stepping off the edge

Here we are in lovely Montreal.The shot above is the famous Montréal Tower. Our bad luck, closed for remodel! Another big city in the French speaking province of Quebec. Not as Euro feeling as Quebec City, but certainly identifying with their French roots. Many signs proclaiming, “Maintain our heritage, speak French,” There was actually one in the window of our home exchange, and speaking of which, the wonderful Patrick, our host who we happend to get together with under not so desirable circumstances, was a die hard Quebecer.

Walking in our neighborhood, the Mont Royal district was lovely. It seemed every third street had been turned into a pedestrian market place. Vendors, music, and the ever popular Adirondack chairs scattered throughout. Oh, did I fail to mention the Quebec claim to fame? Everywhere, in each city we stopped in, there were dozens of Adirondack chairs scattered around the pedestrian areas. People would just gather and sit to sip their drink or just chat with their neighbors. Quite noteworthy, but not as noteworthy is the fact that the chairs stayed out all night and were not chained to the ground! And they were always there the next day. Gotta love Canada.

The old town and waterfront was a bit far even for the intrepid Mrs. T so we did the Uber thing, since the bus routes were a bit sparse and difficult to figure out, even for public transportation buffs like us.

It was not unlike Quebec City except for the very high tower which had folks bunjie jumping from it! Sorry, we passed.

When arriving at Patrick’s house we noticed that the toilet was running constantly. My solution? Turn off the fill valve after each use, easy. Too bad when turned off the valve leaked profusely. Mrs. T’s solution, which we used, naturally, was to just keep the bathroom door closed so we would not hear the excessive waste of water.

Not the worst thing I suppose, well, except for the advertised WiFi that did not seem to exist. Well, not the worst thing until the day before we were scheduled to leave. The toilet lost its ability to flush! On the phone to our host who was completely embarrassed by this but not so embarrassed that he could get a plumber to come over. He did suggest that we just go to the cafe down the street, and you can imagine the response from Mrs. T! Long story short, we flushed with buckets of water taken from the adjacent bathtub! I suppose you need these stories to make a trip like ours interesting.

Off to Toronto…