Toronto :: Canada
The Adams Family. Da da da da, click click, da da da da, click click...
Places: Montreal, Ottawa & Toronto.
Coolest thing I did: A the biggest smoked meat sandwich known to man.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: Montreal is named after Mount Royal. Obvious when you think about it.
It only takes a short time of getting around Montreal on foot to recongnise the spirit of Continental Europe is alive and well on this foreign continent. In stark contrast to all the cities before and after it, Montreal just has a face that shows some unecessary but interesting details when compared to the stark functionality that was so prevealant in other North American cities. The architecture is a bit more daring, the streets have a bit more charm and the nightlife defies the bleak cold that would otherwise deter people from stepping out their doors. All in all, it's a very different city from the rest of Canada.
While the old town is one of the better preserved historical sections of any of the cites we'd seen (in stark contrast to the tourist trap that is Vancouvers Gastown), it wasn't a highlight for me. There are lots of nice old buildings and cobbled streets but nothing that compares to the real thing in Europe. I was much more interested to see how that French culture has adapted itself to the more modern buildings and townhouses. When compared to the rapid Pyrmontification of Vancouver it's a refreshing change. It dosen't have Vancouver's natural setting, but I found it a far more fun place to be.
The food and nightlife were something to be experienced. We had the blessing of Dee showing up to meet us the day after we arrived, as it's always good to have another friendly face, especially one so congenial as Ms Bradbury. The hostel was in the heart of the University party area and the pubs were mostly faux-Irish and packed with kids. Our Friday night consisted of meeting a Canadian rugby team (not THE Canadian rugby team, despite what Dee keeps telling everyone), seeing girls dressed like pole dancers just to go out for a night on the town and a bar that had $1 drinks from 11pm to 1am on Friday night (so long as you purchased a $5 cup on entry). Add to this a quick stumble home and you couldnt' have done better.
Or so we thought, but we went to the Boulevard St-Laurent, the Champs-d-Elyse of Montreal on Saturday night for diner and drinks. Though we pretty much missed every single bar you could go to on our first attempt, the cold forced us to move pretty quickly to the first place we saw. We ended up in a bar called Go-go, playing what must now be called retro 90s music (it's a bit worrying when the music you listened to at High School and Uni are now considered old classics) and best of all, chairs that looked like giant hands. It's the kind of place that dosen't exist in Sydney, due to our hellish licensing laws, that mix of cool, cheap and relaxed. We just made it in time as it was well below 0 degrees with the wind chill and they started making people line up just about the second we got inside. On the way back home we passed probably 20 queues on the next block, it seems every second story appartment has been turned into a bar and starts getting picky at 9. They raise them tough here. I couldn't imagine standing still in that cold for 30 seconds, let alone 30 mins.
The food has two tourist classics going for it. The first is supposedly the first place to bake bagels in North America, the Fairmount Bagel Bakery. They are still doing it too, and we got our cheesy pictures taken eating bagels out the front. However, much cooler in my opinion was the giant smoked meat sandwich from Schwartz's, an old Jewish place thats been making them that was since the interwar period. It's litereally an inch of meat and mustard with two bits of bread hanging on for dear life. There are also so classy photoes of Yvette and Dee tucking into theirs to make it complete. Anywhere that has a lineup at 11am for lunch should have been good and it didn't disappoint.
We spent one hung over afternoon trudging through the snow to the to of Mont Royal, the mountain that gives Montreal its name. I think its going to take some getting used to, as we were walking slowly to try not to slip over and people were jogging past up in trainers. The view was worth it, as was seeing a snow woman, complete with breasts and bum crack that some dedicated soul had made up there. I'm sure you've all see Dees photo of me groping it by now so no more needs to be said of that.
Before I compare Ottawa to Canberra, I've just noticed I've been using comparisions between Paris and Montreal which are not quite fair. To call Montreal a North American Paris would be like calling New York a North American London. Montreal takes alot from its French past but has a unique attitude all of its own.
Ottawa is a capital. It's full of suits, government buildings and the middle of it as that feel only a large bureaucracy can give. However, the parliament buildings are strangely gothic in inspiration, like if your capital building was designed by the Adams Families architect. It's all bell towers and spires with little fences around them. I think the thing that we both liked most about Ottawa was the situation of it on the bank of a wide river, all frozen over. I don't think I've ever seen such a volume of ice and we apparently missed the season for ice skating on the river and canal that leads into it by a mere 2 days. We did, however manage to go to the frozen waterfalls near the Governor Generals house just as they were dynamiting the ice further upstream. At first we couldn't figure out what that distant boom was, but cracks were starting to appear in the frozen falls and water was starting to run through at a quickening pace until we saw what they were doing. It was quite cool.
To do comparisions, I'm still convinced Australia has the most boring capital in the world. We were staying in the Byward Market district, which had actually places to eat and drink, which is something Canberra would never even consider. Australias wonderful capital is the city that always sleeps, not being able to get even a Big Mac after 9pm. I felt like you could actually live there.
So after much ado the traveling season ended and we Greyhounded our way to Toronto. Much more has been done and seen since but that will follow shortly.