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Montreal Centrale
I’ve mentioned my favourite hostel Montreal Centrale in my post about Montreal itself, but I have decided it deserved a special mention. Montreal Centrale was, by far and away, the best hostel I have stayed in in the Northern Hemisphere. During my time there (around 2 weeks in total) I met fantastic people, formed strong friendships, and had a great time. I helped in the Bar, organised pub crawls, cooked, moved furniture, lounged on couches and relaxed in the back courtyard.
Their setup is fantastic. The place used to be a hotel catering for “dubious business types” and has recently changed tack to catering for travellers and backpackers and the budget conscious. This is great because the hostel still has great hotel throwbacks, like clean rooms with TV’s and DVD players and ensuites in each, clean fresh linen, a pile of towels (hand, face, body) waiting for you on your bed at check in, great service and a pleasant atmosphere. The staff are very friendly always willing to come for a drink and entertain the clients.
I can’t thank Francisco, Joshue, Anna, Ben and the rest of the crew enough. If it weren’t for their welcoming smiles and open arms this hostel would have faded into my memories like so many others before it. They have created an environment that is extremely difficult NOT to make friends and meet people in and that is perhaps the most important part of any hostel experience. I met some people I wont ever forget here, and I owe a lot to the staff for enabling me to do so. Should I ever return to Montreal, which I definitely hope I do, Montreal Centrale will be my residence of choice.
If you’re wondering the significance of the image above, this awesome piece of art is what I marvelled at each morning across the road from the entrance of the hostel. Montreal is full of awesome graffiti.
Ubisoft
Not much to say about my visit to Ubisoft Montreal other than I WENT TO FREAKING UBISOFT MONTREAL! The makers of some of the best games released in the past two generations: Splinter Cell, PoP: Sands of Time, Rainbow Six : Vegas and of course Assassins Creed.
Sure I was all sweaty after riding to the office, and too nervous to ask if I could take photos around the reception but I was polite enough to ask permission to take a few shots of the office doors. The building is a massive warehouse on St Laurent and the lobby looks pretty cool and industrial. There were people coming and going the whole time and it all looked pretty busy.
I am glad I managed to see it while I was here, a nice little experience for my gaming odyssey. Next big gaming related event? PAX, baby!
Bixi Bikes
Need to get around Montreal? Jump on a Bixi Bike!
These public bikes are a brilliant idea. All you need to do to hire a bike is swipe your credit card. You get a little receipt with a code on it. Next you just choose any bike, enter the code and you’re off riding. The bikes are brilliant. Sturdy and well maintained. Not once in my time here have I encountered a damaged or clunky bike.
The way the model works is that you pay $5 to have access to the Bixi’s for a day (on a casual basis, cheaper for montly and yearly subscriptions) and you can ride the Bixi where ever you like, for how ever long you like with a scaling pricing structure for longer lengths of time. The best part? If you take a bike back to ANY base station within 30 minutes of grabbing one it costs you NOTHING. You can do this all day just taking a bike, riding where you want to go and leaving it. Such a brilliant idea. There are a ridiculous amount of stations and bikes, so you’re never far from a bixi station and they are carefully positioned to utilise high traffic routes but they cover the smaller streets as well.
As a rider I dig the Bixi’s. They are great for the environment, comfortable and best of all they are technically advanced. Check out their website which has stats on how far the bikes have ridden, maps for phones and account management. I freaking love Bixi!
Tam Tam Festival
I’m back in Montreal, and loving it. Over the weekend I checked out the Tam Tam Festival something I missed out on last time I was here.
The Tam Tam Festival happens every Sunday during the summer season and is completely public. Nothing is organised. It is just people rocking up to the Mont Royale Park with Tom Toms, Shakers, Tins, Drums, Bins or what ever they can hit or make noise with to play with the ever expanding group. Grooves are found and lost. They come in waves, fading when they just aren’t working and building to glorious crescendo’s when going well. People from all walks of life play and enjoy, welcomed to the collective.
On the day I went it was mightily hot, so I didn’t stay all that long but taking a picnic lunch and a blanket would be a good idea if you ever want to check out it. Of course it’s all free and open and you can ride a Bixi bike right to the park!
