Category Archives: doing it wrong

The original itinerary was for us to leave on Monday evening and arrive in Frankfurt on Tuesday afternoon. Then we’d have Tuesday as an acclimation day and then take the train to Brussels midday Wednesday.

But when we got to the airport on Monday I was showing my sister my airline app and we noticed that there was a delay on our domestic flight that would get us in after our international flight had taken off. Uh oh.

After a bit of a go around we were given a number of options that all ended with us taking the Tuesday Dulles flight to Frankfurt.

We went back home and returned Tuesday morning at dawn to catch a domestic flight, connected to the Frankfurt flight and arrived in Frankfurt at 7am Wednesday.

Our lovely acclimation period was ruined and we had to eat the Frankfurt hotel room. We spent the day willing ourselves to stay away and wandering around Frankfurt which was cool but some sun breaks and nice to be outside. Snacking also helped.

By the time we got on the train we were nodding off while we were talking. But we made it here. We found our hotel. We’ve had something to eat and we’re going to bed at 7:45pm. More details at 3am?

[Note to Bob, Erin is way better at this than we are together. She bought the SBahn tickets in 3 minutes while explaining to another traveler how to do it. She also is great at directions and maps. We also helped someone in the luggage room so somehow we are the pro travelers at this point.]

Just a test to make sure I know how to do this from my laptop. (By “this” I mean getting a photo off the camera, edit it and upload it and then post.) Yesterday I set everything up but didn’t have a change to try it out. Cab will be here in a couple hours.

I’ve already read these books but I’ve been wanting to read them again so a trip with lots of planes and trains seems like a good time. Bringing both is probably a bit optimistic but who knows?

Let’s see if I can get this story wrapped up because a new one is starting tomorrow.

We had a day planned for laundry and there was a place very close to our apartment except after wandering around in circles and using the “smart” phone we finally realized: it was gone, demolished for a new hospital that was being built.

There was only one way Bob could deal with a setback like this and that was food. He remembered a breakfast spot close by (because of course he did) so we went and fortified him with some sort of huge egg poutine thing with meat and cheese, and pancakes on the side. I got a fruit plate that was an actual fruit plate. There were at least 10 different kinds of fruit. I want that fruit plate to be served to me forever when I order a fruit plate.

We later found a different laundromat and in the process discovered another delightful neighborhood area that we wished we had more time to explore.

I guess it was the next day that we took the train to Quebec City. There is the mother of all food courts in the main train station in Montreal. I am not a big sandwich person and I couldn’t believe there were so many sandwiches I wanted to try, all collected under one roof. You can imagine how Bob felt.

The train ride was lovely and relaxing and went by too quick. We especially loved the safety routine which involved the train conductor pointing to a tiny red hammer next to the window at the front of the car and telling us, in case of emergency, to rap that in the corner of window and then kick the window out — but not onto active tracks. Then hand the hammer to the next people. He also asked for a volunteer to show the override on the door between the cars. We thought it was hilarious.

When we got to QC it was raining like crazy and we hauled our bags up the hill into Old Quebec which I didn’t realize was such a major tourist trap. Mobs of people everywhere, lots of pricey mediocre food. Our hotel was funky and overpriced but terrifically located. Due to the weather we didn’t wander around much but we found a dinner spot and I had MAPLE SYRUP PIE! It was like pecan pie only with maple syrup and no pecans. It hurt my teeth but I loved it.

The next day we got an early start but already the tour buses were disgorging their umbrella toting masses. We started off at the Plains of Abraham which was a battlefield site and then walked along a small portion of the riverside trail park. Gorgeous and peaceful.

Sadly, my notes at this point are pretty sketchy and also confusing but since you weren’t there and wouldn’t know the difference I’ll just make stuff up to fill in the skanty bits.

The first museum we hit was the Musee de la civilisation which turned out to be our favorite museum of the trip.

OH NO! While looking up stuff about this museum, I just learned this museum suffered a terrible fire. The article makes it sounds like the loses were minimal. I don’t have time to do more research but even the tiniest bit of damage is a shame.

There were amazing Fine Arts works, Canadian artists and amazing First Nations works. We had another terrific tour guide who took us through a historical tour and at the end someone asked her for her opinions on the secessionist movement and she gave a very diplomatic answer and then the person said: no, I wanted to know *your* opinion. And she was very careful but candid and loved that we were so interested.

At this point we had been moving for most of the day and I was drooping in a big way. There was a tiny cafe – more like a food counter and we had one of our best meals of QC: carrot & orange soup and a sandwich with goat cheese and vegetables. I had about 3 bites and Bob said: Are you feeling better? I said: After a snack and 5 minutes?

But I rallied and we went to at least 2 more museums that day. My notes say things like “old pottery” and “starting to get repetitive.”

Our last day we had a big chunk of time to kill between when we checked out of our hotel and when the train left. We went to the last museum on our museum card: Musée de l’Amérique francophone which is about the development of Francophone culture in North America. We don’t use the world Francophone enough. It’s such a great word.

From there we found a nice outdoor market and took turns sitting in the sunshine with the luggage or looking for fun snacks.

