Montreal, Day 2 - Historic Downtown

Today we needed to relocate to our more centrally located hotel.  We ultimately did, but the day started off with quite a transportation adventure.  I was feeling pretty cocky from my successes navigating public transportation the day before, so I confidently led the way to the bus station.  The bus that I thought we wanted was pulling out as we walked up, so we (I) decided we'd take the second choice bus.  We boarded and found a seat.  I watched our progress on my phone.  For a while, we went the way I expected.  It wasn't the most direct route, but seemed to be headed generally in the right direction.  After a while, that seemed to change.  I couldn't figure out what our final destination was or where we should get off.  We were supposed to be headed toward one of the Metro hubs, but never got there.  More and more people got on at every stop.  Finally, we pulled in at a Metro stop but it wasn't the one I was expecting.  We (I) still thought that the bus might take a turn that would ultimately bring us to the expected Metro.

Everyone got off the bus.  Every last person.  Except us.  The bus leaves again, and we start getting kind of funny backward glances from the driver.  The route now heads through the industrial warehouse district (not like the trendy, re-urbanization warehouse district).  Finally, James gets up to ask the driver if we'll be arriving at the Metro stop.  Boy, did James get an earful.  All...why didn't you ask when you got on the bus?  And...why did you wait so long?  And...Google maps? Not going to work. 

The driver must have been ahead of schedule because he pulled over at the next stop and turned off the bus.  He came back and sat in the back with us and bent our ears for a solid 20 minutes about his own travel adventures!  Finally, he ran out of words or realized that he better get back on his route.  Luckily, that route circled back around to the Metro station and we were able to get on the correct train and find our way to the hotel.  TWO. HOURS. LATER.  oops.

Anyway, after we checked in and dropped our bags, we made our way toward downtown/old town Montreal.  We were headed for Notre Dame Basilica.  We passed this church on the way and popped in for a peek.  After all, what's a visit to a French city without a plethora of church visits?

Marie-Reine-du-Monde Catherdral, previously known as St. James Cathedral, is a 1/3 replica of St. Peter's in Rome.  

This painting is a depiction of the first service held in Montreal. 

The next stop was Olive and Gourmando for lunch.   Recommended by a coworker of James' and enthusiastically seconded by TripAdvisor reviewers, this was at the top of our priorities for lunch one day.  The sign below greets  you in the entryway:  " YES, it looks crazy bonkers in there..."  It was, but Canadians are nothing if not friendly, so a kindly waiter took pity on us and showed us how to successfully navigate the system.  We were both reminded of the crazy bonkers that is The Cheese Shoppe on a beautiful fall afternoon!  We ordered our sandwiches and sat down at a table by the window to people watch.  The sandwich was pretty tasty, as promised!

The next stop was Notre Dame Basilica.   I sometimes feel like I'm missing out on the history and stories when in foreign countries; thankfully, there were English language tours here to provide some of that detail.  The current building was constructed over many years in the early 1800s to replace a smaller church that had been on the same site.  The interior is astounding in its lavishness. 

The chapel was destroyed by an arsonist in 1978.  When it was rebuilt, this more modern altar piece was added.  It symbolizes the "march of humankind toward the Holy Trinity, as it makes its way through difficult times (represented by three arches)."

You don't see a lot of Native Americans or pilgrim types in stained glass...

The colors and lighting are much more vibrant than typically seen in historic churches!  They even have a light show at night. We couldn't quite wrap our heads around a light show in a church.

After Notre Dame, we strolled around more of the old town area.  We had planned to visit Pointe-a-Calliere, a museum built right on top of the original foundation of the city.  It's supposed to be a great museum of the history of the city, with an archaeology excavation of the city's foundation on site.  We walked to the building identified on the map as the museum and found a sign that the building was closed for renovation.  We were disappointed, but signs like that are fairly routine at least once per trip in our experience, so we moved on.

James on the pedestrian-only old town street, and looking out over the St. Laurence River:

On the waterfront, and looking back at the skyline:

Next on the agenda for the day was the botanical gardens.  We took a ton of pictures...so that's another post!
 

Montreal, Day 1 - Solo Traveler

Back in August, James and I had thought about taking a trip while the kids visited my parents for their Camp OmaPapa week.  As much as it pained us, we decided that the budget didn't allow it and that we should stay home.  Happily enough, James needed to make a business trip to Montreal this fall.  Since that was one of the possible destinations in August and the trip cost was now greatly reduced, we decided to go for it.  My parents came up late on Tuesday night and James and I left after the bus on Wednesday morning.  

Even despite a layover in Philadelphia (sometimes a black hole of airline travel), we made it Montreal on time Wednesday evening.  I'm usually on top of the travel planning, often down to ridiculous details.  Not so much this time...I had managed to check out and skim through two travel books from the library, but that was about as far as I got. So, when we got off the plane in Montreal, I had no idea where we were going...not what hotel, and not how to get there!  James knew which hotel, and was fairly confident how to find the shuttle.  Thankfully, it worked, and we made our way to our lodging for the night.

Since he had meetings on Thursday, he was staying at the airport hotel.  Like most airport hotels, it's surrounded by a vast expanse of rail yards, parking lots, and other hotels.  When we starting looking for dinner that night, we found a TripAdvisor recommendation for a place about 3/4 mile away.  We walked, and almost walked right past it because it's closed for renovation.  We reversed course, heading toward a mall thinking that certainly there would be more options there.  Not really - a Ponderosa-type steakhouse (which my stomach couldn't face) and a completely closed (at 6 pm) food court.  We tried to be adventurous, but ended up back at the hotel restaurant.

