Montreal Trip, Part II

Part I here.

After the Hotel de Ville of Montreal, we wandered vaguely towards the Metro station. It was about 4pm, and we weren't quite ready to go back but weren't sure what to do next. Dan suggested going down to the waterfront, so we headed in that direction. When we got there we saw the Science Museum, but it was about to close so that was out. We turned left and walked down the path along the water. There was some kind of island accessible via a pedestrian bridge that looked interesting to me.

Then Charlie spotted the zipline.

The zipline tower looked quite tall, even from a distance. The zipline went out towards the river and seemed to terminate somewhere in the island. Charlie immediately said "I want to do that!!" I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, but in the interest of keeping the kids moving, we decided to check it out.  As we got close to the tower, we noticed a pair of what seemed like full-size wooden ships on the ground, with an assortment of cables, wood planks rope nets, and other obstacles suspended between the boats. Lots of people were navigating the adventure courses, some of which were way up in the air! They looked like they were having fun.

Kids: “CAN WE GO ON THAT???!!! IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!” The zipline was immediately forgotten. Fifteen minutes later, we all had harnesses and helmets and were ready for our adventure. It was pretty late in the day when we started (turns out that we got there about 15 minutes before they stopped letting people in), and you can’t take cameras on the course, so unfortunately the pictures we took were pretty dark even after some attempts at lightening them up.

The adventure course is called Voiles En Voiles (Sails in Sails). Here is a photo I found that shows the course during the daytime: You can also visit their website at voilesenvoiles.com for more photos.

Photo from nowevent.blogspot.com. The zipline tower is in the left background.

There were 5 different courses of varying heights and difficulty. We started on an easy one, about 10 feet off the ground. The highest one was 35 feet high! I wasn’t sure I was up for that. We tackled the first course with Alice in the lead and me in the rear. The courses each started from the deck of one of the two ships. We completed the first course, which was challenging but fun. I made it to the deck just to see Charlie vanishing up the stairs to the upper level. “Wait! Isn’t that the high one??” I called out. No answer. So I followed anyway. Turns out it WAS the high one.

And it was REALLY high! Even though I was wearing a harness, it was still disconcerting to be traversing a sequence of swaying logs so far above the ground. Alice had a moment where I think she regretted her decision to pick that course, but she overcame her fear and we all were proud of conquering the high course. We finished the rest of the courses plus the zipline strung between the two ships. After that, the kids revisited their favorite courses while Dan and I alternated taking photos:

Charlie (near left with brown pants) and Alice (blue pants)

Charlie on the high course (again!)

Alice on the high course

Dan and Alice on the high course

Dan and Alice finishing up a course

Me and Charlie

The kids thought it was great fun to slide using the safety cable

Everyone had a fantastic time. I think for the kids it was the highlight of our entire East Coast adventure so far! We highly recommend it if you’re visiting Montreal in the summer.

After our two hours were up at Voiles en Voiles, we wandered back to Place Jaques-Cartier for a late al fresco dinner that was low on food quality but high on ambience, including a good view of the street performers (who alternated between French and English. It was fascinating). Dan did get some more poutine though.

The next morning before leaving Montreal we walked over to the Bell Centre where the Montreal Canadiens play, and took some photos with the commemorative statues. 

Guy LaFleur

Maurice “The rocket” Richard

Our trip home was marred a bit by a 2-hour border crossing. We never found out why, but there were a ton of vehicles crossing back into the US that clogged up the crossing. That nixed any plans to stop somewhere on our way back, but since a Google Maps detour due to traffic took us right by the New Hampshire border, we decided to add another state to the kids’ list.

New Hamster!

There was an old bridge next to the (relatively) new bridge nearby, so being the geeky structural engineers we are, Dan and I forced Charlie and Alice to go with us to check it out. 

Award for most beautiful steel bridge of 1937!

I was hoping that we would find someplace in Vermont to go for a short foliage walk, but due to the border crossing, we elected to head straight home. I did get a couple of photos out of the car window:

The foliage was not quite peak but still pretty spectacular.

It was a tiring weekend, but so worth it! We all agreed that Montreal was a blast. Full props to Dan for organizing and making it happen. Thanks honey!

Montreal Trip Part I

Back in mid-October the kids had Columbus Day off from school so we took the opportunity to visit Montreal for the three-day weekend. Dan had been to Montreal before (his parents grew up in Montreal and all his siblings were born in Quebec), but Quebec was a new province for the kids and me.

On Saturday we drove up through Massachusetts and Vermont, stopping at Ben and Jerry’s in Waterbury, Vermont along the way. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start in the morning, so we were unable to take the factory tour. We did of course get some ice cream though.

Dan and I had cones, while the kids opted for milkshakes.

Not sure if I am Ben and Dan is Jerry, or vice versa

We visited the “Flavor Graveyard”, which was surprisingly hilarious:

Dan was sad while remembering the demise of Rainforest Crunch

I don’t remember this flavor but we loved the Monty Python reference.

We made it to Montreal around 7pm, found our hotel and had some dinner at a local restaurant, where we were greeted with a hearty “Bonsoir!”. While French is the primary language, fortunately almost everyone speaks English. While my conversational French is pretty horrible, one morning I did actually manage to order my McDonald’s breakfast completely in French (“Un café grande avec lait et sucre et un Oeuf McMuffin, s’il vous plait” “Avec jambon ou saucisse?” “Jambon, s’il vous plait”)*

Dan did a great job picking the hotel location, which was within walking distance of Mont Royal and Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal). Alice liked the hotel because it was “fancy”. We had a great view of Downtown and Mont Royal (Royal Mountain, although more of a hill than a mountain) from our room on the 15^th floor:

 The hill in the distance is Mont Royal

View with kid silhouettes:

Alice named this building “The Cat Building”:

Sunday morning we walked to Mont Royal and took the stairs up to the viewing area near the Chateau.

