to memorize a new set of coins and try to figure out how to pay €1 from a pocketful of change. I'm reminded of this because I just discovered Euro currency when it fell out of my purse last night. Honestly, if i didn't see the (514) area code on signs, my brain might have tried to pass it off to some puzzled shopkeeper.

Awaiting my in-room massage now. THIS IS THE BEST VACATION EVER.

The power just went out in the Little Italy restaurant where I'm having lunch.

This is good, because the music was truly awful.

Not a lot to tell today. I did a fair bit of nothing much. I'm basically spending this vacation eating, sleeping, working out, getting pampered and reading. I had a great lunch in Little Italy, getting to experience the Metro for the first time, and then walked around for a bit. I came back to the hotel, showered, and trotted down to Montréal on Wheels to rent a bike.

Montréal skyline from the
cycling trail

The hotel locked up the bike for me. These people are awesome customer service types. They make me feel like royalty, assuming that you can still be royalty if you show up all sweaty with bike grease on your leg. I came upstairs and showered again, chatting briefly online with before asking for the front desk's recommendation for sushi. They sent me to La Petit Treehouse for the most innovative and tasty sushi creations I've ever had. Nami in Toronto--my favourite sushi joint--is more traditional sushi, but Petit Treehouse makes some crazy freakin' stuff, I tell you whut. See for yourself:

This morning I woke up early and read my book in the breakfast room while I munched on complimentary sliced melons (huh huh huh). After a shower, I got geared up and cycled around downtown Montréal for a couple of hours. The downtown part does look a lot like Toronto, except that the drivers are completely fucking psychotic hosebags with horn fetishes and make Torontonians look like Halifax residents on quaaludes. If I can cycle and survive in Montréal, I can cycle anywhere in North America.

Schwartz's. Overrated.

I cycled back down to Old Montréal and returned my rental bike to the happy dude at the bike rental place, then walked back to the hotel, showered and took a nap. After wiping the sleep from my eyes, I toddled off to the front-desk-recommended Indian restaurant around the corner, called Gandhi, and sat down again to read and enjoy a glass of wine while they provided me an exceptionally succulent Indian meal at a primo table in the front of the restaurant. As soon as I stepped inside, the rain started. It was still going as I was leaving, which meant I got drenched on the two-block walk back to the hotel.

I'm waiting for Sonja to arrive. We're going to go for sushi after she gets here. Petit Treehouse was so good at what they do that I'm going to go again! We have 10:30pm reservations. Hear that? 10:30pm! I'm not even going to START dinner until 10:30pm!

Bon soir! Time to pardee!

A successful evening, and I was up until almost 2am!! WOOO. Sonja showed up around 10pm and we promptly headed to Petit Treehouse for our 10:30 dinner reservations. The food there really is amazing.

After dinner, we hoofed it back down St. Laurent through the crowds of annoying image-conscious club twits and along St Catherine to the Gay Village, where we found what we think was the lesbian bar, at least based on the fact that there were, you know, girls in it. We had a quick drink and then wandered back to Old Montréal by way of Chinatown.

Chez Bong, a Korean joint
in Montréal's Chinatown.
Their food is, like, the
best ever. Say, man, you
gonna eat that?

Of course, now that she's speaking French, people will address me in French, too, and I end up just smiling blankly at them and waiting for her to conversationally rescue me. Je suis stupide. *dumb look*

There's a fireworks show at 10pm and I'm going to stay awake for it if it kills me. My body woke me up promptly at 7:15am after a laughable five hours of sleep. Now I have dark circles under my eyes and will be unable to nap until this afternoon at the earliest.

I'm heading home on the train. Sonja is dead asleep in the seat beside me, having just spent more than an hour teaching me French pronunciation and answering my incessant stream of questions about phonetics. I pronounced several words with a Virginia accent and then again with a southern Ontario accent and made her write out the phonetic spelling. It's pretty interesting to see the differences. I learned, for example, that where I previously thought that Southerners divided words into extra syllables, they actually turn their vowel sounds into dipthongs or even tripthongs. The example I used was "damn", pronounced in the the "dayum" sort of way. I was hard pressed to come up with any words except curse words, which I guess says something about me. I don't see what the big fuckin' deal is. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Lezbo advertising in
the Village.

The Montréal Metro system is fucking cool. The trains run on rubber tires rather than the steel wheels the Toronto system uses, so it makes that part of the cars look a bit like moon rovers. I am now also carrying around in my head a bunch of different facts including the distance covered by the Metro, how it expanded in sections, that it was developed in collaboration with French instead of American engineers, that there are two different models of trains in the system, that it is the only fully enclosed subway system in the world, that politicians tried to get artists to sleep with them in order to have their artwork used in the stations, that cars are attached in groups of three, that there are steel wheels to back up the rubber tires, and... well, a lot more. Matthas a website that you can check out on the subject.

Sonja in Montréal's
coolest Metro station!

If you ever get to Montréal then it's definitely a tour you should do.

After we stopped, we took a quick walk around old Montréal, another subject on which Matt is an expert. In addition to telling us about it, he would also stop and help various tourists who were confused and looking at their maps. He is a one-man Montréal tourist bureau, I tell you whut.

Fireworks!

The subway trip to see the fireworks was interesting because, well, everybody was going to see the show. That meant that we were cram-packed in together like anchovies, a stinky and anxious mass of humanity that all poured out at the same station and made a frantic beeline for the primo viewing spot. The sea of people after the show was over was the same thing: eventually we decided to stop for dinner just because we were stressed out from the crowds. We found a little Italian place in the Village and the three of us sat down and talked about relationships and coming out and dealing with phobic people. Matt shared a few almost farcical stories, including one about a group of fags on the Metro engaging in an a capella chorus of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" when they were being harassed by jerkass tough guys.

I had escargot for the first time ever (pretty freaking tasty for slimy little gastropods) and a three cheese pasta dish that made my taste buds happy but my tummy, not so much. It was pretty late when we parted ways (I remembered to do the cheek-kissing thing!) and I probably didn't get to bed until 3am.

...and I got six hours of sleep last night, so I envy Sonja for being able to be crashed out with her head on a blanket, propped up against the window, while I'm writing a travelogue entry on the train. It's just a bit more than two hours until we disembark at Union Station and I can head home, do some laundry, have a small dinner and climb into bed to sleep for twelve hours before I have to go to work again tomorrow morning.

Notre Dame, where
the tourists is.

Au revoir, Ottawa and Montréal! Thanks for the groovy week.

FIN.

< Previous Page