On Saturday morning I awoke early to pick up a package at the post office. Actually, I woke up even earlier due to Mike’s alarm clock going off around 5AM and he wasn’t at home and had not shut it off beforehand. Unfortunately for me, it was one of those alarm clocks which get progressively louder!
I headed to the post office but had not realized that I was reading the wrong ‘Hours of Operation’ and ended up there an hour early. Considering Eric and Annie’s place was just around the corner, I figured they would be up on this fine Saturday morning and so I headed over there and grabbed a bowl of cereal. We also had a quick game of Settlers of Catan which Eric won. Hey Eric, don’t forget to update the Catan spreadsheet.
After picking up my package I got ready to pick up Vero at the mall and then we headed out to Alfred. You see, we were off to Montreal for the night! It was Marie-Claude’s birthday last Wednesday and we were going to surprise her by all going down to Montreal. She was quite surprised when she arrived in Alfred to see all of us there and we piled into a couple of cars and headed towards the big city.
We arrived into Laval around 3PM and booked into our rooms as the Radisson. They had these really neat beds which could adjust whether your wanted your bed to be soft or hard. I thought that was pretty cool.
After searching for a corkscrew, a bunch of people took off to get some alcohol across the street at the mall and unfortunately they didn’t realize I was going to follow them a few minutes afterwards! I could not see anyone so I headed over to the mall in search of the SAQ for some evening drinks.
After hitting up the SAQ I ran through the mall looking for some place that would sell me some juice and water. Unfortunately, this shopping mall had nothing so I toured the neighbourhood in search for a corner store. I ended up back at the hotel and asking the receptionist where I could drive to and there was a corner store across the highway. I hopped in my car, picked up the necessary beverages and headed back to the hotel. Everyone felt bad that they didn’t know I was coming along but there was no real harm done! We cracked a few drinks, called a few people up to let them know what plans were and just reveled in life.
Unfortunately the restaurant they wanted to go to was booked so we ended up at an Italian place down the street. I have no idea what came over me (perhaps a few drinks?) but upon one smell of my pasta dish I really lost my appetite and I couldn’t eat most of it. Very strange. The restaurant was nice though and we had some good laughs.
After dinner, half of us piled into a car and the other half piled into a taxi to head downtown. Unfortunately, Laval is a little off the map from downtown so the taxi cost quite a bit to get there. We ended up in a night club called La Rouge and it was pretty dead in there (but it was still pretty early) so we managed to get a table to sit at for awhile, but they let us know that when the patrons who reserved it showed up, we would have to move. Turns out that in order to reserve a booth on the sidelines at this club, you had to order some $100 bottle of wine (no Maren, I didn’t get to see the name of the bottle!). I thought that it was a little overkill to have to pay $100 to reserve a booth.
We ended up dancing to some amazingly good tunes but then some people wished to leave and it timed well with meeting up with Philipp who was waiting outside. The club was packed to the gills at this point in the night and it literally took me fifteen minutes just to get my coat from the coat check and make my way outside.
Outside, it was pouring rain which wasn’t too good for Philipp, Jean and Catherine (Katherine? Katharine? Whatever way you want to spell it…) but they were troopers and I was happy to see them. We then waited for everyone else to exit the building and once they were out, we decided on the next bar to hit up.
At one point Philipp was way ahead of all of us and then we lost track of him! I think he was anxious to get out of the rain and get inside! I had to call him and we found him again…he had entered a bar all of a sudden and we didn’t notice. I knew I was going to enjoy this bar as we went upstairs and we were the odd men out as I was not wearing leather, my hair was not long enough to touch my ass and I don’t think they served anything but beer in this place. Did I also mention that there was some great heavy metal playing in this place? Awesome. Vero’s friends didn’t really care to stay so they left to head back to the hotel for the night and Vero and I stayed to dance the night away to excellent tunes of White Zombie, AC/DC and a special request for Vero ~ Crazy Nights by KISS.
I chatted with Jean for a bit about potential Nine Inch Nails touring plans to Montreal and whatever Trent was up to with his new releases (we both didn’t know that he would go ahead and release a full blown album within 24 hours of us speaking to each other) and I chatted it up with Catherine and Philipp. Turns out Philipp is going to see Iron Maiden this summer so I may join him for that (although I can’t say that I’ve listened to much Iron Maiden in my life, but I’m pretty sure this is the same tour that Type O Negative is on and I’m a big fan).
I was pretty hungry around 2AM so we left them all to head out to get a bite to eat. Montreal is notorious for its cheap eats in the form of 99 cent pizza. Is it the best pizza? No. Does it fill me up after a few beer? Yes, most definitely! It was nice seeing Philipp and company as I don’t know much longer he will be sticking around Canada. It all depends on how his research work comes along. He said he’s really leaning towards heading to Asia as his next destination and I recommended Singapore solely for my knowledge of a Canadian Dragon Boat Team that he could join over there. 😉
Having Vero and I try and navigate out of downtown Montreal was an adventure and we made a few wrong turns along the way but we finally made it back to Laval in one piece. We snuck into the room we were sharing with Jean-Francois and Marie-Claude but they had just gone to bed also so we weren’t waking them up from a deep slumber.
Combined with a lack of sleep and an empty stomach (and perhaps a beer or two), I wasn’t feeling too good the next morning when we headed out for breakfast. I managed to eat a few bites of my BLT sandwich, but it seems that I lost my appetite over the entire weekend. Ah well. I managed to get a nap in during the ride home. Thanks to Vero for manning the Mazda all weekend long!
In the end, there were a few hiccups along the weekend, but I personally had a great time and it was great to hang out with Vero’s friends in an extended setting. There is nothing like a road trip to get to know someone more personally.
I recently stumbled across Natalia Yanchak’s blog which makes for some great reading…she is the keyboardist of The Dears (band out of Montreal whose album No Cities Left is truly a masterpiece and after an entire year of listening to it, I still don’t get tired of it. It is on my list of albums to bring to the island with me).
