
Reprise
Got to Montreal and found my hotel easily.
What a dump!
It was the Casa Bella, with 50,000 stairs. The girl at the reception desk
didn't speak a word of English. We'd agree on one word and then instead of
slowly going from there, she would take off, blah-blah-blah. I clearly asked
in French if there was a restaurant nearby and she started to tell me there
was a store across the street. "Restaurant" in English = "restaurant" in
French, capeesh?
I walked around and found a giant food court across the street and
downstairs from the Arts Center, which was a few blocks down-mountain. Whew.
The hotel had no clock (other than a faded LED display on the wall phone
next to the door). No wakeup calls. No kleenex. No hair dryer. The toilet
was nothing to write home about. There were no room temperature controls.
It was $300.00 for 3 nights, $60 more than what they'd quoted me. Still, I was
unpacked and tired and didn't want to trudge three doors down to the frigid
Holiday Inn Midtown. But where's a Microtel when you need one?
1 October
mun-tree-ALL = English
mo(open o)-ray-AL = French
Casa Bella's website talks about the fresh croissants that they bake in
their ovens every morning. Can I be serious here? This was the deciding
point for the hotel as the list narrowed down in the planning stages. I
imagined waking to the delicious bakery smell every morning and crunching
into a crisp croissant for breakfast. Instead what they served was a
warmed-up, soggy, store-bought standard-o croissant like I could have gotten
at Burger King as part of a croissandwich.
Had the usual English/French battle with the girl at reception. A guest was
there who spoke NO French and I actually had to translate! "Someone will be
here in a few minutes who knows English." Yeah right, pal.
Thought the Museum of Fine Art was closer than it was. Reception girl said
oh, very close. Four rest breaks later, I got there a few minutes before
they opened.
Lovely show! It was landscape artists in Provence. I had spotted the
advertising banner as I came into Montreal the first time. The cubists and
pointillists spoiled it as they always do, and the early guys were zzz
classical. But the others—! They had 2 or 3 Van Goghs to draw in the
tourists and a bunch of Cezannes, a Monet and a Renoir, which was blurry.
That guy HAD to have had eye/focus problems, I tell you!
Loved one Cezanne in particular - WOW! When I got home I found a lousy black
and white shot of it in my college History of Art book. There was another
guy I'd never heard of who was TERRIFIC, as well as Felix Z____, who has his
own museum. He painted like he had three balls — very dynamic and assertive!
You'd be going through the paintings and say to yourself, "Here's another
really great one. Hey, it's that's Z-guy again." After a couple I could
point him out from a distance. I'll have to look up his museum someday.
I wanted to buy the show book, but it was $50 and weighed about 30 pounds!
It would have never fit in the luggage. I just bought it via the Net. Ow,
the postage! The show was called "En Provence" or something like that.
Got a Metro pass and zipped over to InfoTouriste. There the guy at the #3
station assured me with a snort that a hotel clerk in Montreal who didn't
speak English was IMPOSSIBLE. Jerk. Then when I asked about pretty sites to
paint, he starts giving me the tourist bit: largest building in Montreal,
most astonishing technology in the city, etc. Jerk. Finally got through to
him (I think) about ART and he suggested a bus route to Westmount.
Always before the people at InfoTouriste have been charming and helpful.
Don't know whose cousin this guy was.
Got panini for lunch and was feeling like I wasn't getting anything done.
Square Victoria had bad light. (I faked it for the painting, can you tell?)
(That's called creative license.) Went down 1 stop, asked which direction
Notre Dame was in — the land sloped UP in both directions outside the subway
— though I thought the correct direction was to the right. I knew it had to
be down, as in towards the river.
Was directed to the right, came around the building — and there it was,
front and center. Duh. Bad light again, so I wandered down to Vieux
Montreal.
Millions of people! Dozens of entertainers! Everyone was out on this sunny,
warm day. There was a guy with a knife act — he climbed a ladder with blades
as steps and juggled fire, then swallowed same. He was cute and funny, but
had an obstacle in having to say everything twice, bilingually.
