[continued from last entry]
An admission: that last bit about two wheels in the air?
One space remained in the hotel's driveway, I claimed it, inserted my humble, no frills, salt-streaked Vermont Subaru amid Lexii, Mercedii, etc., a kind of company it's not used to and an indication of a choice made for this get-away. Namely, as a reward for having survived the thirty days out in the middle of northeast Vermont's imitation of the Siberian Steppes, I procured a room at a quality joint. Big, spacious, elegant lobby. Friendly bilingual help at the counter, doing their job quickly, without fuss, handing me the keycard to a room on the tenth floor that turned out to be four times the size of the hideyhole assigned to me in the B&B last summer. Tall windows stretching across most of the room's exterior wall, looking out on part of downtown Montréal, Mont Royal surging skyward behind tall buildings. The kind of place that generates fantasies of being able to live like that. (Hey, we all have our dreams, as short-lived as some of them may be.)
Dumped baggage, ran back downstairs to car, followed doorman's instructions to parking garage where I descended into the bowels of the Canadian earth and left the Subaru to hibernate for three days.
Post-unpacking, I hit the street, enjoying the cold, the international mix of people swirling along the sidewalks (cellphone blabbers everywhere), the blend of languages in the air. Not much snow around, but plenty of ice, the ugly urban kind, the kind that laughs at manly, lug-treaded, winter footwear. Making stretches of innocent-looking sidewalk unexpectedly tricky to navigate, necessitating a change in walking style from standard-issue human strides to short, tight, mincing steps designed to maximize the possibility of regaining balance should a foot slide unexpectedly in an undesired direction.
I'm not much of a fan of the Old Montréal district, or at least wasn't when I did the obligatory pass through last summer. Swamped with tourists. But as I'd recently been given a good recommendation for a bistro in that neighborhood, I decided to head down there, see how it went. Made the rusn-hour Metro ride (a walk in the park compared with after-work subway rides I've experienced in other places, the trip fast, easy, the train crowded by not in a tin-of-sardines way). Emerged aboveground just outside Vieux Montréal, streets nearly empty of traffic, few pedestrians about. Set off toward the St. Lawrence, holiday lights abounding, same as in Vermont, a friendly, effective countermeasure to the long, cold January nights (effective at least for holiday-light-loving freaks like myself). Shop windows shone nicely out into the evening. Passing women seemed to respond easily to a smile.
I located the correct street, turned a corner, found the restaurant. A sign in the entryway said they were closed until later this weekend. I stayed put for a minute staring at the notice, wistfully wishing it would morph into something more along the lines of WELCOME, TIRED, HUNGRY, ADORABLE TRAVELER! COME ON IN, THE MEAL'S ON US!, then gazed in at darkened space/empty tables, trying to use my feeble mental powers to transform closed/dark to open/busy, friendly staff and happy diners everywhere. Nothing doing.
Gave up, headed back the way I came. One lonely horse-drawn carriage passed, the passenger a middle-aged woman wrapped up in cold-weather clothes, the driver regaling her with loud bilingual patter, hooves' clip-clop echoing off the surrounding storefronts. A couple of blocks away, two or three other carriages waited in front across from a lovely, old church (its towers stretching up into the darkness, windows shining with blue light), the street empty of cars and potential customers, the hackeys standing about talking, rubbing hands briskly together, looking about as if wondering what the hell they were doing there.
I passed another bistro, the day's specials chalked onto a sidewalk sign (in French), a couple inside at a window seat deep into conversation, the sound of music drifting through the closed doors. My stomach counseled eating sooner rather than later, I gave in, stepped through the doors.
Lovely warm air. Loud music playing on in-house sound system. A waitress with a friendly face approached, said, "Bonsoir!", guided me to a table. The music turned out to be local radio, a Quebecois version of rush-goofy hour entertainment. A stream of Celine Dion style tunes threatened to crush my will to live until the happy, chattering tag team of DJs tossed Tony Bennett's version of Fly Me To The Moon into the mix, restoring some of my faith in life.
The waitress: excessively slim, excessively tanned. Skin looking tough and weathered from too much sun, possibly in combination with hard living. But with a nice smile and a nice manner. Food came, I shoveled it down, did some writing, sipped at a half-pint of pretty good Quebecois beer. An hour later, I was back out in the cold, heading back to the Metro across expanses of iced-up sidewalk. At some point during that hike, I wised up, began following local office workers heading to the Metro and home, people who were so familiar with the walk that they knew what course to take to avoid the slippery patches.
Back to hotel, fell into big, comfy bed, turned on the room's big TV. Channel after channel of French-language programming, the exceptions mostly American network trash. Shut it off, picked up a book.
End of day 1. Sort of.
[continued in following entry]
España, te echo de menos.
rws 3:47 PM [+]
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