Viva Montreal!
One time in Tulsa, my dudes Idris and Nate were hosting a hip-hop
show that culminated in a freestyle cypher. I was a happy observer until Idris
called me up to the stage to participate. That would have been cool but I don’t
rap. To compensate for my lack of rap skills, I decided to rap entirely in
French. I killed it. The audience went bonkers and I felt like a smaller,
French Eminem. The only problem is I don’t speak French. All I did was rhyme
random noises with “fromage” for about 30 seconds.
Knowing this story, my girlfriend Hiu forbade me to attempt
any French speaking while in Montreal. This rule was tough. Tough…but fair.
Besides the generic Canadian stereotypes, I didn’t know much
about Montreal before this trip. I knew they spoke French. I knew the Montreal
Canadiens were an original 6 NHL team. I knew the Expos had the coolest
uniforms. That’s pretty much it.
I was surprised by how close it is. It was a 2-2.5 hour
flight from Chicago. The Montreal Airport is not close to downtown. The
cheapest route downtown is to take a bus to the subway station. It’s more
complicated than it sounds and it takes a long time. You can take a cab or Lyft
for about $50. We chose to take the 747 bus. It’s $10 and leaves every 20
minutes. It makes a bunch of stops but it will get you downtown in 30-45
minutes. You cannot miss the ticket machines near baggage claim.
We got off downtown at noon and couldn’t check into our Air
BNB until 3. I snuck a peak at my little map and saw we were on the edge of
Chinatown. The Chinatown in Montreal is small but it has a welcoming layout.
The main drag is a pedestrian walkway lined with shops, restaurants and
bakeries. We were pulled into a bakery by the colorful and eerily detailed
dumplings that were made to look like Pokemon, anime characters, and Hello
Kitty. If you need a quick and cheap snack or small meal, find yourself a
Chinese bakery. I bought a sausage bun which is a split hot dog stuck through a
fresh baked bun with a squirt of sweet relish, a Pepsi, and a couple small
pastries for under $5 Canadian.
Our appetites temporarily satisfied, we headed north towards
our Air BNB. It was located in the west end of the Plateau-Mont-Royal
neighborhood. To escape the early afternoon heat in July, we dipped into Montreal’s
underground city. That sounds spooky and dangerous doesn’t it? It definitely is
not.
Montreal’s Underground City is an underground mall with
tunnels that connect to a bunch of subway stations and hotels. When you live in
a city with extreme temps it makes sense to have something like this. We didn’t
stick around too long. A creepy clown was hosting a live show for children. He
spoke French and I couldn’t decide whether that made him more or less creepy.
I will fully admit that once we emerged, I didn’t really
know where we were. I did not panic nor did I go into “twitchy traveler” mode. Again,
I subtly referred to my map. I’ve gotten a lot of shit from fellow travelers
for my use of maps and I get it. I know that looking at a map in a major city
makes you a target at worst or a lousy tourist at best. You know what else a
map does? IT TELLS YOU WHERE TO GO SO YOU DON’T WANDER IN A STUPID PLACE WHILE
MISSING AWESOME THINGS! Just be subtle about it. Could I use my phone? Yes, and
I often do but my international plan sucks and the GPS is a battery sucker. And
maps are fun. You can label them, write on them, draw routes, pretend you’re
Indiana Jones, etc. Just bring a goddamn map.
Reoriented, we walked up St Laurent and began seeing signs
of life. There were nightclubs sleeping off last night’s revelry in
anticipation of tonight’s. There were bookstores, coffee shops, and graffiti,
lots and lots of graffiti. Every alley or open wall was covered in multi color
burners. I don’t know if these were permission walls but they didn’t look
rushed or amateurish in anyway. Along with the graffiti were murals that adorned
the sides of most buildings. Most of these murals were created during either
Under Pressure graffiti festival or the MURAL Festival that bring scores of internationally
renowned artists to the neighborhood.
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| The Mayor of Montreal by Hiu To |
We came across a skateshop called Dime. Dime specializes in
their own skate clothing, mostly shirts and hats. This shop definitely falls
into the boutique category. It had crisp white walls, light hardwood floors,
and maybe 20 boards for sale. All around, a very minimalist style. I didn’t buy
anything because they didn’t have my size and I had the Canadian dollar to
American dollar exchange rate mixed up and thought I’d be paying $50 for a
t-shirt.
A couple blocks up is the Art Gang storefront. Art Gang is
an artist collective that puts on a lot of shows and sells a lot of rare shoes
and local brands. This shop was dope but I think it was mostly because the dude
who was working the register brought in his dog. I bought a shirt there so if
you want my business you better bring your dog.
