Montreal: Part Deux

DAY THREE:
Honestly, girls, we really need to learn to sleep in! But up we were along with the sun and down we went for breakfast in our little, personal breakfast nook. Though today we noticed a few more places set at other tables. Ahha, we DID hear some awkward noises from above the night before.

While the breakfast foods were quite nice and filling, the coffee was unsatisfactory to my or Lauren's taste so cue a quest! We ended up finding a great little coffee shop a block from City Hall called Les Chausseurs (maybe? And that translates as shoes! maybe...) that put a delicious chocolate star atop each of our creamy creations. Delicious! Heavily trumped Starbucks. Though that didn't stop our random drop-ins for coffee there either. :-D

Since we knew rain and cloudy skies were on the horizon for the weekend, we decided to hike the summit today! And a beautiful, albeit warm, day it was!

We metro'd near the summit's base and then stared up the...up the....and it's still going...up the road to where the entrance to the trail was. Let's just say, if I lived here I'd never have to go to the gym. I swear we were climbing vertical at one point. It's true. I swear.

Let's focus on the beads of sweat painting my forehead shimmery. Oh, and now we're walking 2+ miles uphill for a view of the city...oh, and this was my idea? Awesome.

Suffice it to say, I will let the pictures speak for themselves as it really was a very pretty walk!

Look at his tail! We (read: I) was so obsessed!

Made it to the top! On a clear day (there's some haze in the background) I can only imagine the view!

Some very nice Canadian girls took this for us. Here's how I know they were Canadian. Me: "Where are y'all visiting from?" Them: "Toronto." Me: "Oh, so you're Canadians." Thank goodness I've got my looks (pah!) 'cause I surely don't have my smarts! Really it's that I have zero filter on what I'm thinking coming out of my mouth.

Go UST Celts!

After our hefty trek up, we enjoyed the leaning back version of walking we had to do down that damn street. But at the bottom, we found a nice little Italian restaurant and enjoyed some terrace eating. Terraces everywhere! People are constantly outdoors here and it's amazing!

Metro'ing back I felt like we had become quite the pro's. I love the Metro. Have I mentioned this already? Well, I do.

We relaxed in the hotel room briefly (and also where I downed quite a few iBuprofen [which became my lower back's best friend on this trip]) before walking down to the plaza (reference: photo from Day One) and ordering some dessert and coffee.

Now, the dessert was normal, outside of the Quebecian specialty known as Sugar Pie (and my GOSH it was good!), but our coffee orders stumped our waiter. And ACTION.

Waiter: "Bonjour, what can I get for you this evening?"
Jess: "Well, we'd like the Chocolate Explosion, the Ice Cream cake and the Sugar Pie for dessert. I'd also like a coffee with Bailey's."
Lauren: "I'd like coffee with Creme de menthe, please."
Me: "Same for me."
At this point, the waiter looks at Lauren and I funnily, but walks off nonetheless. No less than a minute later he comes back out with a quizzical look on his face.
Waiter: "You want the creme de menthe in the coffee? Not beside it?"
Lauren and I: "Right, in the coffee."
Waiter: "You're sure? In the coffee."
We're all laughing at this point so we reply yes, please! He proceeds to tell us he has NEVER heard of this before, that he will have to try it later tonight, and we told him he should so he could then sell it. It's delicious!

And SCENE. Special thanks to: Starbucks, whose Creme de Menthe mocha got me hooked oh so long ago in my Senior year of High School; Katy Langley for introducing me to this concoction.

We polished our desserts and with warm bellies from the coffee, we made our way to the Ghost Hunt that I was most excitedly anticipating!  There were five large groups of people that went on this "hunt" and we were in the English speaking group. Surprisingly, there were several people in our group that were native French speakers choosing to instead converse in English for the night.  I swear the French explanation took far longer than the English one and with my brief knowledge of the language, I know that that's impossible because the French love words. Long ones. And ones that you ignore the final letter in. Always. Honestly, French...be an easier language!

Who you gonna call? Obviously the answer is three CPA's from Texas.

 We got a map and were on our way with 6+ young boys in tow who only had two chaperones. And who ultimately needed quite a few more to be kept in hand.  We found our first ghost who was murdered by her best friend and shows up every seven years where she was killed. The next time is July 2019 for anyone interested.

Please note the little $h*t$ in the background.

 And like all good Canadians, she wasn't a fan of guns and quickly snatched one kid's toy gun and placed it high atop the concrete wall behind her. We get it...Canada has fewer deaths and no gun rights...we GET IT!

