Previous – Les Aventures Ligouriennes

Jan 3 – Today was going to be our last proper tourist day, and unintentionally we made it count. We started off by going to Dorwin Falls Park, and walking along the river there. It’s smaller and narrower than Montmorency Falls, but no less turbulent. Or less adept at covering the surroundings in ice spray.

There was also a sign telling a story about the falls, which goeth thusly: Hiawitha (apparently no relation to Hiawatha) was a pretty girl who wanted to be a Christian nun, but a nasty guy was in love with her. She couldn’t refuse to get married, but she could marry somebody else, so she did that. The nasty guy made sure that her husband got injured in a battle, and then stalked her while she was out getting medicinal herbs to heal him, so she jumped in the river to get away and turned into a waterfall and the nasty guy turned into a rock. Tale as old as time, though I am taking the sign with some salt since I’d like to see some citation on that (the sign is still old enough to use the word ‘Indian’, and it used to be even more common that people would make stuff up and attribute it to First Nations people based on nothing in reality).

Back at the hostel, we got some tea and went to hang out in the lounge; the comfiest seats available were by the TV so we sat there. After a while, a woman came over and asked if she and her partner could use it so they could watch the hockey game – it was very important for her partner. But for the woman, whose name is Laurianne (I think, she spelled it for me and I already forgot if it was Laurianne or Laurienne, sorry), was also happy to chat with us about all kinds of things, so I sat in one of the hammock chairs and talked to her about speaking French and how nice the hostel was and how we have identical opinions on cars and what the sauna was like (Tharash had been making noises like we should try it, but I had gotten the impression before coming on the trip that he was not interested so I hadn’t packed a bathing suit) and various other things, and it was really fun!

After the sun had gone down, we excused ourselves because we were going to go to a nearby forest for a ‘torchlight walk’. Laurianne said “enjoy your cult initiation!” when we left, lol. Which of course made us think of my D&D character, who’s kind of culty (even if he’d probably be the one starting the cult, he’s not really one for following).

Using a torch was interesting; it seems a bit like you need more than one to really illuminate much, and even then the person in front might not get much benefit out of it. But with the full moon out and no clouds, we didn’t even really need a torch. I took a picture of the night sky and my phone managed to capture the Pleiades, omg. I got so excited I nearly froze my hand off trying to get more pictures. Happily Tharash had the remaining handwarmers, and i used one to wake up my hand again and then gave it to him so he could try it.

We did not do the full (90 minute) walk; they had different options from 15 minutes up, so we turned back at around the 45-minute trail. This led us to a central road that was partly iced so people could skate on it, and that led us to a cabin in the middle that had a counter selling hot chocolate. It was rather weak hot chocolate, but at least it was hot. The torch was getting pretty short by that time, so I put it out in the snow and then when we got back to the starting area threw it in the fire that we lit it from.

We went back to the hostel, and after a dinner of mushrooms and zucchini and pasta, Tharash really suggested we go try the sauna. I was kind of assuming that he meant the hot tub too, but no, just the sauna (which is fine with me, I’ve heard that hot tubs are super unhygienic) and even if we didn’t have bathing suits we could just wear underwear, it covers the same thing. So we went, and it was really nice, it was so warm (even if it’s hard to take your shoes off or put them on without stepping in ice in your bare feet before stepping into the sauna). The heater made a lot of loud popping noises, but it didn’t seem like you needed to put water on it to make steam like I’d heard you have to do in saunas. There wasn’t any steam, just warm. The temperature variation between the floor and the ceiling was crazy. It had a bench on each side so we just lay there and basked in the heat for a bit. When we got out my face was very flushed for quite a while. But then Tharash looked up in the middle of the freezing walk back to the hostel and saw a moon halo, caused by moonlight on high-altitude ice crystals.

Jan 4 – We checked out of the hostel and drove to Montreal. My mom had warned us the day before to test the car and make sure that it still drove – she didn’t know that we’d been driving a couple times a day, and assumed that we arrived at the hostel and then just let the car sit the whole time – and I hadn’t been concerned because we drove to the torch walk, buuuuuut then the car wouldn’t freakin start. Tharash fixed the radio at least so it would connect to his phone, and then it did start after we’d been sitting in it 10-15 minutes.

Getting to Montreal was nice enough, and we listened to Lyrre’s album Not All Who Dream Are Asleep but then driving in Montreal – oof. So many highways! Why so many highways?? And at least one spaghetti interchange. And Google changing its mind about the best route several times a minute. Anyway I found the car drop – the rental office was closed on Sundays – and found insufficient instruction to confidently leave the car. Another person who was also dropping off his car called the help line and told us what he’d been told to do, which was very helpful.

We had one extra day, because we couldn’t stay in Auberge Estonia for another day, but flying out of Montreal that day was more expensive because it was the weekend. So we walked several blocks to get to our last hostel. When there, I asked if we could be in a private room (Tharash checked and they had them available) instead of a dorm, even though the dorm I had booked was only for 4 people this time. Anyway that was simple enough, and the bunk bed was properly comfortable. Someone had jacked the heat up, though, and the outlet was right over the top bunk, and I decided to be in the top bunk, and I didn’t figure out to turn it down until halfway through the night…

Anyway, we had a bit of time left, it was still the early afternoon, so we went out to walk around this neighbourhood. I really believe Montreal is more interesting away from its historic area. We were only a couple blocks away from Mary Queen of the World church, which I’d been recommended to see, so we went there. Very interesting but their organ looks a bit small.