I have heard nightmares about visitors to Paris being
mistreated because they don’t speak French. It’s probably because they were
wearing a fanny pack in a fancy bistro but I get it. It can be nerve-wracking
thinking that the French will hate you if you don’t speak the language.
Yes, they do speak French in Montreal. A lot. There are laws
in place that require businesses to post signage in French, packaging to be in
French, and even receipts need to be in French. But Montreal is an extremely
bilingual city. Every restaurant we went into had a menu in French and English.
Most of the folks behind the registers and in front of the house knew English.
Here’s a tip: when you walk into a shop, most of the folks
working there will say, “Bonjour, hello”. You will be tempted to say “bonjour”
because it sounds fancy and sophisticated. If you say bonjour back they will
assume you speak French and continue to speak to you in French. If you say
hello they will speak to you in English because they are not ignorant pricks.
It’s easy.
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| Ben Eine Mural by Hiu To |
After a few hours of wandering into bookstores and talking
myself out of buying an Expos jacket in vintage stores, we headed to our Air
BNB. This was definitely a no-frills type of spot. There was a balcony that we
could’ve sat on if we wanted to drink our coffee overlooking the dumpsters. But
it was clean, gave us the option to watch Canadian Netflix, and it was across
the street from an enormous Ben Eine mural.We dropped off the bags and I immediately took a shower
because I feel like a garbage person if I have residual airplane funk on me.
Fully showered and funk-free, it was time for dinner. Hiu is
the least obnoxious vegan I’ve ever met and Montreal has a bunch of high
quality vegan restaurants. Aux Vivres in the Mile End neighborhood is a small
diner style restaurant with a lot of juices and waitresses who look like Human
Behavior era Bjork.
To get there, we walked past the world famous Schwartz’s Deli.
This is a smoked meat nirvana and a must-stop for most folks passing through.
We didn’t stop. The line was really long and I wasn’t about to make my vegan
girlfriend wait in line for an hour to get a sandwich. Also, unless I’m waiting
to get on a plane or a rollercoaster, I don’t do lines.
The meal at Aux Vivres was perfect. My unadventurous self
tried their veggie burger and it was dense and meaty but didn’t make me feel
bloated and lousy. I washed it down with a fancy small batch cola and if there was
ever a shortcut to my heart, it’s a fancy small-batch cola.
The sun started to set as we left Aux Vivres and headed to
Old Montreal. All along St Laurent the small galleries and boutiques closed up
making way for thumping bass from the bars and clubs. I don’t know exactly how
far away Old Montreal was but it took the same amount of time as it took for me
to yell at my cellular providers for messing up my international plan.
Old Montreal is the tourist hub and rightfully so. It’s a
well-preserved enclave of little streets and shops along the waterfront. It’s
very European in an Instagram kind of way. I would usually avoid this area at
night because it also has many bars and dude-bros who frequent those bars. So
why did we go there? Because that’s where the Old Montreal Ghost Tour starts.
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| It's Ghost Tour! |
Ghost tours in general are a disappointment. Most times they
take you to a sports bar and tell you someone was murdered there 50 years ago.
Then they tell you about a beer mug falling off the bar and all of a sudden it’s
a poltergeist.
My hopes were not high and they didn’t rise after 2 of our
guides emerged in 1800’s era dresses and powdered make up. They led us to a
square and promptly began the tour in French. Hiu handled the flights and
booked the Air BNB. All I had to do was book a ghost tour in English and I
thought I jacked that up.
I was about to fully accept my goof when the second guide
swooped in with English to save the day. At first, it was a little awkward. We
were in one of the local hot spots complete with very young, and well-dressed
Canadians who were in the process of getting absolutely shit faced. It was
difficult to hear the guide over the drunken ramblings of young men trying to
impress their female counterparts. It was like watching live action Tinder.
The mood shifted to a creepier tone once we got out of the
main area and into the narrow side streets. We heard about girls being buried
alive, a dude getting saved by a ghost, arson for hire schemes that went awry,
and the ghost of an executed runaway slave who was falsely accused of arson.
Lots of arson in this town.
This was less ghost hunting and more storytelling. I still
dug it though I’m always disappointed when I don’t get scared on these things.
The tour was nice excuse to roam the tourist area while also avoiding most of
the tourist traps…except for ghost hunting tours of course.
After the tour we considered hanging in Old Montreal a
little longer but it was loud, crowded, and we were tired. After lingering in
front of a year-round Christmas store and debating on the economical viability
of such a business, we headed home to rest up for the next day.
Day 2
This is the only full day we had in Montreal. We had an
early train the next day for Toronto so we were going to milk this day for all
it was worth.
We started with some breakfast at a café down the street
called Milton B. It’s a 24 hour café with free Wifi that caters to the nearby
university students. I scored a smoked meat breakfast sandwich on a bagel and an
iced mocha that was more like a slushie so bonus points! They have a large
outdoor patio that is useless for most of the year but absolutely delightful in
the summer.