We left the first ghost and found our next one tucked around a corner a few blocks away.  She had eerie eye makeup and jet black hair with garb befitting Salem witch trial era. She hummed her way around our group, never making eye contact before detailing her grizzly demise.

The short and lovely: she found herself possessed by the devil and cast hex upon hex on her former betrothed and his bride, cursed to not have children. She was caught and burned at the stake but her hexed former lover never was able to have children and died not long after she did. Spurned women...watch yo'self. The two ladies whose heads are in this photo were two gals in our group around our age that we ended up chatting with and getting the lowdown on where the hip spots in town were. Just as I'd hoped would happen!

Third ghost: Poor Jess kept being the culprit for either outting the ghost or causing their death or in this case, his lover. Awesome.

Sadly, I do not have a photo of the fourth ghost for several reasons.
1) At first I wasn't sure he wasn't just some bum (of which there were plenty around us).
2) He told us his story in a dark back alley. Yeah.
3) Partway through the introduction, the aforementioned kids started being disruptive and rude.
4) The ghost quit talking and walked away, still in character and all the adults looked at one another like, WTH?

We shut the kids up and told the ghost we wanted to hear his story. After that, the kids didn't say much and we made our way back to the meeting place to drop off our maps. I was moments away from slapping my hand on the shoulder of the worst offenders and squeezing should he open his mouth. Thankfully, I didn't cause an international incident and we concluded our night with a nice dinner.


DAY FOUR:

The gals and I finally slept in! Well, half an hour counts! We watched some Scooby Doo, classic, then had breakfast, noting even more plates than they day before.  Our hotel was filling up!

Today our goal was to thoroughly explore the Botanical Gardens, the Montrèal Tower and the Biodome. Lofty goal, my friends...but we accomplished it with flourish!

Cue music!

We played in the kiddie area of the Botanical Gardens:

No tin men were harmed in the taking of this photo. Don't judge me.

And after a botched attempt to take a group photo via an unstable bale of hay...

...a very nice, very pregnant lady offered to take our photo. Why, thank you for taking a moment to notice the ridiculous American tourists playing in the kiddie area and failing miserably.

Success!

We stopped in the Insectarium and I learned I weigh 4.5M ants. Awesome. When I stepped off, making some funny comment, a very large man goes, "Don't worry, I was off the charts."

Yes...I bet you were, sir. Thank you for sharing, Captain Obvious.

We wandered the expansive gardens, unfortunately missing out on all the beautiful flowers but instead getting to indulge in some tree love!

Maidenhair tree: aptly named considering the leaves were so plush I felt like I could lay down on a pile of them and sleep for hours. Oh, we still have more walking to do? Drat.

Conclusion: these gardens are HUGE! The dogs were barking but the Tower and Biodome were still calling. Onwards, my friends!

Up...

Up...

Up we go!

The view at the top was great! I sure can't figure out what all we were looking at but it was still great to see!

And on to the Biodome. If this phrase makes you want to start singing and dancing to Safety Dance, don't worry, you're not alone.

With four different environments ranging from Tropical to Antarctic, it was quite the experience.

Tropical! Talk about sweltering. I felt like we were back home!

Don't go chasin' waterfalls...

I was so fascinated by seeing the windows to the outside next to this amazing environment.

Grr, baby. We've now moved to a more tepid climate for this guy. Thank goodness, no more sweating!

Told you I was fascinated.

Well, hello there, Mr. Eel! Best part about the dome and each environment had to be all the jack'o'lanterns in each habitat. They treat Halloween like a proper holiday here and we LOVED it!

After an exhausting day we Metro'd home like the Old Hats that we were...

Success! Only took about 50K tries but that's me on the left and Jess on the right. YAY!

And quickly refreshed ourselves for the lights show at the Notre Dame Basilica and a night out, but this time where the cool kids go.

On our way! This picture only took 80K times.

Notre Dame! Hey, pretty lady!

Inside the basilica. The show turned out to be pretty kooky, but the lights were beautiful!

After the show, we went back to Rue Saint Catherine and ate at a restaurant next to where we lunched after the summit. We had the best service by FAR of the trip and it was from The Mask. Oh yes, green face and head paint, yellow zuit suit...the works. We walked around in search of Sugar Pie, thank you for agreeing to that girls, before returning to watch a live cover band. They turned out to be pretty good and so were the fru-fru drinks being served.

Before the clock struck midnight and the Metro stopped running, we bolted like Cinderella back to our hotel. The night was capped with a view of our terrace and a big snooze button that zapped us all before 1AM.

And still we were up with the sun...to be concluded next time! The police run-ins, the crepes, the Metro, oh my!