This is one of those days where you want everything to work out well, more so than usual, and yet there are challenges. So you roll with the punches. The rain. Oh, the rain! The Covid test. The broken smart phone. And finally, here's a good one -- Sparrow's birthday. All packed into the day. Let's see how it unfolded.
I dont know about you but the first thing that I do in the morning, before I even get out of bed, is check my phone for messages and mail. So it was terribly disappointing to find that my phone was stuck: nothing was loading.
There was a time when travel proceeded without smart phone coordination. You set up schedules for meetups, you had physical maps to guide you, you did not rely on tickets or test results being loaded on your device. The good old days! -- which, honestly, were not so good. Everyone has had the experience of missed connections (with people or modes of transportation) because something happened to hold you up and in those days, you could not communicate your problem to the relevant party. You say "that's part of the adventure?" I say I can skip the worry that comes with it, thank you.
These days, phones are perhaps the most important travel instrument, second only to the credit card. Or at least let's admit this: the absence of them is a pain. So I spent the better part of the early hours trying to fix my phone, in the end giving up and calling for Apple support. And guess what -- whatever glitch there was -- is no more. We fixed it! (Eventually.)
Breakfast, hurried, downstairs in the hotel. Who wants to walk in all that rain... Oatmeal! (With fruit.)
And now comes the most challenging moment of the trip: the Covid test that will determine so much! I'd scheduled a remote one: via video, in the hotel room. I had trepidations. Did I bring an acceptable test? Will this be a legitimate result? And.... what if I scored a positive? (The young family and their friend will do this in the clinic. Maybe I should have done the same... Gulp!) I'm sweating.
And boom! It's negative. Thank you, masks. Thank you extra caution. Thanks to all of you who dutifully wear masks in the metro. Thank you vaccinations and boosters. And thank you sheer luck.
A moment of gratitude.
We continue.
I meet up with the young family downtown...
This is where you most admire the joining of the old and the new.
Too, you appreciate the green spaces. They're everywhere.
We eat lunch at Dunn's Famous. I think it's famous for smoked meats. Or maybe for its very long menu. (Page one...)
Having just come off of oatmeal from breakfast, I settle for a bagel. Because if Montreal is famous for any food, it would be the bagel. The real grownups in the room all order poutine. Because if Quebec is famous for any food, it would be poutine. (To remind you, a poutine has French fries, cheese, gravy and smoked meats.)
Hey, here's the four year old!
Do you remember being four? Were you this happy?
Rain allows us to do what we have been wanting to do from day one: visit some of the museums. But it's a bit of a walk. Still, the kids never complain. They find ways to make it memorable.
To keep from getting too wet, we weave our way through a number of malls and passageways. The big kids find this to be nothing short of fabulous. Can we all appreciate how easy it is to make kids excited about life? Lessons to be learned....
High on the list of "must visit" museums is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Snowdrop is, by now, able to recognize Impressionists and Sparrow is close behind.
In rooms with modern paintings, he is even bolder in charting his own path toward favorites (though she is quick to remind him to keep an arm's length away from any painting).
(Do you get the feeling that the grownups wear out sooner than the kids?)
Okay, time to head home. (At the metro station.)
How many subways have we taken on this trip? So many!
We watch school kids -- maybe 11 or 12 year olds -- goof around on the metro on what appeared to be their return trip home. It reminded me of my New York subway rides home when I was that age. We owned the world then. We were boss. Do kids these days have those same grand feelings of being omnipotent? I hope they do.
I leave the young family (plus a couple of friends) on the station where we typically part ways. (This photo is from my moving car. They're still on the station. Can you spot them?)
I feel I've done this walk from the metro stop to my hotel a million times. It cuts through a construction zone, but I love it anyway. Today, it's full of puddles.
And shortly after, toward evening, I am out again, catching the metro toward our dinner meetup place. At the Pizzeria Magpie.
Here's where we celebrate the big boy with a pizza dinner.
All together now...
Big and little...
Young and old.
(I think Sparrow is a little taken aback by the sparklers. But he's four now. He takes it in stride.) Happy birthday to you!!
And many many more...
We split up then. I wont see the young family until we have our dinners at the farmette.
I walk slowly through this neighborhood, their neighborhood, of all the restaurants and cafes and funky stores. And murals. You could write volumes on Montreal murals alone. Doesn't this one sort of remind you of swallows? Learning to fly? Maybe?
Maybe not exactly. But still, it's lovely, don't you think?
What a week it's been!
With so much love...
