Montreal redux

Tuesday

Well, day two of the trip wasn't the grandest of events, with overpaying on a room and having to cook in there too. Morning run in north bay wasn't much either. They have a path along the lake, but it doesn't go super far and I wasn't creative so I ended up doing a large portion of the run on some nameless road heading out of town.

It was cool to see Ottawa, if only Fromm the freeway. Not many suburbs, they must have strict codes about where you can build. For a town of over 1 million, we were in and out of the city in less than half an hour. 

We rolled into Montreal right around rush hour, which then took us a bit longer to get to Pierre Paul's house. Those dang bridges are quite long and there aren't many of them. 

This time, we entered the city from the west side of the island. It really out into perspective how big the thing is. Quite a ways before you were actually in the city.

The new house they have is great. Somewhat close to his parents, in a quiet neighborhood across the mighty at Lawrence from downtown. They have a good sized yard and we was all remodeled with modern appliance, lighting, and cabinets. We hung out for a little while to let traffic settle down, then set off for the metro and a night on the town.

Dinner at the deli across the street from Schwarzt's. Amazing smoked meat. Just as good as I remembered it. We bar hopped from there. A couple breweries, a French Canadian dive bar, the distillery, a specialty cocktail place with a amazing selection. We were desperately trying to pay for most of it after being able to crash at his house, but he just wouldn't have it and would often be figuring it out in French long before we cued in what was happening. We ended the night at a poutine place and split a large platter. That stuff is also unreal. 

Wednesday

Pierre Paul had to take off early the next morning, although I was up to see him off, then slept a little longer. It was a hot one- 90+ so I skipped the long workout and went for a 10 miler. Wasn't able to get to the islands on the river this time- turns out there was a ship coming through the locks. It's crazy because it's a huge bike route into the city, but it's a lift bridge so they just shut it down. One of the cyclists told me 20 min at least. Guess it was time to explore a new route. No where near pleasant in the heat, humidity, and a little hungover, but I got the job done. Saw the big ore boat coming in too on my run after finding another path along the river. Thunder Bay based. The guys still had quite the journey in front of them! Went for some bagels afterward in the neighborhood and came back with 12 for 8$- which I'm also told the u.s. Dollar is killing it against the Canadian dollar right now so it was a heck of a deal. These bagels are also the real deal. Kate and I. Will be happily coasting on these the next few days.

We didn't exactly get an early start out the door, I think we barely beat 1 pm, but we set off, again for the metro, where I parked the car and we hopped on bound for the island.

Public transit is well trod here. The metro area isn't a ton bigger than msp,  3.8 million I think, but it's much denser and I think there is more of a culture for it. I guess the metro is a remnant of the world fair (or Olympics?) so it's a bit old, but a very efficient system. We mainly meandered the streets most of the day. Old town, downtown, and Mgill. With the crazy heat and humidity though, it was tough and we took lots of breaks. Eventually, we popped back on the subway and went up to the jean talon market. Bought a lot of fruit there, which I surprisingly told the truth on at the border (don't worry, we got to keep all of it) along with some whipped maple. We ended up randomly picking an Indian place for dinner. Solid, but not out of this world. Neither of us were starving in the excessive heat though. 

Back home, i did a little shakeout in the setting sun and we went over to an ice cream place in the neighborhood. Turns out, they didn't take visa or MasterCard for credit (still unclear exactly which kind of credit they DID take), and we were basically out of Canadian dollars. This out us in a bit of a crunch because they had already served up the ice cream. Lucky as heck, the girl working was headed to Vegas the next day, so she took our U.S. Cash. I guess sometimes it just works out.

Thursday

I was up a bit early today for an attempt at the long workout I skipped yesterday. Absolutely bombed it. Got across the canal this time, and the warmed felt alright, but splits were way off and I ended up cutting it short on top of it. Found out after the fact that it was still 80 with a 70 degree dew point. I suppose that would make sense why 6:00 pace felt like death.

We hit the road bound for Maine via Sherbrooke. It was cool to see mor of the Quebec countryside. We stopped in a small town- east angus for lunch. Definitely had a bit of a Europe vibe going on. The route through Maine was gorgeous too. Lots of lakes and rivers flowing through coniferous forests backdropped against mountains. Crossed the a.t as well. I had originally hoped to stop and take a peak, but it was raining and not super inviting.

We didn't have much of a game plan upon arriving, so we stopped in downtown Bangor for a burger and got a hotel room right on the edge of Acadia. The burgers were great. Grass fed, Maine raised ground beef and lots of local beers. Very excited to be done driving for a bit now and explore Acadia again.