Another Bolivian-type band played. There was a Chinese dragon — two guys in
a costume — who did acrobatics. Très amusant!
Actually did a sketch of Bonsecours. Not bad. Strolled around the skating
rink/paddle boat moat, took pics of the Geodome and those block apartments
they did for Expo. Saw a car rigged as a boat cruising up the river. They
never waved at everyone watching and pointing at them. What's the point in
having a car-boat if you don't waaaave and raise a glass of champagne to the adoring peons?
The huge cruise ship docked a little ways down blew its horns as if it were
taking off or giving final warning, so I sat down to wait to see if it would
do anything. Instead, Notre Dame began to ring bells. It was a tremendous
cacophony for five minutes, though the time was about 4:15. Wha—?
Then the ship blew its horn again. Nothing.
I reminded myself that I'd come on vacation to RELAX, so I did so on my park
bench and people-watched on this wonderful afternoon.
There were LOTS of brides getting pictures taken at various places around
Vieux Montreal. Just outside of City Hall the limos were lined up for
pictures, each with a different bride and groom inside, each waiting their
turn.
After tooling uphill at a good rate of speed, I turned a corner and almost
ran down a security guard parked next to a light reflector. Seems someone
was filming a movie. One of the few spectators mentioned that some star was
just about to exit the storefront, but I didn't get either the star or the
movie's name. You'd think they'd have had the security perimeter set up just
a tad larger so crazy tourists would be unable to interfere with all their
careful lighting.
I had a poor supper at Mikes (a chain) in the Place des Arts food court —
or is that part of Desjardins (which is indeed, to answer a question from an
earlier trip, across from Place des Arts)?
On the way to find muffins for breakfast, I found a copy of one of Emilie
Rose's books in French, Passion d'été. She got a hoot out of it; she'd never
seen foreign copies of her stuff.
Have I mentioned what a STUPID idea it was to found a northern city on such
steep slopes? Quebec, too. How the heck do they do it here in winter? These
streets are 30-plus degrees, maybe even 45 degrees at some points.
2 October
The news said they fired cannons on top of Mt. Royal today to indicate the
new troops coming in and old ones going out, but I didn't hear anything.
They had a Run for the Cure on Rue Peel, but I only saw 3 women in the tee
shirts on the Metro.
I was treated to the sight of a man on the subway applying deodorant. Such
savoir faire!
Saw an interesting commercial: two good-looking seniors are in bed, kissing
passionately. The man says, excuse me, goes into the bathroom and calls,
"Can I take your last Polinex?" Woman says, "Go ahead, I only use it once a
week." He mutters, "Yecch," and takes the Polinex. Next shot is them in bed,
resuming their makeout session.
What a great campaign! It hits on so many levels - and it shows sexy
seniors!
Got out around 9:30 and went to Outremont to maybe sketch that church I'd
seen. It was a bit down from the University Metro station. So I started
walking — bad news when the streets don't go "down." Kept the mountain to my
back and asked 3 or 4 people who didn't know about any church. Finally
spotted a "down" street and decided to go that far to check before turning
back.
There it was, a block away. I thought it had had a park across the street,
but no. So I took pictures instead and decided to try a bus to the Metro
since from here everything was suddenly and seriously "up."
Waited. And waited. There was a shiny small building at the top of the hill
that I could see that looked like a subway station, but this was Montreal
and they hide the Metro inside other buildings, so it couldn't be it.
After church let out and another long wait, the bus finally came. I asked if
it went to the Metro. The bus stop sign said it did, to Eduard Montpetit,
which on my map looked a long way off. The driver looked at me funny and
said yes, it went to Eduard Montpetit.
Yeah, you guessed it. That shiny building was the Metro station. I slunk off
the bus. D'oh! At least those people will never see me again!
