Goofing Off.
It seemed the first day we were here that the weather would make it difficult to make it out of our small village by car. Fortunately, that turned out not to be true, as we were able to make trips to Montreal on Monday and Tuesday.
On Monday, we left the resort around noonish and headed southward to the area of the nearest metro station. This is apparently what many, many people do, as there was no parking to be found within a mile-ish radius of the station. After driving around for about half an hour, looking for a place to park and making wrong turns that lead us back onto the Canadian equivalent of an interstate highway, we parked in the parking lot of Canadian Tire, hiked over to the station and were on our way into the city. Our first stop was the area around the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). With hunger as a priority, we went to what was probably a Lebanese fast food restaruant, and devoured some shawarma and shish taouk. Delicious indeed. The group agreed that we needed to smuggle a restaurant like this back across the border and down to Atlanta.
After eating, we began to wander in the city, seemingly with no destination. We wandered through what might have been the Old City, stopping in a souvenir shop that had as much Mid-Eastern and Egyptian souvenirs as it did Montrealese. The journey then led us slowly to the river, with many stops to do various things in the snow that we don't normally have the opportunity to do. I'll put some pictures of this on here later. We wandered for probably a good hour and a half and decided it was a good time for some coffee. We found a Turkish-owned cafe and enjoyed some Turkish coffee, after which the proprietoress read our coffee-ground fortunes. Mine was the worst.
Before leaving the cafe, I phoned the AIESEC office at UQAM, as I'd been in contact with a UQAM alumna by text throughout the day. They agreed to send someone to the metro station to meet us and show us in. The university was quite conveniently attached to the metro station itself. We were shown into the office and met some of the LC members and chit chatted about what we'd been doing, what we wanted to do, about AIESEC in general and whatnot. They suggested we go with them to the university bistro/bar for a beer or two. From my experience in Germany, university bars are always a good idea. Cheap drinks and lots of students to talk to. We hung out there and talked for awhile, agreeing to come back there the next night to watch a hockey game between Montreal and St. Louis. At sometime between 6 and 7, we left for home, taking the metro out of the city and driving away to our quiet village.
Tuesday went quite similarly, except the wandering around was related to getting something to eat. We spent a half-hour looking for a famous poutine restaurant. For those who are unfamiliar with poutine, it is french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Sounds slightly strange, but is pretty satisfying in a sort of barbaric way. This place had a great variety of different poutines, which included additional toppings such as bacon, mushrooms, pepperoni, hot dogs, ground beef, bell peppers, onions, et cetera. Mine in particular had bacon, hot dogs (listed on the menu as "saucisse fumée" i.e. smoked sausage) and mushrooms on it. This lunch was enough to hold me over until breakfast this morning. There are pictures of this somewhere.
After poutine, we thought it would be a good idea to look around at McGill University, which is in the heart of urban Montreal. One would think it would be easy to find a university that has a metro station named after it, but we were unsuccessful. We wandered around this pretty posh area of the city, which looks apparently like the posher parts of NYC for awhile and were overcome by a desire for caffiene as a result of our poutine-induced fatigue. We found a place, the Café Dèpôt, and hung out there, recovering from a lot of food and a little bit of walking. We had planned to go to a museum the same day, since we could get in for free with our weekly metro passes, but that was only until 5 PM, and it was slightly later than that. So with the museum option gone, we hung out a bit longer before leaving to meet the AIESECers from UQAM to watch the hockey game.
The evening's festivity quickly got underway before the hockey game had a chance to start. We met and chatted with several of the LC members for a bit before getting going with a game of quarters (I think that's what the game is called, the one where you bounce a quarter into a glass.) It worked out well, since the Canadian quarter is almost identical in size and weight to our own. After a bit of that, we changed to a game whose name I can't remember, where each person playing chooses a gesture. There is a rhythm to the game that everyone keeps, particularly the one from "We Will Rock You". One must do his/her gesture, then that of someone else to the rhythm, effectively passing "it" on to the person whose gesture he/she has just done. The person to whom "it" was just passes, must continue in the rhythm, first doing his/her own, and then that of someone else. In the case that someone makes a mistake, he/she must drink. This game went on for a pretty long time, and my memory gets progressively unclear from this point.
The most distinct thing I remember after this point was a conversation I had with an LC member about baseball in Montreal, although I don't remember his name. We lamented the moving of the Expos, although I can't remember his reason for the Expos' failure as a franchise. Possibly the ownership. It seemed to me, in my four days here, that baseball was popular as a sport, both to play and watch, in Quebec. Although it didn't compare to hockey, pro baseball definitely had a place here. I told him about how I'd watched some of the best Expos come into pro ball in single-a ball, for the Albany Polecats, Vlad Guererro being the one big name. I guess it was the biggest way I was connected to the Expos. He told me that when he's rich someday, he'll bring a baseball team back to Montreal.
Not much happened after that, we said goodbye to the AIESECers and were on our way. We're planning to meet them for all-you-can eat sushi on Friday night, something I'm considering fasting until. We haven't really accomplished as much as I'd have like to, in terms of seeing Montreal, but what we have done has been great, and we've met some pretty awesome people along the way. We're meeting another Montreal LC, HEC, tonight for dinner, so there's only more to come...
