Day Two

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Today, we got up at around 6am and ate breakfast at the hotel’s buffet. Nothing there was all that good, but they still charged us $20ca each. After eating, I headed off to my photography class (Ranann and my parents got to go on the bus tour of Montréal.) I was by far the youngest in the class, every body else being older than 40. I was also the least obsessed with plants.

Anyway, around noon, we broke for lunch and I, not feeling very adventurous, went to subway (which seem to be everywhere up here) The first of the 2 day class ended around 5 and I headed back to the room to find everybody waiting and ready to go get dinner.

We ate at a really good French restaurant called L’epicerie were I enjoyed some excellent salmon and a really good gourmet chocolate cake with some not so good tarragon sorbet (that stuff was just nasty) After dinner, we walked around old town for a short while before heading back to get to bed.


I seem to have forgotten to mentions why we came. My parents own a flower nursery called Cornell Farm. Being the owners of the above stated, they end up going to all sorts of conventions and belong to all sorts of groups. This particular convention is that of the Perenial Plant Association. So my parents are mostly at seminars for the first half of the trip or so.

Day One

Saturday June 15, 2006

Today, we flew. First for about an hour, from Portland to Vancouver BC, then for about 4 hours from Vancouver to Montréal. So after getting up at 4am PST, we got to PDX airport. Everything was going just fine until we went through security. Nobody told me before I put my bag through, that you need to take your (or in this case you dad’s) laptop out of the bag before you put it through the x-ray. It only took about 10 minutes to get that all cleared up, and even then, they didn’t seem too convinced I wasn’t a terrorist. (I think it was the beard) Finally, we boarded a twin-engine commuter and were on our way to Vancouver.

The flight went great. Incredibly sooth, and instead of some shitty pretzels, we got a small pack of Oreos! mmmm Oreos... After the flight was over, they make you walk for like 20 minutes to get from the tarmac to get to the main airport. Anyway, somehow, we managed to clear customs and get on the jet to Montréal. About the most eventful thing on that flight was my dad’s above stated laptop battery dieing about 5 minutes before Rat Race ended.

In the little promo, trip summery thingy, I stated that there were crazy drivers in Montréal. We got our first taste of this with the cabdriver who liked to go about 110 in a 70 zone (kilometers mind you) and only felt the need to put his seat belt on while driving on the freeway (which was just slightly unsettling)

So after getting to our hotel and checking in, we headed out to dinner. I ate good chicken, and the world was happy. Sadly, dinner ended and we took a little time to explore the area before heading home


(Pictures coming soon)

Suffix First

Ahh, home sweet home! Nothing like it. We got back yesterday around 8:30 pm, just as the sun was setting. It was really beautiful. Not that Montréal wasn’t amazing. The only bad things about Montréal were the fact that everybody smoked, the drivers were crazy, and the elevators at our hotel had some major issues. Other than that, from its old quarter complete with cobblestone streets and 300 year old buildings to the heart of downtown with its skyscrapers sitting atop miles of underground sidewalks and shopping malls, Montréal was a really beautiful city.