Trip to Montreal, Quebec, Canada (Day 1)

“Oh oh, I'm out on the border
I'm walkin' the line
Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
I'm try'n' to change this water to wine”

-The Eagles, “On The Border”

Last September, I decided to take a trip to Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I was taken to Southern Quebec on a camping trip when I was a baby, but seeing as I do not remember anything about it, I never counted it as a time I was on foreign soil. Having friends who have traveled much for either business, pleasure, or duty in the Armed Forces, I wanted to say that I had finally had the opportunity to say I have been to another country and sampled the tastes of another culture.

On any trip, before I leave, I am always sad to say goodbye to my dear wife Andrea and our daughter Lillian. While I do enjoy exploring other areas on my own, that does not mean I relish the thought of being without the ones I love. So, early in the morning on September 22^nd, I bid them both goodbye and set off for the Canadian border in a rented Chevy Sonic with Michigan plates. iPod connectivity made the journey pleasurable on the musical end, but even though I enjoyed the winding drive through the beautiful Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, long drives are very taxing and the next time I go to Montreal, I will take advantage of Air Canada’s Harrisburg to Montreal route.

As I neared Champlain, New York, the sight of bilingual signage means I am getting closer to the border. At the border crossing, I was very nervous because I do not know how gung-ho Canadian Border agents are. Will they search my car? Will they turn me back?

Thankfully, they let me through, but they do not stamp my passport. Aargh! I wanted a stamp in there, but also it made me wonder if I did something wrong. In the meantime, I stopped at a hotel in St. Bernard de La Colle and exchanged my US currency for Canadian currency. Great exchange rate! I thought I was rich! Canadian money is very colorful.

I decide to get off of Autoroute 15 (the main highway), and drive some of the backroads. Very pretty rural country up here, reminds me of home. To celebrate a successful border crossing, I decided to stop at a pizza shop in La Colle to have lunch. When I step out of the car, I notice my phone is showing no service? Huh? I am not in the middle of nowhere. Why is this happening? Immediately I start to panic because I have no way of being contacted in case of an emergency at home. With my heart racing and anxiety attacks on the horizon, I abandoned my attempt at a celebratory lunch and decided to drive into Montreal and get situated at the hotel.  

Because I am in a foreign country and I am not familiar with driving to a kilometers per hour speed limit, I am probably seen as driving like a granny to the other locals whizzing up and down Autoroute 15, but I don’t know how they do speed enforcement and I do not want to get a ticket. While the highway up to Montreal was in great shape, once I enter the city, I thought I took a wrong turn and ended up back in Pennsylvania. There was more road construction than I had ever seen in my entire life! It seems like every exit the GPS told me to take and every route I needed to take was closed or detoured. Made me think the city did not want visitors. A local I befriended (more on that later) explained to me that the reason for that was the long winters made construction season very short, so they tried to do as much as they can get done while the weather is warmer. I can understand that. Eventually I do arrive at my hotel, which is in the Place Des Arts neighborhood, up the block from a fire station and a Middle Eastern grocer.

Hotel Des Arts

The staff at the Hotel Des Arts was absolutely super. Very helpful and very pleasant. The accommodations are nothing to write home about, but they are solid and comfortable and clean (and CHEAP! $78 U.S). I highly recommend you stay here if you ever decide to visit Montreal. You don’t need to blow the bank on an expensive hotel, just get yourself a place to rest your head at night. That is all you need. Anyway, I was eventually able to get through to my wife, who called me back on the room telephone. After speaking to her, I felt much more at ease and we decided to use Facebook Messenger to keep in touch just in case. You do not know how much it meant to me that we could keep in touch one way or another.

So…after that was said and done, I decided to check out the really cool mall I had heard about that was only a couple blocks away: Complexe Desjardins. It was probably the coolest mall I had ever seen, with an amazing water feature in the middle.

Fountain at Complexe Desjardins

Then, it was time to eat, finally. I made a beeline for the A & W in the Food Court, because I had never been to one and they are big up here. The burger and fries were excellent, and I am not a huge root beer drinker, but getting root beer from a fountain at an A & W is the only way to go.

After eating and stopping by a Jean Coutu (local pharmacy chain) to pick up some sundries, I went back to the hotel and told myself “screw the anxiety. Take the Metro and see the Montreal Forum”. So, I did. The ordeal making sure I could communicate with home really beat the crap out of my nerves. I used to think that if you had a cell phone, it worked everywhere in the world and not just your home country. I was so close to saying “fuck it all” and going home because of that. If my family cannot reach me in an emergency, I have no business being away from them. I felt like such a bad husband and father.

Montreal’s Metro system is amazing. My apologies to my friends from the Big Apple, but Montreal has got you beat. It is very efficient, and a lot of it is like an underground city. The maps are very easy to read, and even if you are not fluent in French, you will be just fine. There are large monitors that show you when the next train is due at the station, and news and advisories as well (but all in French). Most of the stations were designed by noted artists as well, so each station has a unique flavor (most notably for me is the Pie X station, with its Olympic theme). Also, it is very clean (for the most part!), and most of the people are very polite and courteous. The only drawbacks it has are that it is not air-conditioned, and on an unseasonably hot early fall day, believe me, you notice it! That is just a minor nitpick though. The Montreal Metro system is absolutely fantastic. I did not use my car once when I was staying in Montreal, just to get there, and then to go home.

The nearest Metro station to my hotel was on Boulevard St. Laurent, just three blocks away. Easy peasy. I did have a bit of a problem understanding the Metro employee who was explaining to me how their ticket system worked, but once I figured it out, I was good to go and felt like a local. The Forum is located right near the Metro station on Rue Atwater, so all I needed to do was follow the line to Atwater station and I was at the mecca for ice hockey fans all across Canada and around the world, the famous Montreal Forum, which has been converted into an indoor mall, but still has done many things to maintain its ties to the Montreal Canadiens, the legendary NHL team that called the Forum home until 1996. I am not a Habs fan per se, but I respect history and tradition. So many legends skated on that ice: Malone, Morenz, Joliat, Vezina, Blake, Lach, Richard, Hainsworth, Harvey, Geoffrion, Beliveau, Plante, Worsley, Robinson, Savard, LaPointe, Dryden, Roy…if I named all the hockey legends that played here, I would need a book. To just be in that building, no matter what it’s state, was breathtaking. If you are a hockey fan, a visit is worth the trip.

After the trip to the Forum, I did walk around for a little while, but I was beaten to death by the drive, the anxiety of having no phone service, and the nervousness of being in a foreign city for the first time in my life. So, I got back on the Metro and decided to go back to the hotel and end my first day in Montreal.

To Be Continued…