Weathering the Storm

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I woke up around 4:30 am, as I do most every night, looked out the winter and saw nothing but white, the snow storm had begun. Later at around 7 am Jerry got up and took a few pictures of the city below. Our room has a river view, but today you wouldn’t know it is really there. We stayed in the warmth of our king size bed for about another hour, then got up to go down to our buffet breakfast. For a hotel buffet, it was actually good, Jerry even said that the breakfast potatoes were some of the best restaurant potatoes he had ever had, and that is saying a lot, since he is very persnickety when it comes to breakfast potatoes. No pictures of the food, it was just your normal breakfast fair, but the mini croissants were very good.

These have changed since the days of being a child, we would have never stayed in a hotel like this, simply could not afford it growing up because my parents had a family to raise, mortgage to pay, etc. Today, there were families everywhere, and not small families, I really don’t see how they afford it, when staying here is actually a splurge for us, and it is just the two of us. Ah, well, guess that is why kids grow up with the sense of entitlement they have these days. They were all well behaved, actually better behaved than a few of the adults in the restaurant.

We are back in the room and Jerry is getting ready to go out. Not sure what we are really going to do, since it is snowing and 18 degrees out. We might explore the underground or see where we can get on the metro. I think the original plan was to explore the old city, which is where we are staying, but I am not sure we are dressed to survive a lot of walking around in the Canadian tundra.

We didn’t actually accomplish much today. We did discover how to access the underground, which made getting around much warmer than being above ground. Montreal has an extensive underground network of passages, connected to metro stops and business are also connected not to mention the ones that exist only in the underground. In fact, we can get from our hotel to the train station without ever going above ground, so we could have walked here last night when we arrived, despite what the Via Rail employee said. It can be confusing but there are signs pointing the way in most locations and we only made one wrong turn.

So once we got in the underground we were able to walk within three blocks of the army surplus store on St. Laurent. Now I am sure you are asking why we went to the army surplus store in the first place, well to buy appropriate winter storm clothing of course. It is the cheapest place to get warm clothing. We purchased galoshes for both of us, fur lined leather gloves for me, wool socks for me and a new wool scarf. The galoshes are supposed to fit directly over your shows, which did for Jerry, but of course my feet and shoes are to big so they didn’t have any that were big enough for me. So instead we just got a pair that I could wear, well I tried them on but failed to zip them up. Needless to say later when we were in the room getting ready to go back out, we discovered there was no way they were going to zip up with my fat calves. So that was a bust, but they didn’t cost that much, and the gloves were worth the trip. Besides now that we discovered the underground we really don’t need them.

We needed to get our daily cash allotment from the ATM so we walked to the Scotiabank, which was two blocks, we braved the increasing blizzard like weather, only to discover on our way back, that we could have got to the bank via the underground directly from our hotel and not even worn coats. We can get to the metro directly from our hotel via the underground, so the rest of our time here should be much easier to get around. Yes, we will still have to brave the snow now and then but only for a few blocks at a time.

After getting our cash, we went to the hotel bar to take advantage of our 2 for 1 drink coupons we got when we checked in, I am nothing if not my mother’s son and never pass up a coupon especially for drinks. This was our first official wine-thirty of the trip. We sat at the bar and watched the other customers try their luck at Absinthe and discussed what we would do the rest of our trip. For the moment we are back in the room chilling, will head out in a bit for dinner, will be our first trip on the metro. Oh, we did check out the pool on the 10^th floor, that will not be used, way too many screaming and splashing children, can’t they make adult hotels, where children just aren’t allowed. For god sakes, they are even siting at the bars here.

So I titled today weathering the storm, which we have not done so well. We didn’t see anything in the city today, when we went to the place we had picked out for dinner, it was closed, and not just for the night but permanently because it’s for sale, building and all. The only reason we chose this place because it was off the beaten path, guess it was far too off the path to survive. We did have a lovely metro ride, much cleaner and nicer than the good old New York subway.

By the time we got back to the hotel room to find a new place to eat, it was 8:30, we looked through Open Table, the internet our guide books, but everything was either too expensive or was not what we were in the mood for. Finally, we decided to just go to the restaurant in the hotel. That also turned out to be a bust, they were still serving the Christmas Eve menu. We ended up with room service, and there is only one person working that, so we will see how that turns out. To add to everything else, Jerry is getting sick, so likely won’t be doing much tomorrow either, especially if it turns in to his normal major cold.

It just has not been a good day, so hopefully Jerry won’t get sicker and things will pick up tomorrow. And no, no pictures of room service food, it just is not worth the blog.

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