Then we went looking for the underground city, which Google said was closed but Google doesn’t know what it’s talking about. We found our way in through the central train station, where some people were staging a very loud protest for Palestine, with a lot of drumming. We are not really shopping people, so the underground city was not of that much interest to us; we stopped in an art supply store (it was a good art supply store, I wouldn’t mind having a store like that in my city) (it had a knock-off Lego line that had kits to build little shops, including a kimono shop) and the Warhammer store. But we didn’t go into any of the bookstores (our luggage wouldn’t fit more books) or any of the clothing stores (we already have enough clothes).

We returned to the hostel to make dinner, to use up the rest of our ingredients on more mushroom zucchini pasta. The hostel was bigger and busier than the other hostels, it had like 3 sinks and two stoves.

After a break in our room, we went out for drinks and dessert at a small bar, Ye Olde Orchard Pub and Grill. It was not very busy, but the service was good, the drinks were nice, and the dessert was yummy. Tharash had a “Mountie’s Mule”: Lot 40 Whiskey, Cranberry Juice, Ginger Beer. Now that I recently learned that I like gin, especially gin and grapefruit, I had a Malfy Spritz: Malfy Rosa Gin, Zonin Prosecco, Grapefruit Juice, Soda. We split a brownie sundae: Brownies, Ice Cream, Whipped Cream, Oreo Crumble, Sprinkles. It was very nice and pleasant and chill.

Jan 5 – Now the shenanigans began. We checked out of the hostel, but hung around reading in the lobby for a couple hours waiting for lunch. Then we had lunch at Tsukuyomi Ramen, which is a super charming place and the food was very good. Tharash had the Tonkotsu (pork bone broth) ramen with tofu (pork broth is apparently their specialty), but I don’t like pork at all so I had the Asari Shio (clam and chicken broth) ramen and that was good too. The tofu tasted really savoury, it was crazy, and the ramen egg was great. I didn’t finish all the food, but that’s just because I didn’t want to overstress my stomach when traveling.

Then we took the metro and then the bus to the airport. Tharash had learned earlier in the morning that his flight had been cancelled, one of hundreds across the whole country cancelled because of weather problems (unclear to me if the weather problems were in Canada or Europe or both). So I got checked in for my flight that was fortunately still going, and then came to hang out with him for moral support while he went to like three different people over an hour trying to find out what they were going to do with him. Which ended up being: they would put him in a hotel and rebook him for the next day. Which ended up not being what they did, but anyway.

So I went to my gate, had a protein bar and some juice, and eventually got on my plane. They had a lot of issues. First a door got iced so they had to send maintenance to fix it, then there was a refueling problem, then they needed a push-back truck, then they needed to de-ice the wings, and each of these things had like a 30 minute break in between – the plane was 2-3 hours late when it finally took off.

The person on my right watched a movie called The Gorge; the person on my left watched a movie called Ballerina that appeared to be 95% action scenes, and then after that they watched The Gorge too. I kept reading A Short History and I got really close to the end before I got sleepy and needed a nap. For some reason my knees did not complain about sitting the whole flight long!? They usually do so I was surprised.

It was very late when i arrived in Vancouver, and I had missed my connecting flight to Victoria by some hours. Air Canada booked me into a hotel and rebooked my Victoria flight for the next day. It took some convincing and two trips to the luggage desk, but eventually the luggage desk people told the luggage handlers to just dump all the luggage onto belt 6 because people wanted their stuff, and i got my bag and just missed the shuttle to the hotel – so i got the next shuttle.

The hotel was pretty nice, I had three pillows here, and comfy was good because I got in at like 2am.

Jan 6 – I woke up at like 7:30am and still felt like I’d slept in since I was still on Quebec time, haha. I got up, checked out, obtained a bagel with cream cheese at a Tim Horton’s across the street, and got on the bus to Bridgeport station because it was actually really close by. It would only have been 25 minutes on foot, but it was raining rather hard and besides Vancouver buses actually let you pay with credit card. Though about 10 seconds before the bus showed up, a plane took off from the airport and it felt like through the clouds it was right in front of me. I would have tried to get a picture, but I was holding a bagel and the bus was arriving.

I cancelled my remaining flight while waiting for the ferry; I figure that a night in a decent hotel is of equal value to me as the flight, but I still got a $6.59 refund for it, nice. And I finished reading my book on the ferry.

MEANWHILE, Tharash got flown to Toronto to see if he could get a plane to Brussels there, but the Toronto flight was late so he didn’t make it >: I so they put him in another hotel and then on Jan 7 flew him back to Montreal to put him on a plane to London, and then he could take a plane to Brussels, the train to Antwerp, the train to Rotterdam, the train to Amsterdam, and then finally the train back home. It’s really crappy that the end of his trip he had to deal with so much travel nonsense, especially since he’d scheduled some extra days off to deal with jet lag and they all got eaten up. I hope he’s able to have a good weekend at least.

One of the things that I got renewed resolve for, thanks to the books I read, was to spend less time in the digital world. I’ve spent a lot of time with my computer and my phone in the past 6 months, not even necessarily doing anything – just being tired and wasting time until the next work or sleep event in my life. I’ve deleted most of my dumb time-waster phone games, and I’m going to try and do more with my hands. Towards that end I’ve already finished painting a mini that I started painting two years ago. I’m going to paint more minis. And read more books. And try and spend a little bit more time being active. The fact that I’m on this planet being alive and everything is pretty crazy, and I’d like to waste less of it. (update from April: I have not been super successful with extracting myself from the digital world; there’s too much stuff on Youtube. My busy time has also impeded my achieving more personal things, but I have read a couple more books at least)