Those Crazy LARP’ers
Yesterday I witness one of the craziest of past times in the Mont Royale park: LARP’ing. For the uninitiated LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing. Basically it involves players (standard nerds) getting dressed up and acting out fantasy fights.
While most LARP’ing events are fairly structured and planned with skill trees, classes, teams and abilities all determined by dice rolls this LARP’ing event which happens every Sunday is more of a free for all. Forming two loose teams the groups advance on each other, proceed to beat each other with foam swords until at some point it is decided the round is over and the process repeats ad nauseam. There doesn’t seem to be any real referreree and anyone seems to be able to join. All it takes is a foam wrapped stick and a bit of imagination. In some cases you’ll see the level of dedication to role goes from casual stick bashing to broom head adorned helmets.
For the many onlookers that surrounded the players the whole thing seems ridiculous. Especially when you see the grown men taking things even more seriously than the 6 year olds. But you know what? In each and every photo you’ll see in my gallery you’ll find smiling faces. These kids are just having fun, making friends, getting out doors and a little exercise and I wont be one to decry them for that.
I had a hard time choosing which photo to use for the header image, it was a toss up between this, this and this but in the end I went with the hardcore players. All gold, all pretty cool, but you can find even more LARP’ing gold in the gallery below. It’s times like this I wish I had a decent SLR and a telephoto lens, but I just have to make do with my waterlogged Canon point and shoot which has done me well so far.
Oh and on the topic of LARP’ing check out the great animation from the For Tax Reason guys after the gallery. Great stuff.
Travel Friends
I love hostels. I love the instant connections they instil in their inhabitants. Everyone is in the same boat. We’re all sharing the same rooms with the same snorers, loafers and messy bastards. We’re all struggling travellers, excited and amazed by the smallest of things we experience on our adventures. Many are alone, seeking friendship at every corner, someone to talk to and share with.
Sometimes you find in hostels acquaintances, people to chat to and entertain for a moment, just a moment before they fade off into the night. Other times you meet those that you wish to surround yourself with for longer, filling your day with their company. I’ve met a few people like this on my trip. People that share a common outlook on the world and attitude to life.
Finding people like this is fairly rare but great. Of the hundreds upon hundreds of people I have met, shaken hands with, shared a beer and stories and laughs just a few make it into my hit list. They stand like mile markers in my adventure, my memories of them shining like beacons in rolling seas.
While I have become hardened against goodbyes, they are still are difficult, but the effect is reduced I have found when done over the hangover of a great night out. One such a great night was in the wonderful Quebec. And so, once again farewell my friends. May we find one another again in this wide world and raise a glass to our past, present and future.
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil is one of those things I’ve just never really “got”. People rave about this thing, like it is some magical experience blinding to all shows that went before and even those yet to be. It has been placed on a pedestal so high that not even my expectations could reach it. To go along with that, the prices for the shows are ridiculous, adding to my complete lack of enthusiasm to see what all the fuss is about. I can’t move fast enough to the remote when ever I see another Cirque Du Soleil special on TV, scrambling like a soldier diving for cover from a nearby grenade.
When I found out that during the summer festival in Quebec Cirque Du Soleil would be performing for free beneath the underpass in downtown I figured: what the hell, I’ll check it out. And you know what? Colour me impressed, but in muted tones… maybe even with water based paint so I can clean up quickly once the novelty has worn off.
Basically I found the show to be street performers with a massive costume budget. The acrobatics and juggling and dancing was impressive, but nothing I really hadn’t seen a million times around the world, done by crazy hippies or poor travellers to earn a little cash by entertaining tourists. This is over simplifying a little. There were moments I thought: wow, but I think they were massively outweighed by the times I thought: meh.
I loved the costumes, and the music was phenomenal. I am just glad it cost me zero dollars. The show was well worth that price. More than worth it. Sorry to all you Cirque Du Soleil fans out there if you’re offended by my stance. All I know is I’ve finally seen it so you can all stop telling me how I should really see Cirque Du Soleil, but I probably wont see it again.
Quebec
Prague was in my opinion the most beautiful city in Europe. It was like a fairy tale and I didn’t think I would find a city that could top it in the beauty stakes. That was until I found Quebec.