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| Musee Des Beaux-Arts |
The first major stop after breakfast would be the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts (Musee Des Beaux-Arts Montreal). To get there we cut
through the McGill University campus that lies at the base of Mount Royal. I
didn’t go away to college but this campus made me wish I had. Then I remembered
how butt-ass cold it gets in Montreal and I felt better about my decision to
attend community college.
The museum has 2 buildings that are located on opposite
sides of Rue Sherbrooke and connected by an underground passage. The main
entrance is in the more modern looking building. We hadn’t looked into the
museum at all as far as exhibits go. We were pleased to find out the special
exhibit was Picasso. Specifically, it was a show dedicated to Picasso and the
influence of African art on his work. Alongside Picasso’s paintings and
sculptures were African sculptures, masks, and drawings and the resemblance is
noticeable. Some could say Picasso ripped off these mostly anonymous artists
but the exhibit does give you the sense that he had a real affinity for the
work. Mixed in was the work of contemporary artists such as Edson Chagas and
Kehinde Wiley.
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| Kehinde Wiley, man! |
Paired with that exhibit was another called Here We Are: Black Canadian Contemporary Art.
8 artists were showcased in this exhibit including a crazy designer
football helmet and shoulder pads draped with chains by Esmaa Mohamoud.
We then explored the permanent collection. I have not seen a
ton of Basquiat in person but they had two of them. Sculpture isn’t my thing but
there was a giant wooden grenade with drawers made by Los Carpinteros that I
would gladly let dominate my living room any day. We then speed walked through
the rest because it was lunch time and we had shit to do.
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| Basquiat, man! |
The Atwater Market is an indoor/outdoor venue with plenty of
food stalls, butchers, bakeries, and cheese mongers. It’s set on the Canal de
Lachine which makes it an excellent venue for a date with someone you met
online because it’s romantic and if it sucks you can rent a kayak and get the
hell out of there.
I am pathetically predictable. I walked past the pizza shop called
Pizza Mia trying to convince myself that I wasn’t going to get pizza but I’m a
weak and feeble man. In my defense, this was no ordinary pizza shop. There were
about 20 different kinds of pan style pies to choose from. I chose the smoked
salmon and capers. Really, it’s like getting a lox bagel with cream cheese but
on pizza bread. You know what happens when you swap out something delicious for
something comparably delicious? It’s still delicious. Hiu went the
more seasonal route and purchased some fresh fruit from the farmers market.
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| Atwater Market |
By this time we were far from Central Montreal. Guidebooks
clock the Atwater Market as being a 45 minute walk from Old Montreal. There are
travel options. You can rent bikes, grab a cab, take a Lyft, etc. We stuck with
walking. Why? Well, we didn’t have anywhere to be and didn’t want to miss
anything rad.
From the market there is a bridge that connects you to the
other side of the canal. This side is more park-like and has pedestrian paths
that lead back to Old Montreal. We got to see some of the industrial remnants
that made Montreal a hub. We also got to see more graffiti on the canal walls
and the empty silos of long-gone factories.
While our side was more industrial, we could see that the other
side of the canal was definitely on the come up. There were new condo buildings
mixed with slightly older condos up and down the canal. There was also a
bizarre outdoor bar blasting electro music at 2pm so I’m not sure what that
means for the neighborhood.
We continued along the canal and came across some iconic
Montreal spots. The first was the Farine Five Roses sign. This sign has been
glowing since 1948 and functions almost as a welcome home sign. It’s not as
epic during the day but I wasn’t about to drag my ass back out here later.
Past the Five Roses sign we came across an urban campground
that leaned more towards the “glamping” set. They were old school looking tents
with walls and mini porches so really, just get a hotel room and quit pretending
you roughing it.
We crossed the canal as we reached Old Montreal. I gotta
give it up to Montreal: they don’t fuck around when the weather is nice. In
addition to the usual picnics and gallivanting, a group of women had tables set
up in what looked like a parking lot. Bread, booze, food, these women did not
come out into this sunshine to waste any time. I don’t know why they chose that
spot. They could’ve been like, “Yo Debbie, this table heavy,” and Debbie says,
“Fuck it. Let’s party right here” and they threw down.
We settled onto a bench and kicked our feet up, letting the
uninhibited breeze off the water cool us. From there we could see a barge that
was turned into a spa. It seems like a cool idea but then I thought about
chilling in a towel, sipping a cucumber water with a bunch of weirdos on a
bench staring at me.
