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Published: August 10th 2011
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On Tuesday morning Rod kindly drove us to the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Ottawa for our onward journey to Montréal. The weather had cooled down a bit much to our delight, especially when walking with our massive backpacks. Our Greyhound bus was cheaper than we thought as our Hostelling International card got us some discount (yay!). The Greyhound bus was really nice and comfy and the drive to Montréal took around 2 and half hours. We were now on our own! No more comfort of being with Aled's relatives and it felt a bit like the holiday had ended, and real travelling had begun! We got to Montréal and then got the metro to Jean-Talon station, near where Marie and Sonny live. We were excited and scared about couchsurfing! Marie, our couchsurfing host, was out with friends for the day so we arrived at her flat and let ourselves in. Marie and Sonny's flat was really nice and our bed was a double sofa bed in their living room. We dropped off our bags and left to explore the city a bit. We came back in the evening and met Marie, Sonny and their amazing cat Ferdinand. They were both lovely
and we really felt at home and Marie made us some tea and we sat around chatting for a few hours. Our first impressions of Montréal is that is really is French! We weren't sure what French speaking Canada was going to be like, but it feels so European and really does feel like you are in France - you hardly hear anyone talking English when you walk around the city.
The next day we headed straight for the tourist information centre to pick up a few leaflets and see what there was to do. Montréal is a massive city and even after 6 days, we still felt like we hadn't seen much of it! We headed to an area called Mont Royal to have a walk around and rented some bikes for a quick cycle around one of the parks. Everyone uses bikes here and a lot use the Bixi system (similar to the one in London - you just swipe your credit card and the first half hour is free so we rented them a couple of times and only spent half an hour so it was always free!). We then went to the Biodome, which is
a huge indoor centre with four different ecosystems (bit like the Eden Project but with lots of animals as well) which was really good. Spent most of the rest of the day just wandering around! That evening we met Marie and her friend Gabrielle for some drinks at a cool place called La Distillerie. The cocktails came in jam jars! We then met Sonny and went for dinner at a noodle place. We then walked to a rather cool czech bar for more drinks and then finally headed home.
By that evening Aled had really bad toothache (it had started on our last day in Ottawa) and so we decided that the next morning we would find a walk in dental clinic just in case it was something that could get a lot worse. So on Thursday morning we trekked it up to Montréal General Hospital and found the walk in dental clinic and sat and waited for a few hours. We (very sensibly) had already phoned our insurance company who told us we were covered for up to £250 for dental pain relief only - so we were hoping they could cheaply do something for the pain!! After
View of Montréal
From Mont Royal lookout waiting a while and filling in a few forms Aled saw a doctor who had a look and x-rayed his teeth and established that his wisdom tooth needed extracting and that they could do it there and then but they would have wanted him back in a week to check up, and as we were only there til Sunday, this probably wasn't the best option. Therefore she prescribed him a week course of antibiotics and a strong antiseptic mouthwash (fun!) and said that it is the wisdom tooth is coming through in a normal way so hopefully this should sort it out! She also gave us a copy of the x-ray if it got worse after the pills (as I am typing this, he is on the last day of his antibiotics and it has got a lot better so fingers crossed!). The consultation, x-ray and 2 prescriptions was around $100, so not too bad but not great either! To Aled's horror he now realised he couldn't drink for a week and we were sad that the beer list would have to be continued in a week. After spending the morning and a lot of the afternoon at the hospital
we headed to a nearby park where we met Marie and Sonny and went on some pedalos on the lake! Marie and Sonny then headed home and we caught the metro to walk around Old Montréal. Old Montréal is very pretty and full of little cobbled streets, european style cafes and buskers. We took time to sample the local dish called Poutine which is fries covered in gravy and cheese curds - actually very tasty! We then headed back and spent the evening chilling out with Marie & Sonny.
The next day we headed out to a few shops so I could buy a new bag - my trusty shoulder bag (handbag thing) had severely gone downhill and was breaking and a I found a nice shiny new one in H&M. Good old H&M. We then headed to Old Montréal for another walk around and then to Mont Royal for relax for a few hours and rest our feet. We then headed to the Mont Royal lookout, where you can see an amazing view of the city. We saw a racoon which was very exciting! We headed back and Marie and Sonny cooked us a delicious dinner of Chicken Caesar Salad with brownies for dessert.
The next day we went to the nearby Jean-Talon market (famous Montréal market) which was awesome and really felt just like an amazing market in France. According to our guide book, Montréal is the second bagel capital of the world to New York and so we found the Farimount Bagel Bakery which was the original bagel bakery in Montréal and bought a few bagels (only 70 cents each) and a pot of cream cheese. They were absoutely delicious! We then headed to a pub called Brutopia (most of our plans seem alarmingly to revolve around food and drink...) which we had a few recommendations for - only to get there and remember that Aled couldn't drink. This place had hundreds of local ales so it is safe to say he was pretty upset!! We then went to the Musee d'Art Contemparin (Museum of Contempary Art) which was really good.
We did a lot of walking around in Montréal and only touched the surface! All in all, it was a very cool and friendly city with lots to do and lots of things going on if you live there - Marie and Sonny both grew up in Quebec City but moved to Montréal to study and live as it is a much more lively city! We had a great week here, and Marie let us do our laundry at their place and fed us breakfast a few times for which we were very very grateful!
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chris evans
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Really great catching up with you news Aled and beth. Always glad to hear that you are both okay despite the toothache Aled. Do hope that is better now. Montreal sounds wonderful and you seemed to have had a good time there yet again. Your hostess was wonderful and very friendly. Now you are off to Quebec City so Bon Voyage. we are fine and still enjoying hot weather and Owen too. We send our love Chris and Dave