Found a food court at McGill, or was it Peel? Station. Went to a fast-food
creperie. They had four big, round heated griddles, about 18" across. The
woman poured measured batter onto the first, spread it around with a window
squeegee, and when it was done on 1 side, flipped it onto the second griddle
where it received filling. After it was done on that side she folded the
sides in, then ends, and flipped it onto the third griddle. When that was
done she flipped it onto the fourth for final browning, I guess.
It was okay for fast food, a bit like chicken pot pie with a very thin
crust. It came with iceberg lettuce and dressing, zzz. The
chocolate-banana-strawberry crepes looked interesting. They really piled on
the fruit!
Went to gothic McGill U. and took pictures. The sun was mostly in the wrong
place. Lots of people of all ages strolled about. I climbed a bit, would see
something up ahead, climbed to see what it was, saw something up ahead,
climbed, etc. My map showed that I was near the Parc du Mont Réal. Maybe
there'd be something there to see, but by the time I got up there I was
exhausted.
I asked some people coming down if there was anything just a LITTLE farther
up and they said that there normally was, but it was under construction and
unavailable. They told me to go all the way to the top to the observation
area that had a snack bar pavilion. (I think that's the place that's in The
Whole Nine Yards.)
But the top was too far. Didn't feel like circling down to Ste. Catherine,
hitting a subway to the Mont Réal station and then transferring to the #11
bus to get there.
When I looked around I discovered it was a very nice patch of park right
where I was, so I painted that. After a weak start, well, it didn't turn out
badly. Got a few of the values right, and got a complement from a passer-by on the sketch. (Had fun doing the oil version.)
Went back down the mountain, which was a LOT easier and faster than going up
(what DO they do in winter?), caught the #24 bus which InfoTouriste said
would take me out to Westmount, where they had interesting houses (to the
south of the bus route). Didn't feel like exploring. Sherbrooke St. in
Westmount is much like Sherbrooke St. in centreville. There are blocks of 3
and 4-story townhouses jammed together. There seemed to be some side streets
where townhouses were separate.
Came back — Villa Maria station was NOT surrounded by a nice Italian
business neighborhood that I could see, so no Italian dinner — and finally
found a reasonable cafe across from Place des Arts. Sat outside to watch the
crowd, which seemed to be the entire city, strolling past. A man came up
from the sidewalk and plunked himself down on a table (you can do that?) (no
wonder the staff looked at me oddly when I came in the front door of the
restaurant next to the "please wait to be seated" sign and waited to be
seated. Rules! Rules!) and got served. Then when some other diners left he grabbed their
table, which was nearer the sidewalk, causing the waiter to have to clean an
extra table. The guy chain-smoked in the non-smoking area. Jerk!
Returned to my room, packed and was astonished that everything fit.
It had been warm in Montreal, getting warmer every day. 24, 26°. Should be
28° by the end of the week. Hoped it was cooling off back home.
3 October
Finally -- an English-speaking guy at the front desk! Too little, too late.
The gas station across the street had gas for $1.89/liter. Toronto gas was
$1.05 or so. People on my tour were talking about post-Katrina gougers in
the big cities and Quebec in general, so I guess this was proof.
The cabbie made a U-turn on busy main street Sherbrooke to pick me up and
then another U-turn to go to the airport. In a 70 kph zone he went 100 kph,
in a 100 kph zone he was going 130. No one else was anywhere near that fast.
I hung on and watched him miss the exit. Good thing the fare from downtown
to Dorval/Trudeau is a flat, regulated $31.00.
Customs in Toronto took forever to get through and then they shuttled us off
to a temporary outlying terminal. At least it had good bathrooms. I'd been
picturing a little gray shack on the runway for all the America-bound
passengers, with maybe an outhouse of some kind in the back. I'd gotten
lunch in the main terminal, thank goodness.
All around I had good flights. I'm getting better at flying. The guy sitting
next to me from Toronto to RDU kept fidgeting the entire time and had
horrible, reeking breath. Bird by Bird kept me entertained.
Home again! Obi wasn't sure it was me, but all cats seemed glad to see me.
They've been sticking close ever since.
Now all I have to do is finish painting all this stuff!
PS: boycott Sears!