First of all, it's a nice size of a city, with many different neighborhoods and quartiers, including Vieux Montréal which is quaint and sweet and European. It had snowed, and not only was the city a fabulous fairytale of a village under the snow, but the town was completely decked out for Christmas at every turn. Sparkling, glittering lights, snowflakes, trees, wreaths at every corner, in every window. (I told Jens we couldn't talk about it or acknowledge it until the Friday after Thanksgiving though... one holiday at a time!) Also, Montréal was big on live music, lots of performers in every pub, club and bar. Then, EVERYONE we met was PERFECTLY bilingual, it was unbelievable. You've never seen such a well-adjusted city. And they weren't rude little Frenchies about having to switch. The norm was to greet everyone by saying "Bonjour, hi!" and see which language they responded in and continue the conversation from there. Jens and I happily spoke French with everyone, elated that enough had survived to get along just fine. Aaaaand... EVERYONE was SO NICE. I fell in love with every single waiter, waitress, host, hostess, bartender, passerby... I wanted to buy a house in New York City and bring them all home with me because everyone was so polite and sweet. It never failed to amaze me!!
So the eleven hours of my train ride went faster than you'd imagine, but it was definitely starting to wear on me towards the end. The train went straight through upstate New York into Canada, passing into Vermont at one weird straggly spot, and it was lots of snow and iced lakes and streams as a view.
But Lake Champlain was a beautiful view, it was sad we never slowed or stopped nearby it, only zoomed past. There were some mighty cliffs over the expanse of the lake, but I never did get a very good picture of it. I knew we were close, but I just had my music on and was leaning my head against the train window when the skyline across the river became visible, and it was such a beautiful sight!
This is the song I was listening to as I saw it, I thought it was such a great moment, I wanted to remember the song and the view for always.
Jens and I enjoyed Montréal immensely. We slept in, saw the sights, had great dinners and stopped in lots of bars and clubs. We saw Vieux Montréal (where we stayed), Les Quartiers Latin et Chinois, hiked Mont Royal, shopped Rue Sainte Catherine, passed Occupy Montréal in the snow, and visited the Olympic Park.
(Jens has all the good pictures on his phone, sadface).
As Sunday approached, Jens had a huge surprise for me. Mr Lufthansa Employee was able to get not only a plane ticket for himself to New York City for a few days, but for ME too! I didn't have to take the train back! I got to enjoy an hour and a half plane ride back home! And Jens has been around in New York City with me since, and he leaves to go back to Germany this afternoon.
We've been getting into the Christmas spirit in the meantime. We went to the holiday market at Union Square, and got "gluehwein" (spoiler alert... it wasn't), and Jens bought me a miniature Christmas tree!! Last night I pulled out the like, 3 Christmas decorations I had from my last apartment and tried to put some up. We put on Christmas music and decorated my tiny little Tanenbaum, ate some of the gingerbread he brought me from home, and then watched Nightmare Before Christmas.
Today the tree at Rockefeller is going to be lit so it's all right on time!
No comments:
Post a Comment