just when i shook the holiday madness out of my foggy brain, washed the confetti out of my eyes and dethawed from the montreal chill...i've gone and caught a(nother) cold! luckily my cold will keep me from going out and spending money i don't have. i don't know what happened, but i have about 10$ canadian in my pockets and that's about it. if you want to hire me to clean your apartment or something, let me know! seriously. in the meantime, i'll regale you with tales of the trip to montreal...
sometime on friday afternoon, lawrence whisked me, greg and christie away from new york city for a new years eve weekend in canada. why? because he is awesome. we watched the sky darken on our drive up, and after many hours of listening to our iPod's on shuffle we finally arrived in montreal. we entered the bed & breakfast that i suggested we stay at and found out pretty fast that there was no room at the inn. apparently, there was hardly ever room at this inn - something that christie found out upon snooping around the downstairs office while lawrence talked in french to the housekeeper (the only staff at the place) trying to work out the situation. which he did. this brings me to tips for travelers #1:
if you EVER go to montreal, this is what you must do. it is a fool proof plan.
-call All-Suite VIP Lofts.
-ask if they have rooms for whatever days you want to go up.
-if they say the are booked, go on to their website and book a room through that. it will always say there are rooms available.
-print out your email confirmation and get your ass to montreal.
-upon your arrival you will be told they overbooked. tell them you want them to find you another hotel and that you are only paying the amount that you were going to pay at VIP.
-they will call the Hotel Kutuma and set you up there. in one of the nicest. rooms. ever. and VIP will have to pay for most of it (since you are still paying their cheap(ish) room rate.)
the Hotel Kutuma is the most amazing hotel, with the nicest staff in the world. i love it so much i want to marry it. here is a picture of me kissing it's sweet, sweet glass wall in our room.
so, back to the trip recap. midnight was fast approaching, lawrence had just driven for 7 hours and we all wanted to go stretch our legs at the bars before hitting the sack. we got to the hotel kutuma and hope hit us in the face like a snowball. this trip was getting better already.
it's true, i didn't want to leave the bed. but i did, and we walked down the frozen streets just after midnight in search of some libations. we passed club after club, each blaring either techno music or madonna remixes. thankfully we eventually ended up at foufounes electriques - the coat room was bigger than my apartment and le tigre was coming through the speakers. it was self-declared the " club for the non-conformists". it was also a club that lets 16 year olds in. i channeled my inner angst-ridden teen soul and entered the room where kids were moshing to a stereo. it was awesome, but i was too tired to push around kids who had just tasted their first sip of molson, or whatever was on tap that night. luckily lawrence wasn't, and we got a nice birds eye view of him getting hit (by a girl).
the next day we went to old montreal. this area is incredibely beautiful. apparently apartments are like 450$ canadian dollars there. i briefly considered starting a new life. i could waitress and serve hot chocolate to cold tourists. any canadians want to marry me so i can get citizenship?
you know what, i suck at recaps. go read christie's, and i'm sure lawrence and greg will have one up soon. point to take away from mine: always book at the All-Suite VIP Lofts to assure an inexpensive stay at the Hotel Kutuma.
something i learned somewhere in new jersey on our way back home: the pixies totally stole from altered images! download, listen and name that tune: beckoning_strings.m4a - altered images
It's true - rent in Montreal is cheap compared to Toronto and especially NYC. Shit. I'd move there just for the bagels.
Posted by: canadian jenc | January 04, 2006 at 10:06 AM
I wanted to move to Montreal too after I visited in the summer! Great music scene, great food, and yes, extremely cheap rent. A guy at our B&B did mention that it's bitter cold in the winter though. One weird thing about it though, I saw more homeless people there than New York and they all had dogs!
Posted by: Justin | January 06, 2006 at 01:25 PM