Montreal, by Stella

Montreal, by Stella


They put me in the car again. In the beginning I was smiling, cautiously.

It was a very long ride. It always is a very long ride for me. Marcia takes me out for little walks sometimes. I like to sniff.

When the car stopped, and they let me out, we went into a little box. I usually don’t like little boxes, but I will go with Kay and Marcia, cause they need me to take care of them. So, you get in this box, and be careful cause the door might close on you. Lucky I don’t have a tail, so there is less to worry about. Then the floor moves. I really don’t like this. Next, the door opens and there are new places to sniff. We did this lots of times in Montreal.

In the RV park, when we go for a walk, it gets shorter and shorter. Now we stop a lot for cookies and sniffing other dogs, and Kay chats. I have 4 people trained for cookie giving now.

In Montreal there are no cookies. After getting out of the box, you go through lots of doors. Watch out for them. Sometimes there are people who want to pet. That’s almost as good as a cookie.

Then you gotta really watch where you walk. There are so many smells and so many people and sometimes I think the big noisy busses might want to chase me. I stick close to Kay, but I try to sniff as much as I can. Sometimes you meet other dogs too.

I went to McGill University. I studied health sciences and grounds management. There seemed to be lots of people studying the same things. We just roll around on the grass. I go there several times a day. They really like me there. Kay says some of the students were studying Tantric Yoga-whatever that is. She said they wouldn’t be interested in petting me. Imagine!

The other students have laptops. I’m not much interested in them. Kay and Marcia pay more attention to laptops than to me sometimes. I gotta remind them to take me out, or give me other things I need. No laptop for me. However, I think an I-Pod would be just great. I already got a backpack. Kay could push the buttons for me. I like the way those wires go in the ears.

Tuesday was my birthday. I am 4 now. They didn’t get me an I-Pod, but they did get me a new collar. It had lots of colors. Also got a strobe light for my collar-just in case I go out late at night. I am 4 now!

We met three other Corgis on our walk when we got home. I don’t like them much. I never met a dog who gave me a cookie.

I slept really good last night.

Montreal-Jardin Botanique

After a fantastic lunch at a rainbow flag restaurant (see MDT’s blog page), we headed for the Jardins.

The big attraction there was the Chinese lantern show in the Chinese garden. We sorta got the lay of the land on the tram ride, but things were a bit confusing as they are under construction and the tram doesn’t go it’s usual route. Marcia hung out in China, and I went in search of the orchid greenhouse.

Again, I will try to edit the photos, and I am ready to trash the camera. (I am in pursuit of a good close up camera for flower shots-or perhaps a good photography class.)


I am not usually a fan of bonsai, but this little tree and rock combo just spoke to me. Likewise, the dahlias (I believe. I was traveling fast at this point, and did not bother to read the ID signs.)

The lantern show was terrific. I loved making the Chinese street vendor selling moon cakes smile by responding to his French with Chinese.

Later that night, we had a very fine light Greek supper in the restaurant next to the hotel. Greek salad, dolmas, and taziki on garlic toast. The wine was forgettable.

Marcia noticed a little store across the way on Shebroke. It was called Asiatica. She suggested I check it out in the morning. I thought that perhaps walking the dog, getting the pastry and coffee, and faxing the letter would be enough for the morning. As it turned out, we hopped in the car, were able to make a left on Shebroke, and there was an empty parking space in front of the store. It was, by this time pouring rain. I did a dash inside and knew right away it was right to go get Marcia. Since we might be spending some time in the store, I decided to contribute to the city coffers by paying for parking.

There is a very sleek parking system that I had to learn in a jiffy. What looks like the meter is only a post with a number. The meter is in the middle of the block. When you choose your language, punch in the number and put in your money, it gives you a slip of paper, but more importantly it “remembers” it electronically. I had just put the slip of paper in the car window when the parking police walked by. I was able to establish that I had indeed learned the system, as his little keypad device confirmed that I had paid ($.25). Whew!

Inside the store, Marcia was smiling broadly and sipping a flower tea. We had a little shopping adventure, and I am certain there will be tea sipping for either Second Saturday or Second Sunday morning. I did check out the furniture, but there was nothing of interest. Marcia didn’t think we should strap it on top of either the car or the Cronemobile. In China they transport it all on bicycles. I have seen some very interesting balancing acts. I’m sure the car or RV would be a piece of cake in comparison.

So we were off. Here is the thing… some streets are one way some of the time. Many streets allow you to go straight and make a right hand turn (not on red, however). A few streets allow left hand turns. One can drive a long way before finding such streets. Eventually, one will find the street that takes one to 10, and be on the way out. We pretended we were checking out the town.

Montreal-The Parc

Parc Jean-Drapeau

Easier to get in than to get out! Our hotel was on Parc Ave. Easy park, grocery across the street, Second Cup down the street, and McGill U five blocks away. This was to prove handy for Stella.

