Oui oui to Montreal

There are a lot of french-speakers in montreal. Unfortunately spud and i have limited french skills (search for "catherine tate translator" on youtube and you will understand something of our proficiency with the language). Thankfully, it wasn't all croissants, frog's legs and french fries for us, as most montrealites are bilingual. However, the following exchange occurred between us on numerous occasions as we looked at the french street signs and ignored the too-hard-to-fold-out map crammed in my handbag:

"What street do we need to turn down?"
"Oh, I don't know, Rue de something... something french sounding"

Our Montreal trip thus had the lovely effect of making one feel like they had gone far further afield, to Europe, rather than just border-hopping to a place where starbucks and dunkin' donuts had not yet cornered the market. We were a little unimpressed with Old Montreal, which although lovely, was incredibly touristy and crammed full of souvenir shops. But the area where we stayed, nestled between downtown, the "plateau" and McGill Uni, was charming and filled with plenty of eating and drinking options. The B&B we stayed in was beautifully furnished and comfy, and just down the road we found a bar screening the crows game from midnight 'til 3:30am. We also found some adelaide crows-supporting friends in the bar. Sadly, however, we did not find victory.

Montreal is a very walkable city, and we gave our walking shoes a workout (spud's thongs are at death's door) traipsing to a few other neighbourhoods, including the latin quarter and the gay village. Finding spud some new havaiana thongs has become quite the saga, and at one point i led us into what i THOUGHT was a men's clothing shop. Not quite sure how I missed the life-size photograph of a naked man in leathers outside the front door, but the gay porn shop we wandered into had many 'thongs', just not the type we were after.

Spud was more than a little popular in Montreal, and within a few hours of arrival he had experienced a number of glances that were held just a touch too long; from a girl working in a bar that we stopped in, and a few random ladies on the street. Despite this, he later requested that i give the magic curls a bit of a trim, and this did not appear to diminish his popularity when we strolled through the gay village. Incidentally, SO many people comment on his hair in the U.S., and one of the girls at our B&B in Montreal asked if most men in Australia have curly hair, as every Aussie guy she had met had sported spiral locks.

Today when we drove back south there was a fair wait at the border crossing and when it was finally our turn, the immigration officer (whose name was Tulip) had us drive through fairly expediently. But not before I had revealed my South Australian heritage by repeatedly attempting to surrender a granny smith apple I had in my handbag. Tulip was not interested in my apple.

Tonight we are in Albany (NY state) where we averted a near-disaster a few hours ago by double checking our NY accommodation and realising that I had stuffed up the booking, and we were hotel-less for two nights. After some fruitless internet searching , we decided that organising short-notice accommodation in the Big Apple was too much trouble, so instead we will lob in New Jersey and commute for a couple of days. THEN we will finally check into our guesthouse for a seamless final 8 nights in the city that never sleeps... hurrah!

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