On Monday, we left the resort around noonish and headed southward to the area of the nearest metro station. This is apparently what many, many people do, as there was no parking to be found within a mile-ish radius of the station. After driving around for about half an hour, looking for a place to park and making wrong turns that lead us back onto the Canadian equivalent of an interstate highway, we parked in the parking lot of Canadian Tire, hiked over to the station and were on our way into the city. Our first stop was the area around the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM). With hunger as a priority, we went to what was probably a Lebanese fast food restaruant, and devoured some shawarma and shish taouk. Delicious indeed. The group agreed that we needed to smuggle a restaurant like this back across the border and down to Atlanta.
After eating, we began to wander in the city, seemingly with no destination. We wandered through what might have been the Old City, stopping in a souvenir shop that had as much Mid-Eastern and Egyptian souvenirs as it did Montrealese. The journey then led us slowly to the river, with many stops to do various things in the snow that we don't normally have the opportunity to do. I'll put some pictures of this on here later. We wandered for probably a good hour and a half and decided it was a good time for some coffee. We found a Turkish-owned cafe and enjoyed some Turkish coffee, after which the proprietoress read our coffee-ground fortunes. Mine was the worst.
Before leaving the cafe, I phoned the AIESEC office at UQAM, as I'd been in contact with a UQAM alumna by text throughout the day. They agreed to send someone to the metro station to meet us and show us in. The university was quite conveniently attached to the metro station itself. We were shown into the office and met some of the LC members and chit chatted about what we'd been doing, what we wanted to do, about AIESEC in general and whatnot. They suggested we go with them to the university bistro/bar for a beer or two. From my experience in Germany, university bars are always a good idea. Cheap drinks and lots of students to talk to. We hung out there and talked for awhile, agreeing to come back there the next night to watch a hockey game between Montreal and St. Louis. At sometime between 6 and 7, we left for home, taking the metro out of the city and driving away to our quiet village.
Tuesday went quite similarly, except the wandering around was related to getting something to eat. We spent a half-hour looking for a famous poutine restaurant. For those who are unfamiliar with poutine, it is french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Sounds slightly strange, but is pretty satisfying in a sort of barbaric way. This place had a great variety of different poutines, which included additional toppings such as bacon, mushrooms, pepperoni, hot dogs, ground beef, bell peppers, onions, et cetera. Mine in particular had bacon, hot dogs (listed on the menu as "saucisse fumée" i.e. smoked sausage) and mushrooms on it. This lunch was enough to hold me over until breakfast this morning. There are pictures of this somewhere.
After poutine, we thought it would be a good idea to look around at McGill University, which is in the heart of urban Montreal. One would think it would be easy to find a university that has a metro station named after it, but we were unsuccessful. We wandered around this pretty posh area of the city, which looks apparently like the posher parts of NYC for awhile and were overcome by a desire for caffiene as a result of our poutine-induced fatigue. We found a place, the Café Dèpôt, and hung out there, recovering from a lot of food and a little bit of walking. We had planned to go to a museum the same day, since we could get in for free with our weekly metro passes, but that was only until 5 PM, and it was slightly later than that. So with the museum option gone, we hung out a bit longer before leaving to meet the AIESECers from UQAM to watch the hockey game.
The evening's festivity quickly got underway before the hockey game had a chance to start. We met and chatted with several of the LC members for a bit before getting going with a game of quarters (I think that's what the game is called, the one where you bounce a quarter into a glass.) It worked out well, since the Canadian quarter is almost identical in size and weight to our own. After a bit of that, we changed to a game whose name I can't remember, where each person playing chooses a gesture. There is a rhythm to the game that everyone keeps, particularly the one from "We Will Rock You". One must do his/her gesture, then that of someone else to the rhythm, effectively passing "it" on to the person whose gesture he/she has just done. The person to whom "it" was just passes, must continue in the rhythm, first doing his/her own, and then that of someone else. In the case that someone makes a mistake, he/she must drink. This game went on for a pretty long time, and my memory gets progressively unclear from this point.
The most distinct thing I remember after this point was a conversation I had with an LC member about baseball in Montreal, although I don't remember his name. We lamented the moving of the Expos, although I can't remember his reason for the Expos' failure as a franchise. Possibly the ownership. It seemed to me, in my four days here, that baseball was popular as a sport, both to play and watch, in Quebec. Although it didn't compare to hockey, pro baseball definitely had a place here. I told him about how I'd watched some of the best Expos come into pro ball in single-a ball, for the Albany Polecats, Vlad Guererro being the one big name. I guess it was the biggest way I was connected to the Expos. He told me that when he's rich someday, he'll bring a baseball team back to Montreal.
Not much happened after that, we said goodbye to the AIESECers and were on our way. We're planning to meet them for all-you-can eat sushi on Friday night, something I'm considering fasting until. We haven't really accomplished as much as I'd have like to, in terms of seeing Montreal, but what we have done has been great, and we've met some pretty awesome people along the way. We're meeting another Montreal LC, HEC, tonight for dinner, so there's only more to come...
posted by twehner at
10:07 AM
1 Comments:
The game is called Thumper!
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