The next day, James was off to work and I was off to explore on my own.  This is a completely different experience with modern technology:  Google maps and directions and TripAdvisor on my phone and my Kindle for reading.  I had no cell phone service, since I didn't want to pay the international calling rates, but I had no trouble finding wifi almost everywhere.  Traveling by myself is unique, because I don't have to have an itinerary, or really any purpose to my wanderings.

I started the day by sending a Google Talk message to my mom and to James with my general plan: head toward Atwater Market and then stroll on the LaChine Canal trail toward downtown.  (Seemed like it'd be good for someone to know where I was headed!)  The front desk wanted me to take their shuttle to the airport and then a $9 bus to some point downtown, and THEN get on the metro to the market.  Google maps, trusty in this case, directed me a couple blocks to a bus station, where an express bus would take me directly to a station only a few blocks from the market.  Yes, please!

The market was just opening up when I arrived, so I walked past and over the canal into a residential neighborhood.  The housing here was unique in that there seemed to be a ground floor with two apartments, and then a spiral staircase to a second floor landing with four doors, presumably entrances for two 2nd level and 3rd level apartments.  It wasn't just one building like this either; I easily walked 8 square blocks of various iterations of the same basic layout.  This isn't a great picture, but I always feel funny pulling out the big camera to take a picture of someone else's home...

I was never too concerned about getting lost, because I could always find my way back with the Atwater Market tower as my landmark:

The market wasn't huge, but it was overflowing with fall colors.  It took a lot of willpower not to buy some of the gorgeous mums:

And even more not to snatch up these ENORMOUS bags of apples for only $6!  Think of all the applesauce and apple crisp!

I did weaken and buy a basket of berries from this stand, and some fresh roasted almonds around the corner. 

After I'd made my rounds at the market, I headed back to the canal trail and toward downtown.  I was (am) stumped by this ... whatever it is.   I've tried googling a variety of terms to try to figure out what it is, with no luck.  The design in the asphalt exactly matches the scribble on the sign.  What could it be?

So far, the city reminded me a lot of Seattle.  The market, the canal, and the locks were all things we'd explored there. 

Once you get downtown, it's an unmistakeably old and French city.  I was expecting some French, but wasn't really anticipating to be completely immersed in it.  Occasionally, I would drop a BonJour and be greeted with a barrage of rapid fire French in response. Almost everyone spoke English and most greeted me in English.  I actually spent a fair amount of time studying other people to try to determine what made it so obvious that I was Anglo!

The building on the left below is the Edmonston-Allen building.  It's a nice looking old building, but I thought it was particularly interesting that the Allen company's steamship (Virginian) was the one that picked up the distress call from the Titanic and wired it building.

This strange looking structure is called Habitat 67.  Constructed for Expo '67, it's made of prefabricated concrete "blocks" arranged to make separate residences.  It was supposed to show a new way that people could live in crowded metropolitan areas. 

City Hall and Notre Dame Basilica

Overall, it was not a bad day.  I spent a lot of time strolling boutiques and people watching.  I also treated myself to some quiet time with my book at the waterfront.  I headed back to the hotel around 4 to meet James in time for a delicious dinner at a little local place, Restaurant Natalino. 

Tribe Pride

We made it back to Williamsburg for a football game a few weeks ago.  The weather was very typical for Williamsburg in the fall - warm, humid, and mostly drizzly.  It was nice enough most of the day to walk around CW (and visit Wythe, of course).  The weather at the football game was tolerable, mostly because it was warm and drizzly.  We left after the third quarter, just as the skies opened. 

Fishing

Brady takes after Papa and loves fishing.  I think it's kind of funny, since he often doesn't have a lot of patience with himself in other areas of his life, but he's happy to stand lake-side and just relax with his fishing rod. (This is definitely something we will need to keep in mind during times of high stress in his life!)

He's finally reached a point in fishing where he doesn't want to change his lure or bait after every cast, is reliable enough with his casts that you don't fear for your own safety, and generally manages to not get snagged on too much stuff.  Makes it much more enjoyable for all involved!

Best of all...this SMILE when he catches the big one.   Same for Papa :)

Sleepovers

While the rush of sports seasons can make things seem a little crazy around here, it is nice to have a few weekends at home with nothing planned but a few Saturday games.  The boys invited two buddies over from school; they don't get to see these guys very often because they live a little far away for any impromptu playtime.  

We thought we'd be safe with a cookout and with hot dogs and s'mores for dinner.  One of the boys wasn't a huge fan of hot dogs, and the other doesn't like:  fresh peaches (only canned), hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, cheese, bread, ham, toast, bacon, sausage, hamburgers, ketchup, yogurt, pickles, or eggs. The poor kid had an apple and s'mores for dinner; he didn't seem at all disappointed!

Day of Caring

The art teacher at the kids' school coordinated a Day of Caring activity.  Over the summer, she had parent volunteers paint "tiles" on the school walls.  The kids were thrilled to be able to help out with the first part of the project, and eagerly anticipated the final step!

 

Today, she had volunteers from a local business in addition to several PTA volunteers on hand to help the 700+ students "make their marks" at the school.  She even tied it into a lesson about Andy Warhol.  I spent the day at school helping with the project and it was pretty fun seeing the kids be so excited about it (even though it meant several hundred squats for me).