 That’s the Saint-Laurent river in the background.

It was a little breezy up there.

After trekking back down the 400-odd steps (Charlie and I counted them on the way down but we don’t remember the exact number), we walked back to the hotel. On our way we managed to find an entrance to the “Underground City”, which is a bunch of Montreal building basements connected by tunnels. Apparently you can get to a large portion of the city without ever going above ground (very useful in winter!) The part we saw was basically like a ginormous underground shopping mall. We had lunch at one of the food courts. Dan finally got his poutine** (he was hoping to get some during our trip through Ontario, but didn’t get the chance).

Poutine!!

After lunch we took the Metro to the Notre Dame Basilica in the Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal) quarter, the oldest area in the city. The basilica is fairly nondescript from the outside, but the inside was absolutely breath-taking.

The altar area. 

The whole church was covered in beautiful carvings, gold-painted filigree and the side aisles included numerous stained glass windows and oil paintings. The pipe organ had approximately 7,000 pipes.

Close-up of the altar area

After the basilica, we wandered along the narrow cobblestone streets of Vieux-Montreal, ending up on Place Jaques-Cartier, a plaza including the oldest Montreal monument, Nelson’s Column. Across the street was the Hotel de Ville of Montreal, which I only just now figured out is the Montreal City Hall and not a historic hotel. In front of City Hall there were some gorgeous planting beds:

Alice next to a huge urn made out of plants

The kids and I in front of the Montreal emblem.

 To be continued...
 

*We mostly ate breakfast at Tim Hortons because that’s just what you do in Canada, but by Monday I wanted something a little less donutty. The kids and Dan were at Tim Hortons while I grabbed my own petit déjuner at Mcdonald's.

**Poutine is French fries topped with gravy and cheese curds and is a Quebecois delicacy.

Connecticut: The List Edition

This past Friday marked our 8th full week in Connecticut! We have been trying to make good use of our time here, as the weather will no doubt limit our tourist options in November and December. So far we have (in no particular order):


1. Visited Mystic, CT and the Mystic Seaport Museum of America and the Sea. We did not make it to Mystic Pizza. Next trip!

 Aboard the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship

2. Taken the train to NYC, and visited Central Park, Rockefeller Center and Times Square

 Times Square

3. Visited Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA

 Trying out the hoops

4. Red Sox game at Fenway Park (vs. Orioles!)

 Alice got a free Red Sox cap!

5. Quinnipiac Men’s Hockey Game
6. Ben and Jerry’s Factory in Waterbury, VT. Yum!
7.  Spent 2 days in Montreal, QC.

 Atop Mont Royal

8. Visited the Pez Factory in Orange, CT
9.  Walked across the Hudson River on the world’s longest elevated pedestrian bridge in Poughkeepise, NY

10. Visited the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY
11. Taken the ferry to Block Island, RI

 At the Mohegan Bluffs

12. Visited the Yale Planetarium in New Haven, CT.
13. Visited the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford, CT

After 8 weeks in Connecticut, here is my current assessment:

Stuff I Like About Living in Connecticut

1. Good bagels. Now I remember why I stopped eating bagels after we moved to CA.
2. Fall foliage
3. Apple picking in proper apple picking weather (i.e. not 80 degrees and dusty with bees everywhere)
4. Apple cider donuts
5. New York City is a day trip
6. Lots and lots of trees. If it’s not developed, then it’s forest.
7. Small class sizes in the schools
8. Lots of “extras” in the schools like fully funded art and music programs
9. School district has a gifted program
10. Free bus to school
11. Most streets are only two-lane so easy driving
12. Great town library with tons of books, activities and parking. Cheshire is smaller than SLO and their library is about twice as big. Plus, the library is only a 10 minute walk away!
13. Squirrels
14. The nearest Mall is only 15 minutes away
15. Chik-Fil-A
16. Cheap seltzer water
17. Self-checkout at the local supermarket and Costco (and the cool hand-held scanners at the supermarket.
18. Low gas prices ($2.20/gal or so recently)
19. Nearby gymnastics center offers a Ninja Warrior class with an actual American Ninja Warrior finalist (kids are loving it!)
20. Year-round indoor ice skating rinks
21. Local indoor trampoline jump zone
22. Nearby multi-use path at least 20 miles long. Also it's flat!
23. Huge Lands’ End section in the local Sears store.
24. Crunching through leaves while walking
25. Nearby IKEA

It's not all a bed of roses though:

 Stuff I Don't Like About Living Connecticut

1. Street lanes that suddenly appear and then just as suddenly disappear
2. Jerky drivers (Among other observed jerky behaviors, there seems to be a rule that you should never be the first to stop when a light turns red.)
3. Tailgaters (I’m looking at you, New York license plates)
4. People who smoke (too many)
5. People who litter (too many)
6. No street signs for major roads. Not that it really matters because the street name will change in a mile or two anyway so why bother to learn the name.
7. People are generally unwelcoming of outsiders (the kids have noticed this at school too)
8. Kids at school are generally noisy and not well behaved (or so my kids say).
9. Not much physical activity at school. They get about 15 minutes of recess at lunch and P.E once a week. Morning snack is eaten at their desk.
10. Cold weather. It’s not even that cold yet and I’m over it.
11. Kids have lots of homework
12. The school start times are staggered and the kids have a long bus ride in the afternoon so they don’t get home until 4:20. Really puts a dent in the afternoon.
13. The construction next door. Fortunately they mostly seem to be over the noisy part by now.

I think that sums up our first 8 weeks pretty well! Looking forward to seeing what the next 9-ish weeks hold. Hopefully snow at some point! (But not too much snow.)