Montreal

A couple months ago, my friend Siena--to this minute, I'm sure as common courtesy, not really because she thought I would say yes--was talking one night to another friend and then turned to me to ask

"Do you want to go to Montreal this summer?"

I jumped. Certainly, I love the group vacation...but, I love the group vacation even more when I don't plan shit. Here's what I mean: normally, I am the guy that puts the trip together. I don't really know when it started, but whether it was the South Beach trips, the beach vacations, even the Kings Dominion trips, I fell in love with being the organizer for these big event/parties. I don't think I loved it so much as loved being a part of it; it just felt like the shove-following-the-push moment always occurred around the time that I got involved, forcing me into the planner role.

As such, I haven't gone on a trip like this in many years where I literally had no responsibilities. Well, there were a couple: bring your passport, bring some cash, have a good time. Never had to pick the restaurant; never had to pick the club. No logistics--someone else was doing the hotel and transportation issues. I couldn't even be relied on to lend helpful knowledge about the city to others; I had never been to Montreal.

This was gonna be cake. Sort of.

First and foremost, Siena was a great organizer. She put together an itinerary that was easy, easy-going and easy-listening; she rounded up eight friends (to start, at least...more on this later), saved us some costs by doing the D.C.-to-Manchester flight to save some bucks and then had us bunch up four to a room to save even more cash. The people were all pretty chill and cool with doing lots or little each day; and, the tunes were great throughout, be it in the car on the road from Manchester to Montreal, or in the hotel room, where one guy was wise enough to bring along a boom box for maximum comfyness. (Yes, that's a word, because Chuck Longer said so.)

I could bog this down with details regarding the team of individuals, but I won't...needless to say, they were all 20-something (I was the old man on this voyage) go-getters that knew how to "hang out." Four of our eight went to McGill, the university located in the middle of downtown Montreal, so we had built-in tour guides, which made me very happy. Because some of them still have friends in the city, our group swelled from eight to 20 at points; this was a bit unmanageable, but I wasn't in charge and I was happy to not complain about any of it, since I hadn't done shit to plan it out. The hotel was simple, a Holiday Inn sitting on Sherbrooke Avenue, no frills and only $30/person/night.

So, how was Montreal? I'll break it down like this:

Food: spectacular

No Bellview Travelogue can pass without a review of the food, and here was maybe my favorite part about Montreal; it was really a great reminder of what I miss so dearly about life in San Francisco, great food at your name places or your no-name places. The mix of cuisines, the sheer volume of eateries, the service, the prices...man, you can't really go wrong with the chow in Montreal. Certainly it helped that Siena and the other McGilligans (I made that up...I'm sorry) knew the lay of the land well enough to have picked some down-homey places; with a couple of diners and a couple of good dinner spots, I was very impressed with their favorites...but, more so on the two occasions when clearly no one had any idea where to go and we just ended up at two places, both of which were fantastic.

How fantastic? You know how vegetables and I are not good friends, barely even casual acquaintances? Well friends, I had the best vegetable soup (ahem, soupe des légumes) I've ever tasted. I couldn't get enough of it. So freakin' good. I kept reaching for other people's spoons, just so I could help them finish off their soup. Wow. The only downside to the food all weekend was the much overhyped Montreal dish known as poutine. Poutine is essentially a plate of fries, gravy and cheese curd melted over the top and then all of it is just kind of swirled together in what looks like a pile of shit. Or, as we call it here, cheese fries. The McGilligans complained that I shouldn't judge the two dishes of poutine that I did have because they didn't use real cheese curd; my thinking was that I might be better off without it altogether.

Shopping: happiness

Even for a professed non-shopper like myself, I had to admit that the shopping for guys and girls was pretty good, for a few different reasons. Depending on the year, the most important reason would be the weight of your gringo dollar versus the Canadian dollar; this year, I was getting 84 cents to the Canadian dollar, which isn't bad but not nearly as good as two or three years ago. The stores are the real highlight, though; even in the downtown area where we were staying, the shops were a mix of local specialty and regional or national/international chain, but all of them had clothes that made you feel like you were shopping in a culture center like Italy or New York, for much less cash than you might spend in a high-end shop in Milan. (You're right, I've never been shopping in Milan, but play along, dammit!) I know a couple of people that have gone on shopping trips to Montreal and now I can see why--lots of cool clothes, not bad prices, lots of original stuff that you certainly won't find in many other places.

