Herro everyone! Here we are in fabulous Montreal! It's fabulous because it hasn't rained in over 2 weeks! It's sunny, blue skies, cold as fuck, awesome.

I thought I would make a blog for you guys back home to follow along what we're doing here in Montreal, and maybe inspire you to come visit ;)

Let's start!

Our neighbourhood, The Plateau, is actually pretty central to everything. We're about 5 minutes from Mont Royal, where there are lots of little shops, markets, and local bakeries, etc. Think of it like Commercial Drive, but less hipster...slightly. We started by touring the little shops from which we would do our grocery shopping. Instead of Safeway and Superstore and junk, there are little independent markets, you go from place to place and get what you need at good prices, instead of going to one big store and paying their whatever prices in exchange for the convenience of it all being in once place.

That being said, when you go to the bakery, it's amazing fresh bread straight from the oven. The butcher is fresh meat of different kinds, organic and fresh like you could never imagine from a Safeway cooler. Veggies and fruit are fresh, organic, and you can choose where you want to shop to get the best price.

Mont Royal is also where there are a lot of small boutiques, thrift stores, small restaurants, pubs, and in general, interesting things. Among them:

Koka Loka - A pretty good Mexican restaurant. Hilariously gaudy inside, tasty food, big portions, and a horse with a sombrero.

La Friperie des Amis - A thrift store with lots and lots of goodies are amazing prices, and they deliver :D

Curio - A fun home decor shop with lots of cute knick knacks at cute prices

And LOTS and LOTS of FOOD.

Going on the line of food, here what else we found within walking distance:

Ma'am Bolduc - Named for the first female Quebec Folk singer/songwriter. It's eclectic, gaudy, bright, with a New Orleans sort of flair. THEY HAVE THE BEST POUTINE EVER. It's 3 blocks from my house. Seriously. Cheap burgers, beer, poutine, huge portions. OH MAN.

La Banquise - Poutine house extraorindaire! 25 types of poutine. For serious. It's across the park, you're gonna wanna do a few laps to work that bad boy off.

Pho Cali - This is in Chinatown, a bit of a walk, but it's worth it for pho like ma mama makes! You can tell by the inside, it's cheap, tacky, gaudy decor, plastic fruit, cheap wood carvings, cheap tables and chairs, NO FORKS. Sauce and chopsticks on the tables. And the smell. OH GOD. Fabulous.

Food aside, there are other cool things too:

The Old Port - Old Montreal, with uneven cobblestone streets, windy narrow roads, it's like you're in 19th century France, except there's a Keg on the corner. This area is most like Gastown, except much much older. It's very narrow and very European, and utterly amazing to look at.

Chinatown - this place is more like Vietnam town. Montreal has a random large number of Vietnamese, I have noticed. They have lots of shops here, and unlike Vancouver Chinatown, it's clean, and it smells nice :D

St-Laurent - The clubbing and party district. This isn't super close, but you can walk there in 20 minutes. It's home to all the trendy clubs, bars, restaurants, shops and cool things. The funny thing about Montreal is how open they are about sex. There'll be HUGE signs advertising titty bars, full contact lap dances and strippers, right next to upscale restaurants. Also, "Super Sexe", the best giant neon sign I've ever seen, complete with a topless chick.

St-Catherine - This is pretty much Granville and Robson. The shopping district, it also cuts through the gay Village, it has lots of cool things, upscale shopping, little thrift stores, more strippers, lots and lots of cathedrals. Also the underground mall which scared the crap out of me.

Parc Lafontaine - This is down the street from us. It's a huge park, and right now the pond in the middle is frozen over and turned into an outdoor skate rink. They have classical music and everything! We didn't go skating during the day, but we did go for a wander into the park at night and ran out onto the open ice in the middle of the night with a bottle of wine and ran around while the zamboni man slowly chased us.

Well, that's all for now, and I'll update more as we find more, or I remember more. See you guys later!