Having gotten back to Minnesota on Saturday so that Christopher and I could have yesterday to recuperate before getting back into the swing of things today, I am pleading jet lag as I look at the list of unfinished tasks I'm leaving in my wake today. Not the least of these is the obvious dearth of blog posts on interesting tales from our trip to Canada, which I promised I'd be giving you.
So here it is almost 9 at night and I'm going to do my best to give you a few pieces of our travelogue to keep you interested--and to insist that I'm not simply stringing you along:
1) When you're used to complaining about spending $3.70 per gallon for gas, spending 1.40$ Canadian per liter is a humbling shock. (Reminder for those of you not good at conversions: a liter is just over a quart; 4 quarts make up a gallon. That means we were paying about $5.50 per gallon.)
2) If you haven't seen parts of your family in a while, I highly recommend it. On this trip I saw a great aunt I hadn't seen in probably about 5 years, and met two... ummm... "cousins" (just don't ask me to explain the family tree branching) whom I had been hearing about for years. Even though Christopher was meeting them all for the first time, we fell into conversations immediately. There were hugs all around, and by the time we were on the second course of our first meals together (I've mentioned that every evening meal had at least 4 courses, right?), it was as if we lived down the street and saw each other every weekend.
3) If you're in Montreal between now and next Sunday, I strongly suggest checking out the Yves Saint Laurent exhibit at the Musee des Beaux Arts. We stumbled into that exhibit on Sunday the 14th, and it was pretty nifty. There were outfits from the 60s that looked current and dresses from the 90s that I would have thought were from the 70s. Possibly more importantly, I was once again reminded that going with the flow and trying something different (a museum exhibition of fashion isn't my usual first choice), can result in a wonderful afternoon.
4) When you're given the opportunity to eat amazing foods, do it. The Chicken Savoyarde was tangy and creamy, but not heavy. The Oka cheese had the perfect bite and was just soft enough to make the monks proud. The "escalope" of duck liver was amazingly non-liver tasting. I'm trying to figure out how to make the goat cheese crouton for our next dinner. And I'm happy to say that I brought the recipe for the Chewy Bars home with me. (I picked up the ingredients for the bars, yesterday. Now I just need an excuse for the calories.)
5) Looking around is better than only looking straight ahead. We found the Lapin Saute and the perfect birthday card because we walked around and paid attention to where we were. That's also how we found Maple Sugar Cotton Candy (which we bought) and some joy-inspiring carved dancing bears (which we didn't buy because they were just too expensive.) And although the 450 steps to the top of the Montmorency Falls killed our thighs, the view was a lot better there than from the much less painful cable car.
I don't know about you, but I think 5 paragraphs is probably a good amount for a "teaser."
In the next few days I hope to lay out a few more details about places we went, foods we ate and how well we travelled. I also hope to get to the bottom of my email inbox, to finish my laundry, and to run a list of errands that I was supposed to do today.
If there's anything specific you want to hear about, leave me a comment and I'll see what I can do. Otherwise, I'll just take my chances with what translates from my brain to my keyboard, like usual.
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