Montreal

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...

Montreal

You could say we are hanging in there by a thread. I'm talking about the weather. A week slated to be rain doused has been wonderfully rain free. Well, except for last night, though I have to say that walking in the evening with an umbrella out was rather refreshing. Or this morning, while I was blissfully unaware, riding the metro. Still, on other days, we've been lucky, but just barely. And it looks as if we are to have one more day of good fortune. I'm returning to the farmette Friday, so I will have had a great run of it: the big time rain is now said to arrive here in Eastern Canada tomorrow. Full force and swinging, or you could say pelting. But starting tomorrow.

Since we're looking good this morning, I set out for that morning walk through the old town all the way to Olive et Gourmand. Hands down my favorite breakfast here.

To the port, and back again.

Our morning meetup is at the Marche Atwater -- the second of the big markets of Montreal (and in my opinion, the nicer of the two).

Want to know what's blooming and selling here now? I'll flash you some highlights:

Plants and flowers -- lots of them.

Local strawberries -- lots of them.

More flowers! 

Rhubarb -- makes me think of ours back home.

Oh, hey there, Sandpiper!

As the young family trickles in, I take the big kids for a pizza lunch while the grownups search out something a little bit more exotic.

Oh, and ice cream. I'm always good for an ice cream treat.

(Others at the market opt for buying salamis, cheeses, tomatoes and a baguette. No, they're not part of our group, just a pair of Quebecois, acting very... French.)

From the market, it's a short stroll to the Canal Lachine. There are paths along this serene and once very important body of water. 

The sun is poking through, it all looks so pretty! (The big tower? That's part of the market.)

It's the last time that the whole Gang of ten will be together, so we get someone to take a photo...

We head now to the metro and in doing that, we pass a flag shop. It's tucked to a side street and I can't imagine who comes to it and for what reason, but it catches the interest of the kids (and some grownups) and so there is a small shopping detour that takes place. I'm not sure who purchased what flag, but here are some very satisfied kids:

(this next one was taken by my son-in-law)

At the metro station, Joe, one of the grownup friends, gives Snowdrop a lesson in sketching with pencils of a different thickness. It was a chance thing that he saw her frustration with creating sketches that never quite fit her idea of what she'd wanted to draw. Since he is an accomplished sketcher, he went to the trouble of showing her how to handle such frustrations (start with a thin pencil and keep a nifty eraser with you).

We split up now. I stick with the young family and we head to the blow-up playground in the Old Port.

Things are a little wet after that morning shower, but the kids have fun. Too, there is a crazy little merry-go-round with a spinning saucer which both Snowdrop and Sparrow manage to spin so fast that I get dizzy just watching. That was epic! -- Snowdrop tells me, with a look of deep satisfaction.

(The littlest guy concentrated on navigation of a different sort.)

In the evening, the kids are again home with a sitter. I'm with the grownups. Six of us. 

At Pichai. A Thai place.

With very very good food.

It really is impressive how well you can eat here, for prices far lower than south of the border. I have yet to have a disappointing meal and indeed, some have been exceptionally fabulous. Of course, we are in a major metropolitan area and so there are choices. Many choices. But my memories of past trips to Quebec the province are equally positive. Fresh and honest rather than frozen and fried. 

One more day before me. And of course, with it comes (for me, not them yet), the Covid test that will permit me to travel back to the US. It is not a little frustrating to know that you can travel by land back to the US without testing, and you can criss cross the US by airplane without testing, but this one form of reentry -- a flight from another country, a neighboring country, requires you to have no sign of the virus. Of course, it is a far far bigger deal for families than it is for me. Were I to get a positive test result (despite my double boost, it is possible), I'd have to wait it out a few days. For families -- that's not easy. Ah well. Let's hope all our mask wearing in public places has served us well!

In the meantime, I'll borrow the sign I saw at my breakfast place. Goodnight...

