Beautiful Montreal

Our next stop was Montréal, and we arrived hungry. I suggested that we get some dim sum in Chinatown before exploring. Dim sum is not something that we can find here in Jena (or in most of Germany, I'd guess), so it was on our list of things to eat when we were back in Canada. Luckily Calin and Susanne loved it too, and we all ate far too much, as it should be. (Alas, we don't have any photos of the actual food. Due to a computer-related disaster with lack of back-up, we lost all our photos from our trip, and we're relying entirely on those from Calin and Susanne's camera.)

From there we walked up St-Laurent, in search of both smoked meat at Schwarz's and fries and poutine at Mondofritz. Alas, in the years since I left Montréal, Mondofritz seems to have disappeared. The smoked meat (and pickles) were as reliable as ever, though!

It had rained like crazy on the drive from Québec to Montréal, but it seemed to have cleared up once we reached the city. This didn't last all day however, as we saw watched some seriously dark cumulonimbus developing above us.
The rain came hard and strong, and we opted to wait it out under the awning of a green grocer before continuing...

...but then it just kept raining...

We could have waited a bit longer, but we decided to just make a run for it to Frites alors!, which would have to sub in for Mondofritz in a pinch. We were a bit wet when we made it there, but the poutine and beer warmed us up in no time.While we were eating the weather cleared up, and night began to fall. We continued our walk across town, crossing the McGill campus and heading toward the Cock 'n Bull, my former regular in the neighbourhood where I used to live, and where I'd arranged to meet up with a couple of former roommates, Nathan and Kristen, who were still (or back) in Montréal.
Ah, the old Cock 'n Bull. I wasn't sure if I'd know anyone there after so long, but Jen, the bartender, recognized me right away. I was lucky to catch her - she was leaving for Toronto to start a Masters in September. Sue, the barmaid who had worked there for years, had retired the year before and moved back to Nova Scotia, and Rhoda, who managed the place while we were living there, had also retired. As such, some of the old rules had changed - the bar was now open until 3:00 rather than 2:30, which was apparently at Rhoda's insistence, and we made full use of the extra time. Then we stopped at Soup and Noodles (open until 4:00) for some greasy late night munchies, and went with Nathan to the statue park just south of there to chow down before heading home. Ah, how I love that city. I can't wait until the next visit...