Jazz: no freakin' idea

I mentioned to some of you that I was going to Montreal for the International Jazz Festival, which was in its final weekend when we showed up on July 8th. However, let it be known: we didn't see a single jazz performance while we were in town. Some of this was timing--we rolled into town on Friday afternoon, and instead of hitting the bricks most of us hit the hotel room sleeper sofa to rest up for the nighttime. Some of this was the weather--it rained all day on Saturday, which forced us to shop all day. I have heard great things about this jazz festival, so this will be reason enough to go back to town to check out some great music another year.

"Sights": ehh

As usual, I spent an inordinate amount of free time browsing the local populace--men and women, to get a fair sense of the looks of the peeps strolling around Montreal--and I am saddened to say that the locals were a mixed bag. I was coming in thinking that the sights would measure up to Rome, or SoBe, or NYC, but I have to admit that this is a mistake. Certainly I saw beautiful people in town, but for every Salma wannabe there was a Plain Jane standing somewhere nearby. For the men, my new friends Ariella and Rita both indicated that the male sights in town were nothing special either; this intrigued me, because I thought the guys in general weren't too bad. Shows you what I know. One thing I did make note of: no kidding, it seemed like everyone was wearing expensive, very cool eyeglasses. I can't figure out why this is, but being blind myself I take note of these things and it was inescapable all weekend.

French Canadians: palatable

Even when I went to France almost 10 years ago, I thought the Frenchies had a little something to be desired; of course, my Franglish accent probably had something to do with it. The Frenchies of Montreal are quite the opposite, at least in the limited time I spent with them; we went out one night to a more French-speaking part of town (i.e., no "flip" menus where you could easily pick out the English on what you were really ordering) and everyone was very helpful in guiding our Yankee asses through the meal. It's also weird watching everyone in town say "Bonjour allo!" every time you meet someone. It's almost like they say both French and English to give you the chance to respond in whatever is most comfortable to the respondent...kind of cool, but it must be tiresome to be a French Canadian and always introduce yourself or say hello in two languages right off the bat.

Strip clubs: everywhere

San Francisco is supposedly the most restaurant-populated city in the U.S., even more so than New York City. (I think I read that in the Zagat's guide a couple years back.) In that same vein, Montreal has got to have more sex and strip clubs per square block than any other city I have been to (no, I have not been to Vegas yet). Seriously, every time I turned the corner, sometimes in-between coffee lounges and your local pharmacy, you'd have a strip club. Women dance on poles in this town like no other, and worse, it seems like little Bobby has to grow up in a place where strippers, pictures of strip clubs and flyers for strip joints are damn near everywhere. My boy Greg "Abes" Abel told of a bachelor party that took place in Montreal; hell, now I can see why.

Nightlife: incomplete data

Me being me, all I kept asking about on Friday was how hard we were gonna go out on Friday night--what clubs, what kind of cover, what afterhours clubs, where we were gonna get breakfast the next morning at sunrise. Only a couple of souls were even awake and sober by the time 4 AM came to pass, but Friday night at Tokyo Nightclub was a blowout. Good music, great crowd, cheap to get in, they seemed to be serving booze right up until its 3 AM closing time. The action on the street was nice, with lots of folks spilling out into the street to chill, eat pizza, hang out. Good times. The next night, we went to a beer garden (this felt VERY similar to any frat party I ran into my first year at school) and I spent most of the night sitting in a corner, talking to nobody in particular. We didn't really go out too much, though, so I will need another trip to really gauge this category enough to answer. Even in my limited contact, though, Montreal ain't no South Beach in terms of its club scene. Hell, it ain't even San Francisco, for all I could tell.

Overall: it's the people

Sure, with any trip where you are forced into spending three days with the same people, you better hope those people are easy to get along with or you can expect to be in some major pain. Siena did a great job of pulling together the bodies that would have good times together on this trip. Lots of great conversation was had, about everything and mostly about nothing that makes any sense. One of the guys on the trip, Andrew, brought along these walkie-talkies that we used incessantly throughout the trip; clearly, I'm going to have to pick up a couple of CBs to keep the good times rolling during my next trip, because we got major mileage out of those things as we polluted the radio waves. Everyone that came along was a night owl; everyone seemed cool with a little drinkie-drinkie in the room before going out at night. And I think everyone made sure to laugh a ton during the weekend.

As an introduction to a city, I was grateful to be along on this trip. This sets the table nicely for a sequel trip in a year or two.

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

That Starburst commercial--"Enrique...NOOOOO!!!!": Opening Weekend
The New York Yankees, making it fun: $9.50 Show
"Mom's got steaks!"...which makes you miss a wedding: Matinee
Living in a different city than your wife: Rental
Working six softball games in 90° heat for the 70-and-over Senior Softball League: Hard Vice

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

Montreal