Montreal

The kids really wanted to go to La Ronde, the amusement park just across the river from Montreal's downtown. It's there, tempting them with a visible roller coaster, and the usual Six Flags whirling spinning crashing stuff. We set aside Monday for this.

Wait, today is Monday! And the weather is great! A bit warm perhaps, but we'll take warm! No rain.

We do not go. 

When it came time to purchase tickets on line, we noted the park was open yesterday, but closed today. And the next day. And the day after that. Basically, until the Canadian kids are out of school, the park opens only on weekends.

Sweet kids that they are, Snowdrop and Sparrow swallowed their disappointment. While the grownups mulled over the alternatives, I had a quick breakfast downstairs in my hotel...

And then I had a Zoom meeting about my book,  Like A Swallow. One needs to do these things if you want your work to reach an audience. You discuss distribution. You discuss promotion. I suppose it becomes part of your job as author person to do this stuff.

And afterwards, I went for a leisurely walk. 

It's quite pleasant to window-shop here...

And it struck me that it might be a good time to look at some sweet Canadian stuff for the grandkids. And so I went further north, and further west, walking, walking, until I came across a perfect little store.

(This is how far I wondered away from Old Montreal...)

This is when I got a text from my son-in-law. He and the two older kids were right now on their way to the Biodome -- an incredible place where you can come face to face with animals from very diverse biospheres. Penguins and puffins, parrots, beavers and so much more! Let's meet up there!

But first, we pause at the planetarium, where the kids get about as close to Mars as they'll ever come. We dont have access to rocks and minerals from that planet except when flying debris comes our way. Here,  you can see it, touch it, get close to it.

And you can, with the help of a joy stick, propel a buggy across Mars in search of water. Now that's really fun!

Lunch. With Montreal bagels which both kids agreed are better than the American version. 

And now the Biodome. Just an amazing place for kids, for adults as well.

I thought we had run them ragged inside, but no -- they were willing to continue. On the other end of the park you'll find the Botanical Gardens. It's a hike, much of it uphill and, too, we pause at the Olympic exercise station and the kids, especially Snowdrop, really get a workout there...

And still, they continue, even Sparrow with his short little legs, surely tired by now...

The Botanical Gardens are vast and I'm sure we touched only a few of the corners, but what we saw was just so beautiful! 

We were lucky. The Gardens have extensive Japanese and Chinese segments and of course, the iris will be emphasized and of course this is the week of the iris.

I could not get enough of it all!

How could you not reach for the camera again and again!

And again.

It's a long walk back to the subway. I thought their feet would surely give out but they continued, with only the occasional pause for a rest. Such good travelers, both of them!

I zipped on the metro to the hotel to dump my shopping bag which had been my companion all day long and to freshen up (I needed a hand scrub!) and then I set out again, this time meeting up with the whole pack at Vices et Versa. I'd call it a pub with pub food, though they swear it's very fresh and honest. From the poutine to the fried chicken.

We were ten for dinner today. A group shot was taken.

And then the young family and I took the metro home. They got off first, I got off much later. It's good thing I didn't doze off with the sway of the rapidly moving train. I am that sleepy tonight!

Good night, with love...

Sunday in Montreal

We will have rain for the second half of our trip, but for this first half, we've had luck: the rains held off and we have what I regard as the perfect Canadian weather! [You will want to tell me that Canada is large and does not have "one weather." This is true, but when I think of Canada in the late spring or early summer, I imagine gusty breezes, a few clouds and a few rays of a strong sun -- which, by the way, stays out until late. Sunset's at 8:40 p.m. today, just a few minutes later than our own sunset in Madison Wisconsin. And this is what we have had and continue to have: my imagined perfect Canadian weather!]

It's really pretty in the Old Montreal at all times of the day, but I especially like it in the morning, when the streets are empty and you can easily drift back in thought to a life once lived here before the advent of all that modernity has brought with it. 

Let me say just a few words about Montreal at this point, in case you're not up to speed on your Canadian history. The city is old, but of course, not that old by European standards. The Frenchman Jacques Cartier was the first European to arrive in the 16th century, though the indigenous people -- the Iroquoians -- had been lived here for a very long time. Like 8000 years. 

