Sunday, November 04, 2001
Am back.
Via train was about a 1/2 hour late getting into Union Station, but that seems to be par for the course. Not a big deal really, especially since this was a near-express train, stopping only once in Oshawa prior to hitting Toronto. I did manage to luck out once again and get a 1st class seat, though I misunderstood my ticket info, and initially went to Train 9 instead of 91, so I had to trudge through a half-dozen cars with my gear to find my seat. I appreciate the service though, and it was nice to travel in some comfort.
The day itself was lots of fun. We all got up at a leisurely 9am or thereabouts, Bryce, myself and Pierre somewhat tired from staying up until about midnight drinking strong beer and making silly music.
Mary M. had "malaria" when Bryce called her, so she begged off of joining us for breakfast. So we all piled in the car and headed to place called Picasso's for a basic cheap breakfast.
Afterwards, we began what would be a grand quest for Quebecois food. We started with a Super C store across the parking lot from Picasso's, looking for Spruce Beer (a pop drink) and salt and vinegar-flavoured Julienne, which essentially look like potato ships in the shape of mini-french fries. We ended up going to three different stores in order to find a lonely bag of the latter. By this point it was time for Pierre to catch his train, which he did without any problem.
That left us the rest of the afternoon to wander around downtown Montreal. We parked at the top of the McGill campus and went down to visit the dinos at the Redpath Musuem. But it turned out to be closed on Sundays, save for some kiddie-oriented programs. So then we headed down to Caban, which Aggie seemed keen to visit. The store we visited was formerly a bank from the turn of the last century, lovely restored, which was in a style in sharp contrast to the clean modern furniture and do-dads they sell there. They picked up some sheets, and I picked up some bath salts to bring back to Erika as a giftie. 
We also went to see Paragraphe, which is a terrific bookstore that I remember fondly visiting from a previous visit to the city. Unfortunately they were doing an inventory check when we dropped by so that was a bust as well. Ended up having an enjoyable meander down part of St. Catherine street, had a Chinese noodle lunch and just chatted for a bit.
By this point it was beginning to get late, so we trudged up the tall hill that led back to the car (this is how one develops "buns o' steel" in Montreal according to Bryce. ;-) And headed back to Westmount. I still didn't have a present for Vanessa, so we stopped back at a nearby kids store, where I picked up a small plastic dinosaur, some dino stickers and a funky blue rock which I know will all go down well. My eyes almost popped out of my head when I saw a copy of the "adult" wooden version of Quarto at the store, which I instantly picked up as well. Then we headed over to a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop (something I've never seen in Ontario) and we had a couple of ice creams while I showed Aggie and Bryce the basics of Quarto.
Time to go by this point, so we dropped Aggie back home, Bryce took me to the train station. On the way, we talked about "have you heard from Pete V." and "have you heard from Jenn B." and hummed some bars from the slumphing tempo of the "Maas House" tune we had recorded last night. Then I hoped on the train (the wrong car as it turned out) and several hours later, I am now back home.
Am hoping that Bryce and Aggie will be able to visit us sometime during Xmas.
Montreal Friday Night (Continuing the Story from the Previous Post)
I lugged myself off with my baggage at Dorval many hours later. Bryce hadn't expected me to come off of the 1st class car at the head of the train, so he was somewhat surprised to see me come from "the other direction". Its interesting: Bryce looked older than I expected, with a slightly receding hairline. I made a mental note that I most probably looked the same way to him. We piled into his car and headed off for his place, and to see Aggie.
I got to their place in Westmount maybe 20-minutes later, which gave Bryce and I a chance catch up on things. We arrived at "the cube" home at the conclusion of the journey, saw Aggie again, and took everything in. I hauled my baggage upstairs, and then came back downstairs with a couple of gifts: a copy of the latest book by The Onion I figured Bryce would appreciate, and a bottle of our favourite Henry of Pelham wine for Aggie. I was given a brief tour of the house. I asked Aggie about a few funky pieces of furniture. "Most of the furniture is Ikea". I like Aggie; direct and no hedging about. ;-) Though the more interesting things were from their many travels across the world on their teaching jaunts: a false window/mirror from Morocco, rugs from Morocco and Saudi Arabia, prints and paintings of Japanese and Asian art, British travel posters and so on. A very cozy home.
After the quick tour, we went out to meet Mary M. downtown. She was waiting for us at a Mexican restaurant called The Three Amigos. It was great to see Mary's smiling face greet us as we walked into the door. I gave her my customary bear-hug and lift, and we were ushered into an alcove close to the bar. Mary seems very happy these days, almost giddy, and was happy to tell us all about her new husband whom she married in Africa, but who has unfortunately not been able to obtain a Visa to get into Canada as yet. A handsome man (and he has very cute sisters as well. ;-) Mary has landed three part-time positions at three of the local Universities, teaching ESL so this was another reason why she was as happy as a clam. We all ate copious amounts of tortilla chips, and Mary and I ordered dishes involving Mexican chocolate sauces (which is not in the least bit sweet, but is actually slightly bitter in taste). When ordering the meal I told them about a near mythically-good version I had had of the same dish while on vacation in Oaxaca. I say "mythically-good" because in my mind it has become the pinnacle of my gustatory pleasures during my times in Mexico, and in hindsight probably wasn't nearly so good as I remembered it, but time has added layers of pleasured rememberance to the original memory, enhancing it. We ended up spending a lot of time at the restaurant, pleasantly chatting away about everything for perhaps a couple of hours. When we got our bill, Mary offered to take us all back to her place, but at that point I was pretty wiped, so I begged off, hoping we could meet up with Mary again on Sunday morning for breakfast.
We got back to the "McBride cube" ;-) and I promptly got into the guest bed and crashed out but good.
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