Une Semaine (One Week)
My first full week in Montreal.
First real experience of COLD. Vancouverites, you have no frickin' idea how cold cold can be. WINDCHILL is a new swear word for me!
And it only went to -8'C this week! I'm genuinely scared of the next 4 months.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I went to the gym today. Not to, like, work out or anything. Just to show Lynda the place (I went on a tour last week). Curiosity got the better of me and I jumped on the scale. I have successfully gained 5lbs in the 12 days I have been here! Yay me! You might have thought walking 5-10km a day would wear off all the food I've been eating.. apparently not!!
I have been trying to get into some good habits though. I still seem to wake up at 5:30-6am, and have resigned myself to it. As Lynda is still happily snoring at that hour, and the floors in our place are so full of Quebec character (i.e. they creak louder than my knees), there is no possibility of sneaking about covertly. So I whack in the headphones, and do my new Deepak.. MAKING EVERY MOMENT MATTER. Apparently to "make a moment matter" you just have to be doing something you REALLY want to be doing! Appropriate huh?!
Once I have established that lazing around and doing what I want- which is often not too much- is A-Ok, I usually listen to CBC Radio 1 Montreal-Style (but in English). Amazingly devoid of Mr Cluff, his interruptions and pearls of awe-inspiring wisdom. I marvel at how there seems to be more traffic but less accidents here, even though they all drive like manics on icy streets!
I then arise happily about 7:30am.
Most days I have had a lovely time thereafter withdrawing to the couch to watch British cooking shows until lunch :) Poking the ole donut as hard as I can. :)
Tuesday last week my new schedule was interrupted as I had to venture out in the morning for a placement test for my French classes in January. They had to ascertain just how bad I was.
It was slated to take 90 minutes.
I was done in about 19.
It will surprise you NOT that it wasn't because of my complete mastery of the language.
All directions from the instructors were given in French, which meant that there were five of us wondering pretty darn quickly if we had wandered somehow into the wrong room. We just sat there baffled as they rambled on happily. If the "listening" portion (answering a set of questions in French to a 30 second paragraph we heard only once) wasn't demoralizing enough, the "oral" portion would be enough to push someone with fragile intestinal fortitude to go throw themselves off one of the rapidly crumbling bridges nearby.
The instructor asked questions a good bit more complicated than "comment ça va ?", and looked rather disgusted with my lack of response. I was so overwhelmed I couldn't even muster "Je ne comprends pas".
At some point I managed to figure out that she was asking me to count to 10. I made it to 6 before cracking. Honestly. I mean counting to 10 is like my thing! I know 1-10 !! My brain had totally switched off by this point. She took my "exam paper" and wouldn't even let me go back and finish the rest of the written test. The one English expression she graced me with was "there is no point". Charming!
I saw I was graded as 1 out of 10. The woman before me thankfully "scored" 0 out of 10 (she clearly only made it to 5 or something), so I gathered my tattered ego and went to buy some Icebreaker socks.
I might be illiterate but I wasn't gonna be cold!
On a happier note, this week also saw us have our 1st visitor! On Friday Rusty arrived. I'm not suggesting it was his fault, but on Thursday it was 14'C. Friday -4'C was the high, with windchill taking it to -10'C . Despite this we proceeded to eat and walk our way around Montreal for the next 48 hours!
Icebreaker socks to the rescue!
MtlaTable is a city wide event (similar to Dine Out in Vancouver) where hundreds of restaurants put on fixed price menus to showcase their wares.
Photo: Smoked red peppers cream, mini grilled-cheese au fromage Louis D'or de Sainte-Elisabeth de Warwick
It was a good and a bad thing that we hit a home run on our 1st crack! Bistro- Brasserie Les Soeurs Gris had an offering at the opening $21 level. 3 courses.
Photo: Smoked duck carpaccio, candied orange, spicy mesclun
Each one more sublime than the last. The fact that we had great company for Lynda's birthday helped, but seriously, if you are ever in Old Montreal, check this place out!
After that we hit up an an underground bar in Old Montreal called "Coldroom".
As the air temperature on the street was below that of a brass toilet seat on the shady side of an iceberg, it was mildly ironic.
However it was well worth standing in the arctic freeze for the chance to walk through an unmarked side door, down a flight of stairs and through a fridge door.
The other side was populated by servers and bar staff in nifty waistcoasts and more pomade per square inch than a Main St barbershop. A dark, thankfully warm and intimate setting, with amazing bartenders, who even invented a beverage for the non-imibiber (aka ME) complete with vegan foamer, without turning a perfectly coiffed hair!
Given the vast amount of red wine consumed Friday evening (NOT by me), one might assume the weekend would slow down.
One would be wrong!
Cheese and Charcuterie from Jean Talon Market.
Hot Chocolate from Juliette et Chocolat
Tacos at Fortune
Poutine from, where else, Poutineville. Joyfully only one of their 5 gravies ISN'T gluten free!
(See we shared. The healthy approach to cheese and potatoes!)
If that wasn't enough, (clearly it wasn't), we hit up Dunns for a pile of smoked meat and a bowl of coleslaw.
Now was about the time I started to slip into a food coma.. and we staggered home to have a kale salad.. damn I was happy to see all that green!
SO ..I guess maybe tomorrow I'll actually, like, go for a swim or something.. because all this eating is gonna have me tipping the scales right over by Christmas if I'm not careful.
Jusqu'Ã la semaine prochaine!