Back From My Hols

Returned late (very late) Sunday night from my jaunt to Montreal. Had a grand time, though not without a few speed bumps en route.

Flew up on Tuesday evening straight after work, and J. had Wednesday off. So we headed into the city centre that morning, and had a stroll around Old Montreal - which is very characterful and pleasant. Must spend more time exploring there in future. We poked our heads into a few shops and galleries. The weirdest place we went into was an old costume shop called Joseph Ponton, which has been in business since 1865. They are housed in an old and rather stately residence, and have four floors stuffed with every costume imaginable. You could have a lot of fun in there for an afternoon, if you were in a silly mood. ;-)

Had lunch at a very modern café called Daylight Factory, then walked up to St. Catherine Street to the Fashion & Design Festival, which was going on there all week. After wandering around and scamming some free goodies, we headed back to J.'s neighbourhood to get her manicured before going to pick up her daughter A. from daycare. We'd hoped to head back into town that evening for a vintage fashion show at the Festival, but ended up staying in with a bottle of wine and an AbFab DVD since K. was on call all week and didn't get home from the hospital until really late each evening of my stay.

Thursday, J. had to work so I headed downtown on my own for a day of shopping. Was quite successful as there were lots of sales on - got a skirt, a shirt, a sweater, two nightdresses, and two pairs of sunglasses, so that was OK! But the best was still to come - met up with J. after work and came straight home with her so we could get ready to go out. Two weeks prior to the trip, I'd managed to snag us some tickets off eBay for the Madonna concert that evening (yaaaaaaaa!).

With Miss A. relegated to the care of K.'s sister for the evening, we headed off to the Bell Centre. Arrived to find that we had nearly the worst seats in the house - the back row of the very top section! - but it didn't matter because the show was amazing. Lord, that woman can dance! The setlist was heavy on material from her latest album, which I love, and it was a somewhat political show too. But extremely entertaining - we had a great time and it was well worth the inflated ticket price we'd paid the eBay scalper, definitely! ;-) No encore from her, which was unusual, but she performed for a solid two hours, so we couldn't complain.

Friday morning dawned, and J. and I got ready for our road trip. We'd booked in for a night at the Inn at Essex, near Burlington, Vermont - about a two-hour drive away. The drive, however, ended up taking nearly four hours, as there was a highway detour in place and we were held up at the border for 90 minutes! Arrived at the hotel about 2 pm and found out we'd gotten a free upgrade to a suite (woo hoo!). Found ourselves some lunch (we were starving) then checked in and got ourselves ready, as we'd booked a cooking class which was due to start at 3.30. This particular hotel is home to a cooking school (the students do all the catering) and they offer individual classes for guests, which we thought would be fun.

The chef running the class was very nice and walked us through a three-course menu, which was not at all difficult to prepare, but just required a few basic techniques and good ingredients. To start, we did a green salad with mustard vinaigrette, accompanied by roasted walnuts, blue cheese and orange honey. So we got lots of hints on preparing fresh salad dressings, infused honey, and roasting nuts. For the main course, we had roasted chicken breasts accompanied by a 'salsa' of pineapple, lime, cucumber and red onion, served with herb couscous. She also whipped up a very nice chipotle-lime sauce to drizzle over the chicken. Really delicious. Dessert was much more hands-on, as the chef had us doing crepes. We mixed up the batter, prepared fresh strawberries and cooked down some rhubarb for the filling, then took turns making the crepes on the stove. Once they were assembled, we served them with whipped cream flavoured with lemon and fresh vanilla. Good stuff, and really not very difficult - I'll have to have a go at replicating that menu sometime (luckily we wrote everything down).

The only down side was that we ate as we went, and the class was over by 5.30. I'd been under the impression that we'd eat after the class had finished, so the lunch we'd had at 2.00 meant that we were in pain by the end of the class, we were so full! However, on the plus side, it meant we had time to go shopping after dinner and walk off some of the meal, as the nearby shops didn't close until 8 pm. J. got some clothes for A. and some athletic gear, while I got some cropped trousers. Later that evening, we ordered some Irish coffees and went outside, where there was a big bonfire going on the lawn. It was a beautiful warm evening, and despite being eaten by the mosquitoes, it was quite fun.

The next day we were very energetic and got up at 7.30 am for a dip in the (lovely heated) pool outside, before breakfast. Then we checked out and headed into nearby Burlington for more shopping and strolling. It's really a lovely town, with the main street being pedestrianised. We were both thinking that you could easily spend a week in Vermont on holiday, as there's lots of things to see and do. J. did some serious damage in the sale at Ann Taylor (which is one of our favourite stores) and then we had a cracking good lunch on the sidewalk patio at Smokejacks, on the main street. All very pleasant, and lots of opportunity for people-watching - Burlington seems to be largely populated by students, hippies and preppies.

By 1 pm, it was time to head home, as K. was leaving that evening for a conference in Amsterdam and we needed to be back in good time for him to get to the airport. We set off for what should have been a completely uneventful trip...except for the border. The border was not our friend, last week. We got pulled over for a spot check of our vehicle, and J. got busted by Canada Customs for going over the duty-free limit on clothes! Argh! (We were only out of the country 24 hours, so the limit was $50...J. spent, um, considerably more than that, hehe.)

After that little adventure, we made dinner and had a quiet evening at home, renting Casanova on DVD (ludicrous storyline, but Heath Ledger ain't ugly, so it wasn't a total waste). We decided to take Miss A. on a picnic Sunday, so that morning we headed off to the Atwater Market to pick up supplies, then went to King George Park in Westmount. It was such a beautiful day, with perfect picnic weather, and A. had a good time on the playground for a while before we packed up. We had a drive around Westmount and gawped at all the big fancy rich people's houses, before heading back to the house.

Instead of going to the airport, though, we ended up taking A. for a swim in the community pool that afternoon, since Canjet called me while we were at the park to say that my 5.50 flight back to Halifax had been delayed until 7.30. That wasn't so bad, until I got another call at 5.30 to say the delay was now until 9 pm! As it turned out, I didn't get on the plane until nearly 10.00. I should have been home by 9 pm that evening, but by the time my flight arrived, A. collected me at the airport, and we got home, it was 1.00 am. Felt tired and cranky Monday morning at work as a result, but what can ya do?

Minor gripes aside, it was a very fun little trip. I posted a bunch of pics (mainly of the Madonna concert and our cooking class at the Inn at Essex) over on Flickr.