Day 2: Montreal

March 3, 2023

Q: What colour is a burp? A: Burple Just one of many jokes told to us by Joe. Clearly we are among grandkids in Montreal now, and our world view is warping appropriately.

We flew through the night to get here to Montreal, where we will be until flying out on Monday. We eagerly looked for our bikes in their boxes at the Oversize lugage belt, and they did pop out quite promptly. Of course both were lying on their sides, making us hope that especially my derailleur will still be ok. We had removed the derailleur guard to fit the bike in, but left the derailleur installed.

Our game is to leave the bikes at the airport, at their baggage check service, for what amounts to four days. Given their daily rate of $20 each, it will cost $160 plus tax. Oh well, we are getting used to the bicycle related hemorrhage of money. Even though it did not turn out to be true in our case, I thought the baggage check's sign amusing for its candour. A loose literal translation could be "Leave less weighed down, without going bankrupt". The english translation on the wall is considerably more elegant, but inaccurate.

Sabrina picked us up quite easily, and whisked us to the new home, with son Joshua and kids Amelia, Evee, and Joe. For really long time readers, it was to see the newborn Amelia, in 2011, that we cycled out here from Victoria on our first long trip. Amelia, clearly, is now coming up to twelve years old. Evee is ten and Joe is eight, soon to be nine in two weeks.

Clockwise from bottom left - Sabrina, Dodie, Evee, Steve, Joe

Amelia gave an excellent performance of Over the Rainbow

You don't have to be much of a long term reader to predict that our first move on landing back in Montreal was to go to a market. The new house is still in the general south central part of the Island. South central is more of a pure geographic description, Montrealers would generally consider this spot, near the Olympic stadium, as "east", and on this side of the river, we are more north than south. The seriously important part is that the house is a fifteen minute walk from a local indoor market, Maisonneuve Market. And Maisonneuve Market has a Premier Moisson bakery. Premier Moisson (which means First Harvest) is the premiere chain bakery on the Island, and it is totally wonderful!

On the bike path to the market. See the sign!

Since this is Quebec, maple products are everywhere.

Joe with one of those maple cones. Notice the "no joke" necessary gloves for Montreal winter.

These goodies are cheaper than pastries in Victoria, but their price is still a lot higher here than before the pandemic.

Again, because this is Montreal this photo is of just a small part of a cheese counter. Many cheeses are local but most are from France.

The 1976 Olympic Stadium dominates the local scene. Just nearby is the Biodome, which houses five different ecologic zones.

This nearby municipal building displays some of the great architecture of the city.

Heading for home, again on the bike path.

Bonus: The Whippet cookie was invented here in 1901 by Charles Viau. The Viau factory was near here for many years. They were first sold under the name of “Empire” cookies. Around 1927, they changed the name to “Whippet,” and changed the ingredients, so that the cookie could be sold at a cheaper price to more people. They have been made by Dare since 2001, who bought them from Culinar, which had bought Viau.

A local speciality that went national. Sabrina always stocks up on them when she knows I will be around. Once you nibble the chocolate off the top, you can sort pf vacuum the marshmallow off the jam filling. I can not imagine just biting one!

So far this entry has been of a sort of reasonable length, but unfortunately it all happened before Joshua, our son, got home from work. This kicked off an experience which I have had before, and written about in more than one past blog. That is, since I am a native of Montreal and since our family has been in Montreal for over 100 years, coming to town can involve a nostalgic review of all the old sights and tastes and neighbourhoods. All that was certainly not going to happen tonight, and really we have been focussed on Portugal and not geared up for much more than seeing the family, But still, Josh and I headed out to at least the two most standard and iconic spots - St Viateur Bagel and Schwartz's Deli. The fact that these spots are both food related is certainly not a coincidence!

We went to St. Viateur first, and found the experience 100% unchanged. This included illegally parking in the alley - because what are you going to do? Plus looking at the Hasidic Jews in the street, with their long robes and big fur hats.

On the way to St Viateur street we passed Fairmount St., home of the competing Fairmount bakery, and we speculated on why our family has always favoured St Viateur. Josh thought it a little strange, since he said Fairmount bagels are sweeter, but he was put off by having once gone there and having asked for "Black" bagels, to find they did not know what he was talking about, Josh then tried "muhn", which is the Yiddish for poppy, (German: mohn) but no luck. He finally scored with "poppy" - English, although he would also have had "pavot" - French in his quiver. It used to be that bagel were just "white" (sesame) and black, but Fairmount had exploded the flavours, to cinnamon, onion, all dressed, or whatever. This does not fly with our family!

Now when I say St. Viateur was unchanged, I guess I mean that the white and black bagels we got tasted 100% right. But there were a few distressing shelves, sporting such aberrations as Pumpernickel and (horrors) Butterscotch Caramel, beside the "poppy (pavot)". What is the world coming to?

The wood oven and long peel for flipping the bagels.

At the smoked meat place we had better luck, because it really was 100.0% unchanged. The men still stood behind the counter slicing the meat for tall sandwiches, and the one female employee was the cashier. There is no reason for this gender division of jobs, and we are critical of other "backward" cultures with gender stereotypes, but you will never see a female slicer at Schwartz's, and you will never see a male cashier. Waiters, to, are only men. We don't know why this is, but it's well documented in books about delis.

Poster on Schwartz's wall. Note, the hockey players have Canadiens home and away jerseys, No Toronto!

We returned home to find a bit of an advance birthday party underway for Amelia and Joe and even me, with a just baked lemon curd cake. The kids got mainly souvenirs from Mexico that we had managed to bring back. I think I got that new camera!

Amelia and Evee with souvenir embroidered writing pads from Playa del Carmen.

Amelia with Books that Dodie had when she was that age.

At this point everyone declared exhaustion and turned in. Fortunately, that ends today's entry!

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Marvin PaxmanWe loved reading this whole entry, Steve, I guess because we know Josh and Sabrina so well. Give them and their kids our love!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Marvin PaxmanConsider it done.
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1 year ago