Our trip started out with us all in good spirits. As expected, that didn’t last, but that’s another story. The flights were uneventful, except that I broke my cardinal rule of air travel and didn’t pack a lunch. The child, who could eat the meal choice that would have caused me pain and discomfort, didn’t like it and ended up eating half of the only thing I could eat (and then proceeded to rave about it for the rest of the flight). We landed, got our bags, and then had a “yes, we’re back in Montréal” cab ride to our airbnb. Let’s just say the cabbie was a bit high strung…
The apartment was in the mile end. Great location, perfect on paper. In real life… it was someone’s flat, with a very particular bohemian-chic decor and a door lock that could have been defeated by a sharp sneeze. I couldn’t have lived there full-time without needing to rebuild the whole flat from the ground up and fix everything that gave it “character”. But whatever, we only needed it for a bed and a toilet and both were perfectly serviceable. The location, however as mentioned, was great. We were a stones throw away from St-viateur bagel, several good coffee shops, a breakfast place where I had a breakfast poutine, and a gin bar where they make their own tonic water and where we had a superb ploughman’s lunch.
We did our usual Montréal things: Reubens, Ming Tao Xuan, Eggspectation, etc. etc. We went to the Cirka gin distillery with Michel and Christina, then spent a lovely afternoon on the St-Ambroise beer garden swapping stories, then carried on over an izakaya-style japanese dinner (and more cocktails).
We met up with Sara and Em, our favourite not-married old married couple and caught up with all the major life events we missed over the last few years.
The last day in Montréal, we walked in the Village before taking the bus to Ottawa and talked about how the city has changed since we were last here (seems like there’s been a nutter explosion and club Super Sex closed down!!!!) and how much we’ve been spoilt with the view of the lake, the mountains and all the greenery in Morges.
