My fantastic luck has resulted in my wonderful Christmas break in Montreal ending with 5 coaches to New York cancelled.. leaving us with a 9 hour night in the bus station, and everyone at home with another riveting update from me! Canada has finally decided to show us some traditional winter weather and show over half a metre in 12 hours, which was suitably magical but extremely inconvenient when you're supposed to be heading to NYC that evening. NEVER MIND.
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| View from the apartment.. |
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| Bye car :'( |
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| Fuckin Canada snow ey |
Driving up to Montreal I honestly thought we'd never make it, I've never seen as much snow as we did on the way up, at one point the driver got stuck in a car park where the snow was so thick you couldn't even see any paths or roads and I thought we'd die on a coach load of French people. But we MADE IT despite missing connecting coaches, and all turned up initially extremely shocked at how French Montreal is. It's basically France, just a lot more snowy and there's Tim Horton's as per. I'd got it into my head that Lauren speaks fluent French so we were all fine, but she basically just took it at A Level so with some awkward hand gestures and crappy GCSE French we made it on the Metro and to the apartment. We'd been 'upgraded' to the 19th floor, which just meant literally the same apartment 10 floors higher, which did have a much better view of Mont-Royal, to be fair. It was cosy to say the least but once we were all unpacked it was perfect for the 7 of us, all I have to say is it's a good job we all get on!
Food was the main priority since we're all fatties and it was Christmas just a few days after, so we went out and did a huuuuuuge food shop for the week and for Christmas day, shopping mainly at a local French store just round the corner which was cute and felt very much like we were on holiday, not still in Canada. $26 was the grand total for everything which was amaze, and we cooked risotto, ravioli and fagitas, plus more Christmas food than is even imaginable, so for once life was not scrimping and saving like students!
Montreal is beautiful and definitely feels much more European than the rest of Canada I've seen so far, the streets are narrow and lined with lots of little pretty houses and buildings, and it doesn't feel quite so vast and spread out. Everybody speaks French, more so than I expected, but it just added to the holiday feel and I actually quite enjoyed it.
Hungover Sunday was spent eating shitloads of naughty food at local markets and exploring the 'trendy' (lol) shopping district on St Lauren Street, watching Christmas films being generally cute, and testing out the swimming pool and sauna living the high liiiiife. Except the pool was awkwardly freezing despite our best efforts flailing around to keep warm but stilll WE HAD A POOL.
Christmas Eve was a stunning clear sunny day which was SO cold.. -17 degrees but the sun really did make up for it, as the temperature was so cold that the snow which had fallen stayed all glittery and powdery covering everything and hadn't iced over and gone all slushy a la England. This day we went to properly look round Old Montreal, and this was when we really discovered that we were one of the few tourists, which suited us perfectly as we had the freedom to explore and take photos without getting in anyone's way. Old Montreal is absolutely beauuuutiful, we went to the port and watched all the locals ice skating but were all too terrified to try as the Canadians are soooo good at it, even the actual children were whizzing around it was crazy. The edge of the river, clock tower and a big indoor market to escape from the cold filled our morning when we went on the hunt for a creperie and stumbled across a maple cafe which was incredible. If you bought something from the little food and drink counter you got free access to the museum downstairs where you could sample all the different types of maple syrup. I shared the maple brownie and muffin, both of which were so good that I actually can't stop thinking about them and regret not buying 7 of. I also learnt some excellent fun facts about maple syrup which make me feel very Canadian and no doubt will aid me in a pub quiz in the future. I also saw a legit snowy owl in the street which felt very Harry Potter-ish.
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| Notre-Dame |
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| Christmas day family portrait |
The Notre-Dame Basilica was one of the more cultural sights I decided I wanted to see before I came here so went in to look around - it is absolutely stunning inside. How anybody could be arsed to paint the inside so intricately I'll never know, but it looked so so good. I also came over all holy and emotional seeing as we usually go to church on Christmas Eve at home so lit a candle and shortly afterwards gave a tramp 2 dollars, festive spirit and all that. We then took the metro up to another part of town we wanted to explore, particularly to find a bagel place which is supposed to be the best in Montreal. We found it and demolished it, a solid 10 out of 10 from me, which kind of ruined our plans to treat ourselves to a Christmas eve meal out. However with all of us being used to going for a drink with friends on Christmas eve at home, we found a highly recommended little Irish pub which was absolutely perfect, so we got drinks and ate nachos and sweet potato fries, came home and watched Christmas films with our presents under the tree ready for the morning.
Christmas was AMAZING! And I was so apprehensive about it, but with some brief skyping and overexcited present opening we were all very merry and happy and somehow managed to cook a dinner to rival the one I have at home, despite the oven and hobs breaking and us having to make gravy in the coffee machine. We got a lil bit drunk and played games and stayed giddy for most of the day, and I actually really loved it. We have awkward jokes about having family portraits every day before we go out but we have become like a lil fam and I don't want us to split up in NYC :( wah.
Boxing day felt very much like a traditional one at home with a walk up Mont-Royal, basically a huge hill at the back of McGill's campus with a view right across the city. The snow had stuck and the temperature was the coldest it had been but we made it to the top fairly fast, passing by cross country skiers and kids sledging down the hill which was bizzare. The walk was gorgeous and the woodland made it so picturesque, literally straight off a Christmas card, it's hard to believe when you were walking through that you were actually in a huge city, but I've found that in lots of cities in Canada so far actually. Montreal has a massive jazz and blues following so we found a tiny jazz bar called Upstairs, there must have been about 30 of us in the place watching a couple of live jazz bands with some cocktails, so cool. It feels like Montreal has so many little areas to explore it'd take you much longer than a week, I'd love to go back in the summer when festivals are on which is one of the main things it's known for. We only discovered Underground City today once the snowstorm hit, which is a mahoooosive shopping and entertainment district covering almost half the city, but underground to avoid the weather.
Les Mis and an Italian were the treats for our final day, half the girls cried at the film it was hilariously embarrassing but it was an excellent film. We're now more than a little bit delirious on the coach station floor like tramps re-enacting some of the scenes. Well Steph is mainly. And we've got a whole 5 hours yet to go and try and fight our way onto a coach to the Big Apple which is still REALLY EXCITING ahhhhhhhh. I more can't believe half my time at Western has flown by so fast, and with some spontaneous booking of trips to Washington DC, a full term of skiing and Spring Break to already look forward to, I'm worried my second semester will be gone in the blink of an eye, I'll be back home and having to start thinking about being a grown up. Boooo. Travelling > everything.
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