Montreal

If you had a choice: rain in the first half of your trip with good weather for the ending, or, good weather first, followed by rain, which would you pick? Though I subscribe to the best for last mantra, I'm happy we started off grand. It was not a disappointing introduction for the kids, for us too. If all else fails going forward, we still remain satisfied.

Of course, we don't have a say in how these things play out. But I do want to note that we have been exceptionally lucky. The trip -- a first for a family of five now -- has been a fantastic adventure, with plenty of high points along the way, played out well because the weather cooperated.

But this morning we've been warned: it's going to rain out there. Or maybe drizzle. Wetness for sure. Well fine: I have work to do rewriting another PR piece on Like a Swallow  (what can I say, I'm fussy!) and so I settle for another breakfast at the hotel. Oatmeal no less! 

And the kids -- they are oblivious to weather. They are drawn to outdoor activities and they press for us to move forward with their favorite bouncy stuff. We're agreeable, though I'm taking along an umbrella. I have little confidence in the weather at the moment. Those clouds look mighty thick: like they may want to stick around for a while. A long while.

I take the metro and once again we meet up just outside the Biodome. This time it's the whole gang of five plus me. And guess what -- despite an internet page claiming otherwise, the bouncy castle thing is deflated and closed. We ask at the Biodome, we try to find some person of great authority -- no luck. No one knows. A shrug, a shake of the head. 

Are the kids disappointed yet again? Well yes and no. Only Snowdrop cared deeply about the activity and she was content to switch focus. Sparrow is at an age where he still sort of rolls with it and Sandpiper? Well, he bounces around plenty without the aid of an inflatable castle.

We go back to the Olympic training field (this used to be the center of Montreal's Olympic Games back in 1976). Sparrow bounces on a trampoline in his own gentle way and Snowdrop finds new ways to strengthen her arm muscles!

We're nearing the lunch hour. There's an outdoor cafeteria just by the entrance to the Botanical Gardens and so we head there. I'd say the food choices made several of the kids very happy.

Good lunches make good energies flow.

And since we are so close, so close to the Gardens, wouldn't it be a splendid idea to show at least a little of them off to mommy and Sandpiper? They missed it yesterday. 

Yes! It's unanimous. In we go.

I'm itching for a picture of the kids against a background of color. That same color that we long for in early spring. They oblige, the gardens oblige, the weather obliges.

And now be patient with me. I'm posting a half dozen pics from our walk through this corner of the Gardens. You have to understand: I grow flowers. I love flowers. I love watching kids move freely between flowers. So, six photos, in a row.

Okay, I cheated. That was seven.

Note in that last photo that we have had another piece of blooming luck! We hit the peak peony blooming season!  I had to horn in on the act here. I set up the camera and the two big kids and I had some fun doing  a timed release photo. I like this one best:

I'll leave you with one last glance at the peonies, with a dab of iris. I mean, just sublime!

Our dinner tonight is just for a group of five. Adult five. We were to be six, but a friend's flight got delayed. Wait, the traveler did arrive in the end? Yes he did. Alright, five, but eventually six.

The kids are home, us big people are trying out Maison Publique. 

Wonderful food. Small plates, so we have to share. Baked oysters, asparagus, seafoods, wild mushrooms, tartare this, tartare that, halibut, pork, pasta dishes, desserts. We ate it all.

When my daughter's friend finally does arrive (straight from the airport), I have a chance to sit back and just take it all in: these guys have all been together, and therefore part of our extended family since college. So for over twenty years. (Here's the original threesome...)

Their banter has come closer to being the banter of older adults (rather than very young adults), but not anywhere near that of my generation. The energy level is high, the conversation far reaching. From the personal, to the political, to the inconsequential. Always with humor, because really, if friends can't help you find reasons to laugh, then you're in trouble.

And then the evening ends. Well, not for my daughter and her friends, but it does for me. I walk in the drizzle of a Montreal evening... 

... and I think -- knowing when to say goodnight is perhaps the most important lesson. 

Yes it is.

Goodnight,

with so much love...