After Cartier's landing (ensuring that the land would be relegated to France as a colony), many years would pass before more Europeans made their way back to the island that was eventually to be Montreal. Initially a fur trading outpost, the settlement expanded, but it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century (1832 to be precise) that it became a city. By then the whole province of Quebec had become a British colony, and Montreal had grown to have 80,000 inhabitants.  A newly constructed canal ensured that it would become a major (some would argue the most major) economic hub on the North American continent. [Before the opening of the Lachine canal -- do you see how its name, la-chine, tells us much about the goals of exploration? -- ship navigation from Europe had to stop at Montreal. Without roads and without the water link, Montreal was actually quite isolated from the rest of the continent.] I write all this because you have to look for the old here through the prism of its history, remembering that most of Old Montreal as we see it today really dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. So again, old, but not that old.

I walk back to Olive et Gourmand for breakfast but it's closed today, so I pause instead at the lovely Cafe Tommy. Here, you have to commit to a real sit down breakfast and I do just that. Croissant, egg, the works.

The young family is attending to very important stuff in their neighborhood (like getting Sparrow to a hair cut place, even as he has resisted having this done for months now) and so I continue to explore Old Montreal and the Old Port on my own.

(You have to love that for once, a monument is put up not in honor of a military leader, but of three women chatting. It's titled "les chuchoteuses," or the whisperers.)

There are fantastic walking areas here! You never forget that Montreal is as much a part of the St. Lawrence River as New York is part of the Hudson River as it empties out into the Atlantic Ocean. 

As I admire the well tended spaces, the numerous paths, docks and bridges...

...  I can't help but think that this is a wonderful place to live if you are destined to live in an urban area. I remember my cab ride into the city just a few days back when the cabbie, who immigrated here some twenty years ago told me how good Montreal has been to his family. I asked if he minded the cold (everyone who is not from Canada just assumes that the country is basically one long winter with a brief pause for spring). He answered bluntly -- that is not a measure of a good city. You're cold, you put on a coat. We have a nice home, the kids go to a good safe school, I have a good job. We love it here.

Lovely indeed!

Right after lunch, some of the young family comes down to Old Montreal for their first look at this part of town (Sandpiper naps, dad stays home to keep an eye on him).

Here's where we can pick up a bit of history: these blocks tell a story, don't they?

And we veer toward the Old Port and of course the big Ferris wheel. Three times around!

Such views!

We are joined now by a couple of my daughter's friends. We all know them well. They're as close as you can get to being family without being related. We hang out together now, so we have morphed from being a group of seven to being a group of nine.

The kids do a few more bouncy things  and pick up a couple of lollipops...

... and now Sandpiper joins us! 

We all settle in for an early evening aperitif back on the patio of my hotel. 

The plan is to eat dinner in a restaurant that's a bit of a trip from Montreal's center. It's Kwizinn Verdun and it's worth the lengthier metro ride. (Of course, for the kids, the metro ride is part of the adventure!)

Kwizinn is casual, but very very special.

The food is Creole, or maybe Haitian, or maybe both. (I have a fantastic sea bass grilled in plantation leaves.)

And there is live island music and the atmosphere is relaxed and jovial and the food is superb.

(Sandpiper moves to the rhythm of the guitar...)

It's late when we ride the metro back to our various destinations. At a changing station, they go that way, I go another way.

And as the train rumbles through the tunnels, I sit back and think how good kids can be when you take them to new places that demand of them so much more patience and fortitude and a completely new way of taking in the world around them. Being in less familiar communities is humbling. And in feeling yourself to be small, maybe your various issues also become small. 

Small thoughts on a big day...

Goodnight, with love...

Montreal

Traveling with very little kids is never boring: they basically spend their time trying to understand their new environment, testing the new boundaries and expectations. I had to nap at home. Do I have to nap here too? You said no to eating chords when I tried it in our living room. Am I free to eat them here? Gravel in the playground? That's novel! Is it crunchy? 

As you know, I travel a lot. I mean, not during Covid years, but in other years -- a lot. It used to be with Ed, but he's decided to be more of a home body, so now it's alone, or I join up with the young family. But as the grandkids multiplied, my ability to give parents a break and take care of the pack in some foreign country while mom and dad go and have some fun has been... diminished. At home, I can still do it. But in distant lands, watching all three is not a piece of cake. Especially this year, when the hands down most rambunctious grandchild of all my grandkids is only one. Looking after them basically means you have to look after him, 100% of the time, and hope that the other two will fend for themselves.

I should note that in looking around me, I often see grandparents, especially in parks, and especially younger grandparents, looking after one or two kids. But I never see just one grandparent, at my age, looking after three, where one or more are just toddlers. I assure you, us grandparents would like to claim invincibility and great strength, but it's all a front really. We are old and our joints ache. Only shhhh! Don't tell anyone.

