Montreal, Day 4

[muckefuck]

My morning consisted of two rather interesting trips sandwiched around an extremely dull mass at an ugly church. Or part of one, at least: I got as far as the end of the gospel reading before bailing. I felt bad about it until about twenty minutes later when Le Lutin and his friend Anny [vide supra] came loping after me, having suffered a sermon that was every bit as bad as I expected it might be and decided they would stand no more.

Anny had wanted to pay his respects to his mother, so before arriving at the Oratoire, we fitted in a quick visit to the Cimitière Jardins Urgel Bourgie. As you know, I love graveyards, and it's always fascinating to see the cultural differences. Such as (in this case) the complete absence of gravestones. All the markers were either flush with the ground or embedded in the wall. Anny had brought flowers from his garden, but as I had nothing to offer, I dusted off a stone and placed it on his mother's grave. He was fascinated to learn it was a Jewish custom I'd learned from my stepmother; despite having grown up close to the old Jewish neighbourhood, it was something he'd never encountred before.

I know where he grew up because he showed us. It was on the edge of Little Italy, the home of his mother's people and our next destination. It was nearly one p.m. before we reached the Marché Jean-Talon, yet it was in full swing. After a pass-through to get our bearings, we set about acquiring noshables for a picnic on Mont-Royal. There was a stand with sweet corn on the cob that was literally going right from the truck into boiling water (pausing only for a shucking) and I decided I had to have some.

The hour or two on a blanket in the shade was our only rest for the day, so you can imagine how tired I am now. On our return to the Village, we walked up Ste.-Catherine and back for what felt like the hundredth time. At Berri, we danced to remixes in the blazing sun--or rather, I did while M³ and Anny stood by. After that, we had to repair to the shady seats in front of Sky Bar for restoration.

By chance, we ran into Barbeblanche, one of the sweetest of the sweethearts I'd met the day before, and conned him into dinner while Anny ran home. I mentioned my desire to try viande fumée and he walked us up to Palais Montcalm at Ontario and Visitation (a place about as undeserving of that grand name as you could ever imagine). On the way back, he told us he wanted to show us a little house on a side street--and damned if he didn't take us to the exact spot I discovered on my own Friday afternoon under conditions which couldn't have been more different.

You cannot convince me at this point that I've only been in Montréal for less than five days.

Comments

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

viande fumee can be a great reason to visit Montreal... but it depends on where you get it. It ranges from like-pastrami to something much better.