From this vantage point, beyond the parade of slowly
departing cruise ships, we could see the experimental housing complex Habitat
67. It originally consisted of 158 individual modular apartments stacked up on
each other. It’s Minecrafty. The original intention of the architect Moshe
Safdie was to provide inexpensive homes for poorer residents. Of course they
were super expensive, remained super expensive, and are now much sought after real
estate. But hot damn they look rad.
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| Old Montreal |
My pizza had been walked off and it was time for an early
dinner. Hiu wanted to try one of the haunted spots we saw on the ghost tour
because she is not a chicken shit like yours truly. The place we settled on was
3 Brasseurs, a brew pub in the heart of Old Montreal. While most of the
restaurants in Old Montreal have the picturesque outdoor seating, we went
inside because it was hot and we’re not dummies. The food was fine. We had some
pretzels and fried veggies. I smashed a chicken sandwich and Hiu took down a
flight of microbrews.
This was not the most authentic Montreal meal but the place
was haunted by the dumbest ghosts. The legend is that people were getting
evicted from the building so in retaliation they decided to burn down the
building (so much arson in this city!). These geniuses started by setting the
first floor on fire, then moved up to the second, and by the time they got to
the third floor they realized they had trapped themselves. So they jumped from
a 3rd floor window into a cobblestone street and died. People see
ghosts on the top floors and shadows falling to the street. They say that’s’
why nobody wants to rent the top floors of the building. It’s primo real
estate. I’d offer a couple hundred to rent it out. Ghosts or no ghosts,
location is everything.
If I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I hate waiting in
lines. For that reason we almost passed on the Notre-Dame Basilica. The line
stretched across the front of the Basilica along the Place d’Armes Square. We
had no other plans so we bit the bullet and got in the line that was long but
moved fast.
Though not a religious person, I do enjoy visiting churches.
If I find myself in a large European city and I don’t know what to do, I’ll
jump into a church because they are usually epic or have some weird relics.
Some charge an admission. Other churches ask for a suggested donation. Going
into Notre-Dame felt like paying to get into a movie.
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| Notre-Dame Basilica by Hiu To |
Notre-Dame Basilica is staggering in its beauty. The arched
ceiling and crazy ornamental altar are worthy of long lines. The ceiling is
painted blue and accented with blue lights. It’s like walking around a movie
set. It’s also really loud. I don’t know how many hundred people were in there
but it sounded like every one of them was holding their own conversation. I
thought it was kind of rude considering there were some folks in there actually
trying to pray. And I’m not saying you have to be a believer in a specific
religion to tour a particular house of worship but don’t be so loud about it.
Armed with photographic evidence to show my Mom that I’m not
a total heathen, we finished our marathon day by walking back to our Air BNB.
We stopped in the grocery store across the street to get provisions for our
train trip the next day. This consisted mostly of ketchup flavored Pringles and
fancy Kit Kats (dark chocolate with mint cream!).
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| It's called the Metric System, ever heard of it? |
We hung out for awhile and rejuvenated ourselves with an
hour of Canadian Netflix. We were at that stage in the day where we were
exhausted but it was still kind of early. We were entering that stage where if
we were gonna make a move, we had to do it right then or we would pass out for
the whole night.
Though we ate at 3 Brassereurs, I wouldn’t really call it
dinner. It was more of a late afternoon refueling. Turns out that a couple blocks
away from our place was Lola Rosa, a Mexican themed vegan restaurant. Are you
sick of hearing about vegan restaurants? I’m not. I’ve been
dragged to vegan
restaurants since the late 90’s and they get better and more sophisticated as
the years go by.
I could tell you about what we ate for dinner but I’m gonna
tell you about what we didn’t eat. Lola Rosa is a small restaurant decorated to
look shabby but it’s very clean. The tables are close to each other so you
can’t help but notice what other people are eating. The table next to us got a
plate of nachos that looked like a delicious volcano of chips, salsa, beans,
and veggies that dripped down all sides. Our dinner was great but next time I’m
gonna smash those nachos. The only way to wash away my nachol-ess depression was
to eat Key Lime Pie for dessert.
Fattened on vegan vittles, we strolled home on sidewalks
filled with older couples packing it in for the night and college kids who were
just getting started. A small piece of me desired a plate of poutine but that
would have to wait for a return trip. Montreal, you’ll beautiful son of a gun,
we will be back.
Would I go Back?
Look at the previous sentence. I would most definitely go
back. There are a bunch of great neighborhoods to check out which makes it
super easy to avoid the tourist traps. I’d like to go up Mount Royal next time,
grab some bagels, and eat everything they got.
Avoid
1) Old Montreal on a weekend unless you like walking around
with sunburnt Americans wearing at least 2 items of clothing with the American
flag on it.
2) Tam-tams. Every travel guide talked about a weekly event
called a Tam-Tam. You know what a Tam Tam is? It’s a goddamn drum circle. A
really big drum circle. That’s it.
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