montreal

look at that, 2 posts in 1 day??? well hopefully i can write this today, because if a post transpired over multiple days...i'll be honest, wouldn't get finished. maybe if i am on a roll, there will be 3. so this is me trying to catch up on things.

the #1 major event over the summer was probably going to montreal with louise. and since this happened about 3 months ago, it may not be the most accurate account of what happened. anyways, i had been there once a few years ago and really enjoyed the city. louise had never been there or out of the country. the weather would be nice and it was a slow time at work, so we booked it.

we had an early-ass flight...like 6am i believe, so that meant we had to be there at 4am. not fun, but i guess when you want to save money, these are the things you have to do. anyways, dave was nice enough to sacrifice sleep and drop us off at bwi. from there we had a layover somewhere and the made it to montreal, i believe around noon. you, the loyal reader may be asking yourself, "why am i writing so much about getting there?". excellent question, the answer: brown.

this is getting long, so i am going to break down the trip with some of my famous bullet points:

• we stayed at hotel omni mont-royal, which was a pretty nice hotel, had a little balcony and was also right in the middle of the city.
• i drank a lot of 40 oz beers, usually making my choice based on the alcohol content vs cost ratio...i was drinking some sick 12% beer
• we did a lot of walking - we really did a lot of exploring through the city, and i had to listen to lot of complaining from louise :)
  
• we hiked mount royal - it wasn't a very tough hike, but it was kind of long and the view from the top was really nice
• we had a very nice picnic at some park where we sat under a tree, ate giant sandwiches and read
• we went to the botanical garden that had tons of crazy orchids and other plants, my camera battery died halfway through....we also stopped by the insectarium there...kinda lame
  
• we checked out the underground city, which wasn't as cool as i remembered it, but i might appreciate it more if it were winter
• montreal is probably the most vegetarian place i have ever visited - chu chai, la comensal, etc. - almost all restaurants had numerous vegetarian options
• many of the citizens of montreal were friendly, attractive and often times both
• louise and i went to a hookah bar - we sat outside at our table, sitting on pillows, which was a nice, louise was all gung-ho and was planning on ordering like 3 different tobacco discs, but as we found out, 1 was more than enough for 2 people, as she eventually ran to the bathroom to puke
• we visited notre-dame basilica, which was ok
• old montreal was pretty uneventful..but did feel a little bit like being in europe
• we ate at an italian restaurant and got shitty service
• we ate at a breakfast place called chez simon, which made me laugh

anyways, that covers most of what i can remember. it was a very nice trip, in a great city with the girl that i love. it goes without saying that we both had thoughts of moving up there, but i would have to learn some french.