MONTREAL,
CANADA
May
13-22, 2001
On May 9 I spent the day at the
National Archives, Washington, D.C. on my way to
a Lymphedema Support Group in
Rockville, Maryland. Our old truck didn’t quite
make it and we hobbled home in it to
price a new engine. We rented a car while
the truck was getting her new face
lift and made a trip to
Niagara Falls
Toronto
Ottawa (Parliament Buildings)
Montreal
driving thru Vermont and
Massachussetts (beautiful drive)
New Haven, CT (John’s dad
had to have an operation the next day)
driving thru Pennsylvania back
home to Toms Brook, VA
We had recently bought Amtrak tickets
to Montreal and did turn them in. We are
glad that we didn’t save them for
a later trip because we enjoyed driving this
time. I guess we just needed a
break from Amtrak even though we swore we’d
never drive it again.
My favorite city is Montreal –
since I can’t fly anymore because of my
lymphedema. Of course, I prefer
Paris. Who in their right mind wouldn’t.
The food in Montreal was, as usual,
the best I’ve eaten anywhere in the world.
We found a new restaurant, and it
looks like everyone else in Montreal has found
it also. It is called L’Academie.
On St. Denis, our favorite street. How did
we miss it before?
We rented a studio room in the
University of Quebec-Montreal right near the
heart of Montreal. The students
leave and they rent about 4 floors of the
dormitory to tourists. They had
a parking lot next door for $6 a day. Can’t
beat that. Toronto was charging
$18 a day.
Everything in Montreal is probably a
fourth of the cost in New York City. My
favorite singer lives right there on
St. Louis Park Square in Montreal. I
didn’t see him, but I heard a
song of his playing in a book store I was in. But
I saw a huge iguana in the park some
young men were sporting.
I had a great chocolate desert with
Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee. I see it is
up to about $60 a pound now. So
I felt I had made money when I got a cup and 2
refills for $4.
We spent a day at the Botanical
Gardens in Montreal. It is 135 acres in
Montreal. I like it better than Busch
Gardens in Vancouver, B.C., but John likes
Busch Gardens best. After the long
walking around, we had a wonderful respite
with some wine and frites.
The picture taken of me that is in
front of the Chinese palace where the girl is
playing the erhu (Chinese instrument)
– I bought a CD she was selling. It is
“Chinese Traditional Masterpieces”
of Zheng (which is like a Koto (spelling?)
Japanese stringed instrument) and Erhu
(which is my favorite Chinese
instrument). It is a beautiful
album.
We had been wanting to go to Toronto.
It reminds me of a combination of San
Francisco (Mission and Market Streets)
and Seattle, although Toronto is not
hilly. I think it must be the
architecture and the type of people populating
the city. We stayed in
absolutely the cheapest hotel in the city. $125
Canadian *about $80 US, plus another $18
US for their parking. They had
redecorated, new furniture and
carpeting and wallpaper, and the room gave us a
headache. We had a view of the
Bay. We felt very safe. But Toronto is not my
kind of city.
Ottawa was a friendly and beautiful
city. We stayed a short time. Parking was
a terrible problem. Finally
found a parking lot.
In Branford (near New Haven) they were
having “Yale” weekend. Our hotel was
full for the extra night we wanted to
stay. It seemed that if there was a
hotel room available, they had jacked
it up in price. We don’t stay with John’s
folks, because they have a cat (allergies).
We went to Costco and got our
favorite “Pizza Sauce” in
big jugs. Yes, New Haven pizza is better than New
York pizza.
After we were home a day and got our
truck out of the shop, we went to a
restaurant that we had been thinking
of going for some time. It is close to
Camp David near Washington, D.C.
Bus tours go to the restaurant regularly. We
took the long way around stopping at
the Hagerstown Prime Outlets, which I
believe are the best in the US for
kitchen shopping (not commercially). We
bought shoes and Timex $10 watches and
kitchen “stuff.” So we were starved
after we drove thru the beautiful
mountains over to Thurmont. The first
restaurant was called “Cozy.”
We walked out, it looked so bad. Then we went
over to the “other”
competitor restaurant, called I believe “Family Restaurant”
and ate there. I must say, it
was the worst food we have ever eaten and paid
for in our lives. We then went
to our favorite used book store in Frederick, MD
and I picked up a old book on “perspective”
and one on American drawings.
For our long trip I bought 3 audio
books; 1) a book about the Hampton’s
(amusing) 2) Mort Sahl’s razzing
the democrats and the republicans 3) Frederick
Douglas’ Narrative.
Then I took all of my Bob Wills tapes,
and my opera tapes, and lastly the tapes
that my cousin, Cliff sent me of his
father, my uncle, Cap singing. John is a
fan of this tape.
So here are a few pictures with our
new camera. I wanted a digital, but John is
the boss, so most of the pictures are
of me.
Looking
for “dinner.”
John’s
favorite “little” place
great
food, great service
Montreal
Botanical Gardens
Chinese
Gardens
Montreal
Botanical Gardens
rhodendron
bonzai
Home
again – in front of our house – rhodie’s in full
bloom here, too