Montreal Memories

[shanmonster]

The trip to Montreal started out portentously. While waiting outside for our ride at the unconscionably early hour of 5:00 AM, my bleary eyes registered a streak of movement. Something black and white was gallumphing its way toward me. We both stopped, and the double-striped skunk and I stared shocked at one another. Then the skunk gallumphed away from me again, hiding behind a garage.

A few minutes later, the skunk peeked back around the corner. Yes, I was still there. It played peek-a-boo with us until Sean and Teresa had arrived.

Much later that morning, somewhere in Quebec, we pulled in to a picnic rest spot on the side of the highway for a bathroom break. I didn’t have to go, so I just walked around the grass, stretching my legs. I saw a man with two small dogs. Although the dogs weren’t on leashes, the man was walking behind them with a plastic bag in hand. I was glad that he was going to clean up after his dogs, but then I got to see him in action, and I received yet another surprise.

Instead of waiting for his dog to take a dump and then picking it up, he crouched behind the dog and worked at its butt with the bag, pulling the turds right out of it! This is the first time I’ve ever seen someone milk a dog’s arse.

I made f00, Teresa, and Sean look, but they weren’t enthralled like I. They were just grossed out.

Some time later, we took a detour through Quebec City. We rode the ferry across the Saint Laurence, and then drove through the European streets of Old Quebec. We drove by an establishment called Club Le Stud, with only nattily-dressed middle-aged men wearing mirrored sun glasses sitting on its patio. Some sort of festival was in progress, and Quebec’s streets were completely clogged with people, many of whom were dressed in historical garb. While f00 watched the car, Sean, Teresa, and I made our ways up the hill to the Citadel with its magnificent and strategic view of the river. We gazed out at the river, then checked out some written information on the last battle fought there. We heard the sharp retort of cannon fire not too far away. It was right about then that Sean overheard something frightening. A tourist said, "I wonder if this is post-9/11.”

Outside of Quebec City, we saw more sights. What looked like a crappy old hatchback car turned into a convertible passed us. I called it a convertible shitbox, and for some reason, f00 thought this appellation was hysterically funny.

We needed to make another pitstop, so we took an exit which should have led us to a gas station. Instead, we found an ex-gas station. From the looks of things, it had been the site of an action movie in which robbers had let gas run onto the ground, then thrown a match at it while speeding away into the sunset. The building was nothing but a burnt-out husk.

When we finally arrived in Montreal, I saw an Au Coq mobile. It was a yellow car with a giant chicken head on its roof. During my stay, I was to see many more. I also saw plenty of shops called Couche-Tard. They always made me laugh.

We eventually met up with Guylaine, her sister Sophie, and also with another conference attendee from UNB: Ching Shou. Like f00, she was in Montreal to present a paper at the geometry conference. We went with f00 to the registration and meet-and-greet and snacked on some of the goodies. A large cake sat on a table, decorated with the conference logo. It was in pristine condition. People stared longingly at it. Sophie leaned to me and said, “I’m going to cut it.”

It’s a compulsion of hers. She feels the need to cut uncut cakes.

A few minutes later, she had slashed the cake into many pieces, and people were lining up to devour its corpse.

As we walked away from Teresa and Sean’s hotel, I had a religious experience. You know how some people see Jesus in a tortilla? Well, across the street from a nunnery, a woman wearing a sarong was getting into a taxi. The face of Jesus stared beatifically at me from her arse. I was certain I had just witnessed a miracle!

The next day, Guylaine and I met up with Teresa to do some window shopping. We went to a little café for lunch. The meal was unremarkable except for one thing: in the bathroom, a sign said, “Please flash the toilet for the nest person.”

I didn’t really see any more astonishing sights. Montreal really doesn’t seem quite as exciting and cosmopolitan to me as it did on my last visit, about six years ago. I don’t think it’s me that’s changed, though. The last time I was there, watching the people on Rue Ste. Catharine was like watching a fashion show. People were dressed in a vast array of fashions. This time, the look was homogenous. Most people were wearing clothes which wouldn’t garner a second glance from people in my own small town. I don’t know what’s up with that. The last time around, I didn’t stick out in my funky clothes. This time, my Asian garb was definitely unusual, and elicited compliments from all sorts of strangers.

