It was overcast, with sprinkles, this morning, when we took off for Canada. We had a prearranged stop over the border for Steve and crew to pick us up when we phoned them. We thought that if we ever got into Montreal we’d have to spend the rest of the vacation trying to find our way out! Those little two way radios really came in handy for the trip into the city. We could chat with Steve and Adriane and they could give us a warning when there was a turn coming up.
We had a lunch at a little French restaurant in Montreal, very quaint, down steps…like going into a wine cellar. The waiter chatted away with Adriane in French….impressed the dickens out of me! We ordered ‘meat pie’ which Adriane says is” the staple of many Canadian holiday meals”. It’s a ground up meat with a crust. When the waiter saw me getting ready to take a picture of Rick and Gabriel…he took the camera…made me get in the picture, positioned us and snapped the picture. Loved his broken American-French accent. He was very sweet and wished us “a pleasant stay”.
When we came up the stairs…the rain had stopped! We wandered around OLD MONTREAL, up and down narrow cobble stoned streets. This section is like I imagine Europe to be. There is a tiny narrow alley where artists have their PRINTS DISPLAYED displayed. I bought a couple of line drawings…to remind me of this wonderful day. One of the artists is also a photographer. We talked a long time about photography and the difficulty of taking a picture…not of an image but of a feeling…We really related and I had a great time chatting with him.
Adriane hadn’t been to the NOTRE-DAME BASILICA and I wanted to see it again. It is a truly magnificent cathedral…a feast for the eye and the soul!
I just sat there in awe. I bought a postcard of the interior…it’s just too hard to photograph there. Then we went out into the square across the street. Beautiful fountain and statues…and flower vendors…very European. GABRIEL climbed out of his stroller and, in his little red shirt, chased across the square, arms outstretched, trying to catch a pigeon, scaring them all up into flight…and splashing through rain puddles to do it! I’ll always carry that image in my mind…such pure joy!
They were shooting a movie and we watched for a time. There were a couple of actors dressed in top hats etc…period dress. When they were finished with the scene I put the camera up to take a picture and one of them made ‘rabbit fingers’ behind the other guys top hat…cracked us up!
Gaby, Adriane’s mom invited us out to dinner. We ate at a chicken place…they serve a gravy or sauce with the chicken, for dipping, delicious…wish they did that in the States.
We said our good-byes at the restaurant. It was such fun to spend a special day with our dear family. It started to rain fairly hard shortly after…but Ricky found the way to boarder…with a little help from a map and Adriane. When we got there Rick thought the guy waved him through (he was really tired by that time) and just kept going. That got him a major dressing down…the man told him if he hadn’t stopped when he yelled at him it would have been a $5,000 dollar fine! That would have brought the vacation to an abrupt halt! I know it made Rick feel stupid, but it did wake him up! We couldn’t go any further then Burlington, even though we had meant to go on back to Gaysville…just too tired to be safe on the road.