Montreal

---

Tim has a sleep in this morning while I go and get all that girly stuff done - hair and nails.

We found a hairdresser not far from the hotel last night on our walk home so after breakfast I head there, to discover they are closed… I go to the coffee shop next door and after buying a muffin and coffee ask them if they know when it will be open. Turns out that Monday is hairdresser closed day here, if only the opening hours sign was in English. No matter, I’m directed to a street where there is a shopping mall and everything is open.

HAIRDRESSING, QUEBEC STYLE

So after walking past some very, very nice clothing stores I find a hairdresser who can see me. Before I left home my wonderful hairdresser, Michelle, gave me the recipe for my hair colour so that I wouldn’t have any nasty hair accidents.

They do things a little differently here. Back home, when the hairdresser wants you to move your head, a little tilt for example, they will gently push your head to where they need it. That is not the Quebec way. Here, they maneuver your head by pulling your hair - hard! I thought this was something they just did to tourists until I watched everyone else in the salon. The language issue also proved to be a bit of a barrier. Even though they spoke English, it wasn’t the best and their French accent, while sounding beautiful, was very strong making them hard to understand.

So in the end I walk out of the salon with my hair much, much lighter than normal, with a fringe (now I know what ‘bangs’ are) and with big curls being told that I am beautiful like Bridget Bardot (say it with a strong French accent and that's what it was like!) - the jury is still out on that one. I already know that Tim will hate it - he doesn’t like big curls or a fringe….

So I hunt for a nail salon and find one operated by a man from Vietnam. Lovely guy who came here as a refugee 25 years ago. He tells me that Toronto is much nicer than Montreal, mainly because he cannot speak French!

I phone Tim at the hotel and warn him about my hair, safer with no surprises! He tells me after he couldn’t find me at the hairdresser he has been to the gym and had a nice relaxing day, mainly because he really doesn’t like Montreal, and all the ‘Frenchness’ and isn’t too keen on doing anything anyway.

So I walk to Hertz and pick up our car, they were going to give us a Smart car but upgraded us to a Kia Rio. It would have been cool to have a drive in one of those teeny tiny cars but I doubt that our luggage would have fitted into it to get to the airport!

I drive back to the hotel (Montreal is NOT an easy place to drive, partly because of the language, the many one way streets and the many highways that all loop together, you need to be in the right lane to not get shot off in the wrong direction.

As expected Tim is not happy with my hair (by now I have gotten used to it, after all I can’t change it), and so that just adds to his dislike about everything Montreal. I think at this stage there is nothing in Montreal that he wants to get interested in and he thinks it a waste of time coming here, preferring to have stayed in other places longer. He also didn’t expect French to be used to predominately here.

I leave him to have a rest and go across the road to the Chinese Masseur and have an awesome massage.

HOOTERS

We go to Hooters for dinner, which is on the other side of the river. We go over an amazing bridge to get there, would have to be one of the best bridges.

The food and service were great and it was a lot busier than Calgary. On Monday nights it’s ‘hot car night’ so all the parking bays in front are full of some really well done up cars, with their bonnets up all on show, my cousin Jason would love it.

Monday nights is also ‘all you can eat wing night’. Unfortunately it’s wasted on us, but the rev heads all get their money’s worth!

Carmen the Garmin manages to direct us back to the hotel ok, and driving here isn’t too bad with a co-driver!

 

---