Montreal, Quebec - April 2003

My high-school pal Marc and wife Melva bought themselves a house in Hampstead just west of downtown Montreal. After a long winter of renovations they got the old gang together for a housewarming party and we jumped at the opportunity - I hadn't been back in almost ten years. April's still a cruel month north of the border - we left the budding azaleas of Maryland to find the last muddy snowbanks of a brutal winter clinging to the lawns west of downtown. It's a pretty tidy city once the street sweepers start rolling, but until then the collapse of those drifts leaves six months of stratified road trash free to join the gritty winds swirling through the streets... I'm starting to think May is a good time to visit. It's good to see Marc's corner of town getting its share of upscale restaurants. The old tavern on Monkland's been updated and offers some fine meals now. There's a lively Irish bar next door. We stayed out pretty late that first night.

Mount Royal Going to Parc Mont Royal? Think ahead and bring some dollar coins for the meters. That leftover fiver from the last trip won't get you anything at the top, especially when the gift shop's closed for lunch. You might find yourself at the Provigo at the bottom of the hill casing the joint for a cold hangover-size V-8, reluctant to ask for help in your native English because your weak grasp of the French language slipped completely years ago and man, you can't let them know that or they'll win. You might find yourself back in the car with cheese nips and a can of warm tomato juice cursing pretty much everything around you. At least you'll have those dollar coins.

Still a good bit of snow on the mountain in mid-April. The thermometer kissed the underside of 8 degrees Celsius for probably the first time since November. Joggers everywhere.

Easter came late this year.

We ducked off the gravel path to find a good vantage point above downtown. There are a few picturesque spots along the rough trail, but the best view (unsurprisingly) is from the lookout deck outside the Grand Chalet.

Our self-portrait attempts from the lookout left something to be desired. Luckily a fellow traveller offered to assist.

The broadest panorama looks over the industrial East End and the Olympic Stadium - it's best viewed in the evening as the lights wink on across town.

The housewarming party was a fine time, but my pictures didn't turn out very well so that's that. I'll defer to the comprehensive wrap-up on Marc's site for the details.

We shook out the cobwebs on Sunday by hitting a few tourist favorites around town.

Botanical Gardens

The Silophone

Monday was a working day for most folks so we packed up the car, bid Marc and Melva adieu (nice house, guys!) and drove back to to Old Montreal to see if there were any items down there that would look good in our home.

Vieux Port, Part Deux Plenty of galleries in the Old Port under the watchful eye of Silo #5.

So this is how it ends: we have a couple of glasses of wine at lunch and buy an oriental rug. If you suspect we didn't quite get the "crazy price" we were expecting, keep reading. Before the rug incident we even bought an oil painting - as of this writing it's hanging in our living room and looks great. Melanie found it and I didn't stop her. But I digress. Old Montreal relies a lot on American tourist dollars and there are many signs in store windows proclaiming "American currency - 50%" or something like that. With the Canadian dollar trading at about 60 cents US that sounds pretty enticing - divide by two in your head, easy. Mmm hmm.

Everybody knows you need to be on the top of your game with rug merchants. We were goners as soon as we opened the door. This place has some nice rugs and the people are friendly. Here's the transaction: Oh never mind. I tried writing out the whole sequence from the "crazy price" quote through our bargaining and the mental math we did to the call from MasterCard about all these charges... not as exciting as I thought it would sound. The key here is to figure out what they mean by American currency trading at 50%, and I think to the merchant it means viewing the US dollar as 50% stronger than the Canadian dollar, but that means dividing by 1.5 instead of 2. There was a couple hundred dollar spread between 1.5 and 2. I think we'll still like the rug when we get it, and forget this bitter math in short order.

April 23: The rug arrived last night and looks fantastic in the dining room. We're officially Over It.

One more thing Do not fly direct from Montreal to Washington National airport. First stop after Customs: DCA passengers (and only DCA passengers) wait in a special room as all their checked baggage is thoroughly searched. Then regular security - x-ray, coins out of pockets, the usual. Then passengers get shunted to the special DCA-only gate area where city cops dump their carry-on luggage and check everybody's shoes. Once all passengers are cleared they're placed on a Dulles-style people mover to be wheeled to the airplane under police guard. I forgot how much Canadians like to use the F word. No wonder Air Canada flies such small planes on this connection - nobody would want to do this more than once. Fly out of Dulles if you want to do the Washington-Montreal run.

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