We settled in and headed for China town. Thing were hopping on a Sunday. We quickly found the pharmacy-both Eastern and Western, and within a short walk, the restaurant. Marcia has filled you in on the details.
Monday was an ambitious day. Could we get in the Biosphere and the Jardin Botanique de Montreal? We got up early. I walked the dog, got the coffee, faxed a letter, and got in the car. We headed for the Biosphere using the free guide map from the hotel. This took us to the Parc Jean-Drapeau, site of the 1967 Olympics. The sphere was not open till noon, so we had two hours to wander and photograph.

The designers did their job. There is almost no bad shot of this place. I will try my best to edit, but I loved almost every angle. In addition to the biosphere, there is the bridge over the St Lawrence, the nickel baron’s sculpture framing the city skyline, the city skyline itself, and the fountains. These jets pop up at different times, and do different things, so that the water display is ever changing. I do believe I could have spent a half day just watching them do their thing.

I had gone online to take a look at the sights of Montreal before we left. It must be said that the Wi-Fi was not working at our hotel (on Sunday-Monday). Therefore, we were left with the hotel map. I was expecting several “environments” with animals, etc., but what we got was more like the local small town children’s museum. There was an exhibit of color photos that blew me away and almost made me want to trash my camera. It was also a trip to see the biosphere from the inside, but after that, we were on our way.

MDT tells me, after further research, that we did miss the Biodome where the “environments” are. This is probably best as we would have never made it to the Jardin. It also makes us ready to go back soon.

We did find one living creature we enjoyed. Marcia has the best shot of him/her, so I will encourage her to add it. I pursued him/her like paparatazi. I had wondered why the grounds maintenance had left this large hole next to a tree.

Quick! To Montreal!

We wanted to take a short trip to Montreal before we departed the NEK so we left the RV behind at the park and with dog in tow we took off for two nights in a wonderful city. I was surprised that Quebec does not have much English on traffic signs that would help tourists transit the roads. We did find that the other Canadian provinces we visited made a serious effort to have both national languages but this was noticeably absent in Quebec. The trip there was an abrupt transition to the hard drive in my head where I’ve buried two years of French somewhere.

We observed that outside of Montreal French was spoken regularly and Kay succeeded in ordering at Subway in French with some assistance from helpful people in line behind her. In Montreal, we found a mish-mash of so many languages and English could be used just about anywhere we went. I was surprised how many times conversations were started in French, then slid into English then back to French with great ease. My language data slowly percolated back up just in time for us to leave but I think we will return to this wonderful city some day so I should keep it brushed up.




Dining Out Review

What’s not to like about eating in Montreal! Like any of the great cities you can find any food style from A-Z. After viewing the maps we set out for China town our first night. We knew we could find some good food and interesting places here!

More about exploring Montreal can be found at http://www.go-montreal.com/

Jardin du Norde
Chinese fusion is found here and we had a fabulous and filling dinner on the night of our arrival. Our appetizers were steamed chicken wontons slid into a simple satay sauce with a drizzle of slightly spicy hoisin. Kay’s dinner included a delicately steamed fish with ginger and scallions in a light sauce that helped spread the ginger and scallion flavors. I had a lemon grass dusted pan-seared chicken filet with vegetables in a light brown garlic sauce. Both dishes were perfectly balanced with their components and excellently enhanced by their very different sauces.

The wine accompaniment was Mission Hill Five Vinyards Pinot Blanc from the BC area. It was a pleasant surprise with its semi sweet citrus hit and a fresh clean finish. It went well with both meals we had. Now we’re looking for a case someday. http://www.missionhillwinery.com/estate_wines/mhWine.asp


Restaurant Laurin
Who knew we would find this fabulous French-Continental bistro so close to the hotel. We entered this beautifully styled room for a late lunch before we went to the botanical gardens. Basically, we had the place to ourselves.

The lunch menu was in French and and the maitre d’ graciously helped us settle on our dishes. The pork tenderloin with braised carrots, and potato mash were plated delicately on a plate dressed with cinnamon infused honey. Accompaniments were caramelized onions and a zucchnin-mushroom cup. What a delight! The pork was perfectly cooked and the sauce tied it all together but touched each component with a slightly different character. We finished lunch off with a beautifully plated flan with strawberries and blueberries. You can brush up your French on their website at http://www.restaurantlaurin.com/fr.html

Finally, Kay found a Belgian bakery near the hotel that provided us an Apple and Apricot tart for the journey plus a fine crusty bagette for dinner later. Mmmmmmm! We had a great time!

Rocks

Falling Water

Willoughby Falls at Orleans, Vermont.

The Flume.

Table Rock.

The falls in Littleton, New Hampshire.