Montreal Sejour

I think a short trip to Montreal is a worthy subject for my first -- and somewhat overdue -- blog entry. What can I say? I simply don't consider many things that happen in my life -- or my thoughts about them -- worthy of a written report. Chit chat is different.

We arrived in Montreal on Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel: the Hotel de l'Institut on Saint-Denis, across from Carre St-Louis. The hotel is run by the Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec (ITHQ – Quebec Tourism and Hotel Institute) and employees are recent graduates or current students of the institute.

Our next stop was, of course, Simon's, which is still my favourite department store. I've been feeling like a bit of a ruffian at work lately, so was in the market for some new work clothing. Simon's -- and Zara's on Saturday -- didn't let me down.

But the highlight of our trip was dinner at Casa Napoli in Little Italy on Friday evening. We've eaten there once before, when we were living in Montreal, and Joan treated us during a visit. It was fantastic and we've long meant to go back. Being both organized and ambitious, we made a reservation. Impressed? Don't be. We left the hotel a little later than we should have, made our way toward St-Laurent to get the bus, and discovered that a huge stretch of 'the Main' is being repaved. The bus was re-routed and so we had to retrace our steps and make some enquiries to figure out the location of the temporary bus stop. We arrived at Casa Napoli about 30 minutes after our reservation but not to worry -- the hostess seemed even less concerned about this than Mathieu (someone has to overreact about these things). I explained our tardiness in French and she brushed me off in English and seated us. That was that. The meal was fabulous and our waiter was quite the upseller -- we ended up having foccacia with our caesar salads, which were made at a cart that was wheeled to our table. Mathieu had Risotto ai Due Formaggi and I had Pennine alla Signorina -- these people don't mess around.

We'd counted on the good food but not the entertainment. As was the case last time, the crowd was entertainment enough. Casa Napoli seems to be a good place for people/character watching. It's a restaurant frequented by couples, friends, and huge families with lots of kids who run around everywhere. Montrealers seems to be determined to incorporate their children into their very adult social lives. We had fun watching a particular pair of little girls make very frequent trips to the washroom. It appeared that their adults had decided that this was something the girls could manage on their own and they were out to make the most of this freedom.

The band topped off the atmopshere: a tall, blond, elegantly dressed Italian songstress and her not-so-impressive bass player, who together regalled the audience with a cheesy repertoire of English and Italian songs, Wind Beneath My Wings, R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and Mambo Italiano among them. I can't offer the names of any of the Italian numbers -- but our songtress sang both the female and male parts. A space between some tables in front of our musicians became a temporary dance floor for a few inebriated dinner guests during a few songs. Their dance moves attracted some attention, as did the singer's trombone playing in the resturant and on the terrasse during Mambo Italiano. As you might imagine, Mathieu and I were a bit mystified by all of this and did our best to seem engaged in serious conversation whenever the musicians came around to make small talk with diners and to ask for requests. At one point we even tossed around the idea of asking for a discount for putting up with all of this but we ultimately decided that it all made for a most memorable experience.

Having indulged so much at dinner on Friday, we weren't all that hungry yesterday. We did some more shopping, went to the fabulous Jean Talon market, and then wandered around our old neighbourhood. I wish we'd made the market a part of our Montreal routine. We became more than a little nostalgic walking along Saint Viateur, Parc, and Laurier, reminiscing about the things we did do in Montreal. We made a nice, long stop at the Renaud Bray bookstore. Mathieu cut me off, though, when I made nostalgic noises as we passed our old laundromat. He was having none of it. So we went for gelato, hopped in the car, and made our way back to Ottawa. The end.

Now back to laundry and Watership Down. The Home Based Learners Network book club I lead at the library is meeting to discuss this tome on Thursday. Our last meeting was in June so I've been putting this one off for a few months now and still have more than 150 pages to go. I find myself getting into certain parts of the story but for the most part, it's slow going. Very descriptive and, all in all, a story about rabbits.