Happily a smooth and relatively uneventful day – all travel days should go so well.
We were up before 7am and finished tossing the last minute toothbrush, contact cases, cellphone chargers, etc. into the bags, gave our unimpressed pooch a pat as we left, and sailed to the airport on a clear and mild morning.
We hit the airport at about 8:20am and had no waits while we printed out a baggage tag, pushed our suitcase passed the agent and onto the conveyer, and waved our phone passes at the security check. Not a pause as we passed through the sacred arch, not a peep as our personal effects passed through the black box.
Oddly, the seats we had chosen yesterday now belonged to someone else, but we were assigned new seats together and no one seemed displaced.
Victoria to Calgary, no hiccups. At YYC we had a quick turn-around and found ourselves back onboard about a half hour later – oddly repeating the new seat exercise – this time in the back row of our plane. Still, no incidents, and we shared a comfortable 4 hour journey with a native Montrealer who had just been to a family wedding in Calgary. Clare was not keen on the take-off or landing, but seemed happy enough to tell us about her children and grandchildren during the flight. We also watched a couple of TV episodes we had pre-loaded to the laptop, and played and read our way through the air.
Montreal was a clear and comfortable 21C when we arrived at 6:40pm. We had a short delay while another plane departed from our gate and then disembarked, claimed our luggage and found a cab inside half an hour. The flat fare ride to Le Nouvel Hotel was uneventful – our cabbie was constrained by some slower traffic but we were not waiting long.
Le Nouvel is so far unremarkable – the staff is friendly and the place is clean. The TV is apparently set not to allow any external connections from HDMI cables so we probably won’t watch anything I brought on the big screen, but I don’t expect we’ll be here long anyway.
We were in our room long enough to sort our things, then it was back out to the street for a stroll and a bite to eat. We found the UPSTAIRS jazz club very nearby, but unfortunately they were very full and turning away people without reservations. We cruised up to Rue Sainte-Catherine and wandered awhile and found the Irish Embassy patio off Rue Bishop.
Sharon had a Caesar salad and I had a roast steak, both of which were very nicely done. But also nice was just sitting on a patio of an evening on a city side street watching people out laughing, making deals, starting their weekend. Montreal is not Toronto, but tonight it felt more like Toronto than any other city I know – the sounds, smells, lighting, movement of air – these have an energy here that unlike laid-back Victoria or insurance-saturated London. But only a tiny taste of it tonight.
We wandered the main drag after dinner awhile longer – it was nearly 10pm now but many places were still open and the crowds were fairly thick – and then returned to our hotel. Along the way we passed the Grey Nuns residence where Mimi is finishing up her conference – she’s literally just across the street! We’ll see her tomorrow at lunch and hear about her week then.
Back at our room we watched a couple more TV episodes and then decided to call it a night. Tomorrow our adventure begins in earnest!