Wow, I'm sooo behind with posting. Sometimes I'm wondering while I'm even hanging on to the blog while everyone else is on Instagram nowadays. But I still really do enjoy the writing, and not just typing on my phone (which really is a pain in the you-know-what).
So what I wanted to write about was our trip to Montreal in May this year. I had really been looking forward to this trip and it was going to be my first time in Canada and Baby S.'s first time outside the EU ever! We had prepared everything well and I wasn't too worried about the long flight, in fact the outbound flight went quite well. It was still of course the opposite of relaxing but ok, we could handle it. He even napped long enough for us to watch Aquaman during the flight which is quite a long film to be honest.
But once we arrived in Montreal it got a bit more difficult. Jetlag hit. And it hit us hard. While we parents actually got over it pretty quickly (having a baby makes you used to sleep deprivation I learned), the little one was not so pleased. During the entire week we stayed there he regularly woke up around 4 am and wanted to play, then refused to nap during the day.
It was also still quite cold in Montreal at that time of the year, comparable to February/March in Belgium I would say. Luckily we had packed the right sort of clothing but it was still not great since the only way to occupy the baby was going for walks and spotting buses, which he developed as his new favourite activity while we were there. So I ended up exploring the underground malls of Montreal in all their beauty. It's very practical, I have to admit, but if you are already suffering from a lack of sleep you wouldn't mind at least getting some fresh air and daylight once in a while.
So all in all I don't regret the trip, it still got me to explore a new city which I enjoyed. But being by myself (Thomas was working at a conference the whole week) with baby, the bad weather, and jet lag combined actually made me come home more tired than I was before. Oh, and did I mention the flight back? Yes, it was hell. 7 hours of sleepless hell on an overnight flight. I will stick to daytime flights with babies in the future.
My Top 10 things I liked about Montreal:
- Amazing coffee places, like this one: Paquebot, Vieux Montreal
- Green spaces & parks such as Mont-Royal, the botanic gardens, and St. Helen's island
- Good public transport and walking (not so evident for North America)
- McCord Museum about First Nations' culture and art
- Museum of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) which has its headquarters in Montreal (register in advance for a guided tour)
- The Mile End and Plateau neighbourhoods for the maximum hipster experience
- Montreal Olympic Stadium
- People speak French AND English (well, most of them)
- Lots of buses and trucks to spot for little ones
- Also, tame squirrels tha people feed in parks.
I did one day trip, which is definitely worth it but unfortunately I didn't have a very good experience personally. I will describe it in more detail because it was so ridiculous: I was interested in Quebec's First Nations people and on the Internet I found this place called Kahnawake just outside Montreal that was reachable by bus, so I thought I'd make a daytrip out of it. Unfortunately this didn't quite go as planned. There were only 3 buses per day and missed the first one so I could only leave in the afternoon.
Finally on our way, crossing the bridge of the St. Lawrence river was amazing. But on the other side the streets became more winding and the driver was not very skilled so started feeling a bit car sick. Baby S. had been sitting on my lap and became gradually more quiet, which I mistook for tiredness. The moment we had finally reached our destination and I was getting off, it happened: S. threw up all of the fruit puree he just ate over me, the floor of the bus, and -of course- the drivers' bag which was besides him.
Covered in vomit, trying to wrestle the pram out of the bus with one hand and with a sick baby on my other arm, the driver still had the nerve to ask me to clean up the bus! I was so angry that I just threw him a packet of wet wipes - which I subsequently regretted because after the bus left, I didn't have much to wipe us down with. A well, the vomit splashes on my shoes are still there now.
Luckily it was only a short bout of car sickness which I can totally empathise with after feeling it a bit myself. But not so luckily, we had arrived just before the closing time of the visitor's centre and all the other "attractions" in the little community, which was really more of a residential small town. I was given directions to a café where I spent half an hour, trying to clean us both up, and then decided to catch the next bus back again because there was nothing to do there anymore.
Of course, to finish off this ridiculous trip, when the bus pulled up, it was the same driver as before! He had just done a loop and was no going back downtown. Even though I was still angry I got myself to apologize for the incident (although I still think it was the drivers' bad driving which had caused it in the first place) and he got us back to Montreal. One of the lowest moments on this trip, I was happy it was over.
Oh, and I didn't learn anything about Kahnawake, its people, or the history of the First Nations in Quebec besides the wikipedia article that I read after I came home.
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