Quebec (or Quebec City), the capital of the Quebec Province is quite a small town with a population of around a million. Its’ skyline dominated by the Old Town built high on the hill in a location advantageous to defence. It is a walled city, in fact the only walled city north of Mexico on this continent. Quebec is clean, beautiful and interesting. While it lacks the nightlife of say Montreal, what little it does have is pretty rocking.
I had a great time walking all over Quebec. I spent the majority of my time in the Old Town, or down at the port. I rested my weary feet in fountains and bathed myself in the blazing sun. At night I couldn’t stop staring at the buildings and streets that glowed with lighting that seemed straight out of a movie.
At the moment the city is hosting it’s Summer Festival with Cirque de Soleil for free almost every night and the “Moulin a Image” a huge multimedia presentation across a ridonkulously big screen (actually the side of a massive silo). Thousands of people flood into the city each night to see either of these two spectacles and to eat at the hundreds of restaurants and cafes that lie scattered through the old town.
On top of all this the Hostel I stayed in, located in downtown was very cool. Totally relaxed, open and friendly with our hosts Pierre and Skippy, the little Jack Russell that would come in and sticky beak in on the rooms. It was a small hostel though, and the 2 toilets and showers sometimes struggled to cope with the demand. I am just glad that I am an early riser and beat the rush.
I only had 3 days in Quebec and there were a few things I would have liked to see that I missed out on. I could have spent a long time just soaking up the atmosphere. Oh well, just means I will have to go back.
Paris but not…
Montreal is a weird little place. Well, little isn’t really the right word. The city is the jewel in French Canadia’s Crown. With a population of around 1.6 million in the city and 3.6 in the ‘burbs Montreal is the second largest French speaking city in the world. It feels Metropolitan. Walking around the Latin Quarter, visiting the many bars and restaurants along St. Denis reminds me of Paris. In fact the vibe of the City is very much Paris, while still having enough of its own character to set itself apart from its big sister.
While in Montreal I have walked Mont Royale in the pouring rain, been out to a few bars and restaurants, played Scrabble with new friends in my very, very awesome hostel, rode the very cool Bixi bikes all over town and checked out the Biodome. I saw live music in pubs and clubs, and enjoyed the Franco Folies Festival with some friends from Toronto.
In a strange mental snap I spent a day looking for 3/4 length cargo pants in downtown Montreal. Finding this one article of clothing has become a bit of an obsession for me. My search has become a crazed compulsion, leading me into every store I can find to search rows and rows of clothes for shorts that aren’t quite pants and pants that aren’t quite shorts. How hard can they be to find really? Very hard evidently. I need to find a Kathmandu or Patagonia or some other camping goods store, something that seems pretty much non existent here. Maybe in Vancouver. Damn you 3/4 length cargos, release me from this strange neurosis.
I’ve had an awesome time in Montreal. It has been much friendlier and more interesting than Toronto. I will be back here again in about a week to catch my flight to Vancouver so I think I’ll be visiting the Blues Bar again, just for some quiet drinks and some live music. Great stuff.
Housekeeping
This morning in Montreal I spent a little time doing some housekeeping. Just checking flights, planning the next couple of days, sorting accommodation etceteras. In doing so I began to take stock of my trip so far and thought I would just give you an update on some stats:
Days travelling: 199 days
Current weight: 68 kg (starting weight 78kg)
Amount spent on toilets: ~$150AUD
Countries visited: 12
Cities (1 night min): 22
Photos taken: 9,000
Blog posts: 105
Flights: 7
Flights missed: 0
Major trains: 3
Trains missed: 1
Major busses: too many to count
Busses missed: 0
Backpack weight: ~28 kg
Daypack weight: ~10 kg
Souvenirs bought: 0
Clothes bought: 2 pair of shorts, 4 tshirts, 1 hat
Postcards sent: 0
Hostels stayed in: 23
Books read: 8
Number of times caught in rain: don’t even start
I’ve still got around 2 months to go, so these stats are sure to increase, especially the photos one. I have also updated my itinerary with my latest flights and movements if you need to check up on / stalk me.