At one point two men were looking for a place to sit and of course our ugly American luggage was all over the place so I invited them to sit down as I moved all our stuff out of the way. They didn’t speak English and gave me a funny look but when they saw what I was doing they smiled and sat down. When they walked away one of the men turned around and waved and said very carefully: Good Bye.

That was another one of my favorite trip moments. It’s really weird to be in a place with English and French spoken side-by-side but finding pockets of one or the other where there isn’t crossover. We didn’t run into too many language problems and we tried to speak a few words of French here and there.

It was still a bit early for the train but there were some ominous clouds in the distance and I suggested we hustle our booties to the station. And about 15 minutes after we sat down there was one of those rain storms where you look outside and can’t believe how hard it’s raining. Lucky we weren’t caught in that.

We had a quiet trip on the train and got a little bit lost finding our last hotel. It was a funny place that was total low budget but very lovingly done. It was an old building that was once a nunnery and then a post office. The guy who was telling us this said: And who knows what next, maybe a prison. We had one more day in Montreal before we went home and we went to the Biodome which the Internet tells me represents the 4 major ecosystems of the Americas and the site was the velodrome for the 1976 Olympics.

It was one of the few really crowded sights of the trip and there were approximately 100 million children there so we got through pretty quick. It was really cool though. There were birds and penguins and we saw a capybara. We walked around another park and saw a fox. We did some more walking around Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood and by this time we were both getting fried.

We bought some food at a outdoor market by the train station and had a picnic at our room and back to the PACNW the next day.

These outdoor stairs are a Montreal thing. There’s a heritage article here and a history lesson here. We saw a snippet about them in one of the travel videos we watched.

Right before we left we chatted with the host of our funny hotel and I asked him about the stairs: Aren’t they dangerous in winter?

He shrugged and said: Everything is dangerous in winter.

On that note, I’m signing off. If all goes smoothly next time you hear from me I’ll be in Belgium.

I just noticed my notebook that I used for the Montreal trip has a recipe for Granny Pea salad in it. The origin of the recipe is not Montreal in case that wasn’t clear. This is the last place I would look for a recipe for Granny Pea salad but I’m not going to transfer it to a better spot right now.

I haven’t done a photostream yet. That’s on the wishlist too, along with the pants of shame, dealing with train tickets for the trip next week and making a birthday pie.

If nothing else your takeaway should be that Montreal is a terrific place to visit. Easy to get around, tons of stuff to see and do lots of great food. Highly recommended.

Biosphere URL

We took a late flight to Seattle and then a red eye to Chicago and then another hop to Montreal. Not my favorite way to travel but we had trouble coming up with an itinerary so we made do. We stayed in a terrific basement apartment in Notre Dame De Grace neighborhood which one of our travel resources made sound like it was at the ends of the earth but it was easy to get around the Metro so we didn’t mind at all. We had a quiet place after long days of running around.

Needless to say as soon as we arrived I needed a nap and then we had food and I thought I would rally but as soon as I was done eating I needed another nap. I slept so hard I was confused when I woke up and I went to find Bob and asked him: is it still today?

We went into downtown and walked around. There was at least one and possible more festivals going on and there were people everywhere, live music, food booths.

We started the next day at the Atwater Market and were completely overwhelmed because we wanted to eat everything. From there we walked along the canal which was gorgeous.

My notes are skimpy so I’m winging it here. I wrote about the fire alarm going off in the middle of then night but not what we did during the day.

The next day we were going to a museum (what am I saying, I was with Bob, we were going to 1000 museums) and I saw a guy on the Metro who was wearing what I thought was a museum guard uniform so rather than wander around with our map completely lost, I insisted we just follow him.

Unfortunately, he was not a museum guard and my plan backfired in a big way. A strike against creative problem solving.

(Before you wonder why we didn’t just use our “smart” phone to find things: [long rant about technology is hard for the olds omitted.] We did use our phones with uneven success. And those are sarcastic quotes.)

We eventually found the McCord museum and there was a great exhibit about music. Bob was in heaven. Later we went to Parc Jean Drapeau, site of the 1967 World’s Fair that 10 year old Bob yearned to go to so badly. Old Bob was thrilled to finally fulfill his wish. We wandered around there and went to a climate change show. We were rushing the whole time, so many things to see.

We ran over to the Musee Stewart and had one of our favorite museum experiences of the trip. It’s a history museum and we had a young man take us on a guided tour and he was terrific. Really knew his stuff and since we were so interested he told us all kinds of stories.

On Saturday we were going to get up at 7am and I heard the alarm going forever so I finally got up to get it and I wandered out into the main room and came back and said to Bob: that says 6. So then we slept until 7:45a.

We were too early for the Museum of Fine Art so we stopped in at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul and again we found a really nice enthusiastic person to walk around with us and show us the church. Beautiful contemporary stained glass windows. It’s also a church of the Black Watch which sounds like something from Game of Thrones.

Then a bunch of museums: Fine Arts, City History, Archeology and then 5pm mass at the Basilica of Notre Dame with an organ that will make your hair stand on end.

Sunday was Timbers match day. Stay tuned, or at least hopeful that my coverage continues.