Montreal, Part Two

It was suggested that leaving the Jamboree parked on Montreal's streets for over a week meant it could be a prime target for thieves, so I found a safe place to park it in the neighbouring community of St. Eustache while there.

The safe place is actually a hardwood flooring and granite counter top business. It happens to have a large lot attached, where the owner will allow people to park and store truck trailers or RVs. 50 dollars allowed me to leave the Jamboree on in the locked yard, guarded by a German Shepherd, for up to a month. So there the Jamboree sat for 10 days while I invaded my friends Fran and Dan's apartment in the centre of town.

While when leaving the Jamboree I initially felt a touch of apprehension akin to leaving my cat alone for a week, this week has been a welcome chance to stay put; a little holiday in its own right away from life on the road.

There were a few parties to occupy my nights, which included one night of Fran and her friend, Amy and I youtubing our favourites from the 80s and serenading the neighbourhood until 6am (which, of course, we were under the deluded impression that we gave extremely talented renditions until we woke to the foggy memory of it the next afternoon); once we got over that hangover, we induced another by dancing to 50s/60s soul/funk music spun my another of Fran's Montreal friends on a dance floor packed with university students.

We also attended a few possibly more acceptable cultural activities. One of these included a thought-provoking, absorbingly cool, and gratis exhibition by the artist Michal Rovner; if you get a chance to see her stuff, wherever in the world the exhibition is, GO! You'll not regret it. Another was the World Press Photo, which originates in my beautiful Amsterdam and then tours to major cities around the world. Same advice to offer as Michal's work.

Since I was taking advantage of Fran and Dan's generous hospitality for over a week, I also had a chance to do more everyday things, like hang out in a cafe sipping au soyas and reading, exercising at the Y, and making dinners and baking muffins in the kitchen. I met up with Melanie for a day, a friend from Tokyo who I hadn't seen since we both left 9 years ago. I spent several afternoons walking around, one in which I had planned to spend behind the lens of my camera but, of course, once I got a good enough distance away from home to not want to turn around again and I finally took the camera out, the batteries died. Luckily, I had another afternoon to try again.

Chinatown was closeby, so we ate a few dinners there. One was at the Little Sheep, a Mongolian “Hot Pot” restaurant where you have your own electric stovetop burner on the table in front of you. The waitress puts down a pot of broth - your choice of regular, spicy, or a half and half mix. The flavours are floating in the broth- many forms of unidentifiable balls, some which looked like nutmeg, chilis, garlic slivers. You fill your plate at the buffet with an array of veggies, tofus, noodles, fish, and, if you aren't a vegetarian like me, meat. Plop it at your leisure into the soup, let it cook, eat it, top it off with sauces such as soya or sesame. Mmm.

That wasn't the only culinary delight I experienced in Montreal. I also gorged on poutine while everyone else tried to get their mouths around Montreal smoked meat sandwiches one evening.

I returned to the wood and granite shop in St. Eustache to retrieve the Jamboree, and when I saw it parked quietly as I had left it ten days earlier, I mistakenly, fondly, thought that it was waiting patiently for me to return. When I got into it, unpacked, and lovingly found my way behind the wheel again, I turned the key in the ignition, expecting to hear its familiar rumble to life. Sadly, I discovered that, while when I left I had emptied it, I had irresponsibly left the fridge turned on the whole time, drawing on propane and battery power, and so was confronted with a very silent and unmoving Jamboree.

My mom has flown into Montreal to join me for a week to explore Quebec a bit more. There are so many reasons why I'm happy to have my mom with me for a week here in Quebec. And not least of all, because she was the one who finally got out of the passenger seat of the Jamboree after ten minutes of watching the boys from the shop try to boost the Jamboree's battery without even a hint of a twitch, to inform them that they had it hooked up incorrectly; thirty seconds later, the Jamboree roared back to life, the boys smiled somewhat embarrasedly and thanked her for showing them how to boost an engine. And mom and I were on our way.

To Fran's mom's place in Lachute. A small town about half an hour north of Montreal where Fran grew up, I (and mom) were once again treated to outstanding hospitality at the hands of almost strangers. Who quickly became, not strangers.

And so mom and I go to find the colours of Quebec in September.

Montreal Pics:

Montreal