It's Friday, Day 5 of the trip. It has been a very busy time. I really haven't been able to keep up on personal correspondence; just doing what I have to to get by at work right now. So this morning I did a couple of teleconference calls. It was good to talk with Scott, Melanie and Marla from the World Massage Conference. Things are moving along there and we are just finalizing the speaker schedule. Good luck with that Marla!
This afternoon, I met my brother Glen and he took me on a walking tour of Montreal. He's lived in the city for 10 years and knows it well. We walked up past the Plateau and explored Rosemont. He knows his restaurants.
We got papousas at a little Salvadorian restaurant and then checked out the Marche Jean Talon. It's a famous open air farmer's market. Incredible looking food. Obviously, harvest is beginning. I'm amazed at the range of meats available. Rabbit and duck is quite popular in Quebec, but you can get horse, bisson, wild boar, game birds, etc.
The liquor stores are for the most part wine stores. Excellent selection of French wines. Each region of Frace has its own shelf space. In Toronto, my local liquor store has only a 10 ft stretch of French wines.
Otherwise, we hung out on a bar terrasse on Rue St Hubert (aka "wedding dress ally") for most of the afternoon. I was tired of walking.
Montreal is really a social city. People are outside. If a restaurant can put chairs and a table on the sidewalk, they do. In fact, we passed a nail salon that had comfy chairs and a table outside their store.
The bar on St Hubert was bustling, obviously lots of locals and mostly French (from France) and it seemed like everyone knew others. It was a real community gathering place. You never see anything like that in Toronto. It just doesn't exist. The owner came out to say hello to us; the chef came out to say hello. Glen's friend Marc joined us - a really nice guy. And I got to meet his beautiful wife Kato and their cute little girl Abby. It was a great way to pass an afternoon.
Then we ate dinner at a Portugese restaurant called La Cabane on Rue St Laurant. Nothing fancy, just good homestyle Portugese food at a reasonable price.
Enjoyed people watching throughout the day. Lots of beautiful French women of course.
Another observation... It seems as though pretty much everyone smokes. That's probably not the reality, but the French are known as fumeurs and almost everyone on the terrasses was smoking. Maybe that's why everyone here seems so thin.
And yes it's true. The women, everyone actually, has a sense of style. People always dress up to go out. Not to the nines, but you don't see a lot of tshirts and jeans, at least in the areas I've been hanging out.
I drank too much through the day, so I'm pretty zonked. The Haitian cab driver taking me back to Pierre's was happy to help me practice my French, but I wasn't particularly articulate. So far, I've been having an awesome time. I'm so glad I'm here.
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