This brief introduction into what it's like at age 69 to be traveling with little guys, is also a good introduction into my day: I was alone, then with the young family, all of them, and then with just part of them, then alone once more. I didn't rest until I came back in the evening to my hotel room, but man oh man, I then rested good and hard. No way would you have coaxed me into any sort of walk. My smart watch has repeatedly told me that I'm setting new movement records. True, it's not a very old watch, so it's familiarity with my life is limited, but still, I feel it! I have walked a lot.

It began in the morning, as I set out to find another recommended cafe -- La Finca, a place that prides itself in showcasing local foods. (So that, for example, I bought a bottle of Quebecois wine there. I haven't seen it on any menu, even as I have such fond memories of sampling it when Ed and I were in Quebec many winters back.)

It's a bit of a walk, because La Finca is in downtown Montreal which is not the same as Old Montreal -- place of my hotel. I want  you to follow along with me on this walk, because I'm wondering, is it just me, or have others, too, identified this place as being basically a mix of all other North American cities?

Montreal has a little bit of Quebec City in it...

A little bit of Portland Maine...

A little bit of San Francisco!

And maybe a little bit of the farmette!

La Finca, outside. Delightful! Even if I did by accident drop their croissant on the floor and they insisted on replacing it. In preCovid times I may have said -- oh, that's okay, I'll eat it anyway, but these days germs and viruses are scary, so it's best to toss and start again.

Since I happened to be downtown, I wondered if there wasn't a toy store nearby. There is? Thanks, Google. Another fifteen minute walk, further out. The kids would love some small characters for their story telling. I walk on.

And of course, what walks out must return.

So much walking, and it's not even noon yet.

And there is more: I set out then to visit the young family in their Airbnb. Sure, I take the subway to cover most of the distance... 

(the next generation, riding and connecting)

... but it still is a bit of a walk to the subway stops and then to their place.

Hello, young family member with a bruised face from playground antics!

Hi, older brother!

They've purchased foods for a picnic. Handily, there is a lovely park is just two minutes from their place. 

We all go there for a grand lunch en plein aire.

And then the kids play. Sandpiper by now is in need of a nap, so one parent attends to him, while the rest of us push the other kids on swings, admire their climbing skills and basically watch the little guys as they set out to sample the wonders of the playground world. 

And now Sandpiper really needs a full nap. Sparrow could use one as well. Dad stays home with the young men, mommy, Snowdrop and I head out. It's their first subway ride and predictably, Snowdrop loves the adventure of it.

Our goal? To see the Jean Talon Montreal market. I'd read about it just this morning. It brings a huge number of growers, farmers and producers here to sell their stuff. It's a big city so they can do this daily. 

(the three colors of asparagus)

Even though we have similar growing seasons (we're both, for example, Zoned 5 for perennials), they seem just this much ahead of us with their produce. 

(True, not everything is a local product, but most things are. Certainly the strawberries are Quebecois.)

While here, we pause for ice cream. It's Saturday. There are lines. It's okay! 

("hey, do I still have chocolate on my face?")

And we admire the seafoods. Great oysters and of course, great lobsters.

They're in season now and that's just wonderful because Quebec Province really does have the waters for grand lobsters. In fact, very often the lobster you will eat in a restaurant in France will come from Canadian waters. 

And speaking of such stuff, this is the one night I am here where I am not eating with the young family. A sitter is with the kids, the parents are going out. Me? I go to the nearby lobster shack (Pincette Bar Homard) and purchase that wonderful dish that's great in all places where lobsters abound: the lobster roll. 

(I give it a B+, which is pretty a good grade, considering that I used to be a pro at making good lobster rolls myself, so I do know what's at play.)

I'm back in Vieux Montreal of course, and since it is Saturday, the place is buzzing with visitors. I mean, this may as well be Coney Island in the heat of the summer.

And I like it, but I like even more the fact that my hotel is tucked a bit to the side of it, so that I hear none of the youthful screams that probably go on all night long.

So yes, I feel my age (or nearly that!) after all those miles of walking today. But when you travel and you've had a full day on your feet, you know that you did well! That you saw many things and tasted many foods. Full days are superb. You feel proud that you traveled this far to see this much! So proud...

And tomorrow, we'll all push ourselves even more! Right kids??

In the meantime -- a good night to all! With love...