End of the Road

So I'm back in America, but I thought I would update on the rest of my trip.

My foot is back to normal. After Quebec City,we returned to Montreal. The hostel in Montreal was a bit miserable, so spending time out of it as much as possible was preferable.

Montreal was quite nice. It was a place that I would rather live than visit, though. We spent five days in Montreal, and frankly it was too much time. We had run out of things to do by the end of our time there. That doesn't mean we had a bad time though. The food in Montreal is really incredible. We had smoked meat (known in the States in pastrami) at Schwartz', possibly the most famous restaurant in Montreal. We were crammed into a table with a bunch of other people. We ordered the "medium" fatty cut of meat, and ate a humongous portion of it. Delish. Boy do I love meat.

Bagels are another Montreal classic. Some assert that the best bagels in the world are made in Montreal. Now I haven't tasted the bagels everywhere so I can't tell you if this is true or not. What I can tell you is that they are definitely different from the bagels I've had in America. The ones here are very doughy. The ones in Montreal are very chewy. They get made in a brick oven and the dough is soaked in honey infused water. The result is a chewy, slighty sweet bagel. First we had bagels at St. Viateur's. These bagels were on bagel sandwiches. The sandwich itself was good, but the bagel was hard and not that tasty. Towards the end of our trip we went to Fairmount bagels. These bagels were very good. They sold only bagels, no bagel sandwiches. You could buy cream cheese but only from a tub. So Leah and I bought a tub of cream cheese and a bunch of bagels and tore off our bagels piece by piece and dunked them in cream cheese. We had two each. And this was AFTER we had just had lunch. Tells you that we really couldn't wait til the next day to eat them.

In the center of Montreal there is the aptly named Mont Royal (after which the city is named). It is Montreal's equivalent of New York's Central Park, only with more altitude. Our first day in Montreal we had no idea where we were going and ended up on this hour long hike up the mountain, to places unknown. By our last day there, we had figured out that there was a bus that would take you up the mountain. On our last day there we took the bus up, then walked a short distance to the Chalet there.



Leah found out quickly on our trip that I am a sucker for a good view. As Montreal and Quebec City are quite hilly the trip became an ever evolving game of finding the best view. The view from the Chalet was probably the best view. Our guide book told us that you can see the Northern Appalachians from here, though I'm not quite sure about that. I do know that the view was incredible, and you could definitely see a lot of mountains from Mont Royal.

We also visited the Oratorie, the largest shrine to St. Joseph (Jesus' earthly father) in the World. It was quite magnificent. Very Montmartre looking. Another climb up it. I thought I would get a bit of a rest on this trip, but it turned into a lot of climbing. Well, at least all the food we ate didn't go straight to our hips. Even with four meals a day, I think I might have lost weight.

Travelling with another person can be an eye-opening experience. One thing I never realized about myself is how much I eat. I can REALLY put it away. One day we had a really pleasant picnic by a lake in Montreal, and Leah would have a piece of bread with some cheese on it, and in the same amount of time, I would eat two sandwiches with cheese and roast beef. I don't know really how to explain this, except maybe I just have a really high metabolism? I do walk much faster than everyone I know. Hmm... Might also explain how inevitably all talk on this blog turns to food. I blame my food obsessed family for this. When you grow up with a family who talks about dinner while we're having lunch, you do become a bit focused on food. That and having a lot of good cooks in a family, I suppose.



We also visited a BBQ place out in the suburbs of Montreal. This was a sort of bizarre trip. We got off the subway and entered the restaurant and everyone was speaking English to one another, even the people who worked there. Although I wanted to speak French I figured I'd fit in here not speaking French. The chicken was good, but there was no BBQ sauce to speak of like there is on chicken in the South. There was this spicy gravy to dip it in. Very different, and I have to say I like the BBQ in America better.



One day we also headed to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens) in Montreal. I figured that this would be fun for a couple of hours, but we ended up spending the whole day out there. It is the second largest gardens of its kind in the world, after Kew Gardens in England. It is pretty neat. There is a Japanese garden and a Chinese garden there, an Alpine garden, a poisonous plants garden, a functional plants garden, and a huge arborium. Plants are neat, that's all I can say after seeing some of these incredible plants.



On the way home, we had a stopover in Memphis. Boy am I glad we did. I had the best BBQ in the airport, Jim Neely's BBQ. It was incredible. Memphis is a small airport, but it has good food. It made the next flight, where we were flying above a tropical storm bearable. That, plus the nice grandmother, Pat, who I sat next to and chatted with for the flight.

Hope you enjoyed my blogs about Canada! Next time I travel...you'll know where to find me.

Emily