The food experience in Montreal was as good as ever, though. I ate a lot of Indian and Japanese food while there. I also finally got to try bubble tea, and I like it! I had sweet black bubble tea with milk, and honeydew melon bubble tea. I like the black tea the best, although I’d prefer twice as much tea and half as many bubbles. It’s like drinking Orbitz, only it tastes better and the balls are much larger.

Fredericton’s terrible grocery store sushi cannot compare with the delicious sushi I dined on in Montreal. I need to learn to make my own.

The night before I left, I got to meet a couple of people who knew me only from online: Bill and sorceror. Bill is the same hyperkinetic species as Guylaine and me! Sorceror (who bears a resemblance to William Shatner, yet kept his shirt on the entire time) stared in amazement as she did boob tricks and demonstrated what she’d seen a stripper do right on the restaurant floor. Guylaine and I also danced a bit, although I didn’t do any floorwork. All those many hours of walking on concrete had left me pretty exhausted, plus the restaurant was stiflingly hot. Nevertheless, I did do my version of Salt n’ Peppa’s “Push It” dance, complete with naughty crotch thrusting. I think the other restaurant customers were very entertained.

I didn’t buy very much while in Montreal. A dearth of money will ensure that. But I did get myself two things: a straw hat from China Town (I look like Rayden in it!), and a hand-crafted knife and decorated sheath for dance from a shop specializing in Touareg crafts. I’d like to have bought a larger pair of matching knives, but I just didn’t have the cash.

I did not return otherwise unencumbered, though. Guylaine gave me some jewellery and some absolutely gorgeous clothes, including a white and sienna west African cotton dress, a purple burnt-out velvet gown with trailing embroidered silvery-grey sleeves, a nubbly emerald green silk kameez with ruby glass beads and extensive embroidery, a black and silver organza bustle and train, and a floorlength blue and gold velvet gown. She also gifted me with some handcarved amethyst skull beads. I think I’ll make myself a belt with them.

Coming home took longer than we’d have liked. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for supper, and I went to the washroom to wash up. I saw a vending machine which read “Getting’ wrong?” It sold tampons. I think this is rather weird.

The convenience store sold very inexpensive Guinness, so f00 brought a few cans. It also sold BBQ cheese curds. I abstained from these.

Sean was a pretty sorry navigator, so we took a few wrong turns which extended the drive and gave us some entertainment to boot. But somewhere around the New Brunswick border, we ran into an enormous thunderstorm. Where we had previously been travelling around 120 km/hour, we were now going 40 km/hour, and that was too fast. Around midnight, the rain was so fierce we had to pull over on the side of the road. Cars were waiting on both sides of the highway for the rain to abate. The lightning was so intense that I could have read my book by its light.

I think we’d run into a hurricane.

We finally got home around 2:00 AM, and going to bed was a real treat. Fredericton seems all the smaller, now, though.

Comments

[perplexedforpie.livejournal.com]

Neato :D

[goth-hobbit.livejournal.com]

Learning to make your own sushi is well worth the effort. My California rolls are now known and (lovingly talked about) in at least 4 states, and the staff at the local Asian market all know me on sight. Mostly as the cute redhead gaijin who loads up the cart with such incongruous-seeming things as miso paste, dried seaweed, dehydrated tofu, dried squid, wasabi peas, a quarter-kilo container of masago (salmon eggs, for those who don't know), fish cakes, a 2.25 kilo bag of sushi rice ...and a big box of Hello Panda chocolate-filled cookies.
They're used to seeing the teenage anime fans come in for novelty candy, Pocky, and the like, but the number of Caucasians who actually know how to cook Asian cuisine and shop there for ingredients seems to be pretty minimal. Dunno why, actually. The market is in downtown Denver and really Westerner-friendly. *shrug* But then, I go over to the other, "non-friendly" Asian grocery all of the time, since the bakery makes the best pork barbecue buns and shrimp dumplings I've ever had.

Plus it's fun to take the uninitiated in and watch their reactions upon seeing whole roast ducks hanging in the window...