Montreal- Day 2

So, we woke up early and decided to go get a bite to eat and see what Montreal had to offer. We walked many miles, but started off downtown on St. Catherine's street (the most popular street in Montreal.) St. Catherine's Street is lined with architecturally beautiful buildings, churches, couture stores (like Louis Vuitton), and strip clubs.

Our morning began at Van Houtte, a sweet French Cafe, where I got a raspberry chocolate bread and Aaron got a croissant. One thing I loved about Montreal was most of the buildings were brick/cobblestone inside and out. Outside the window of the cafe, as you can see, was quite the view :)

After eating, we ventured down to the "old down town" of Montreal. We visited the Notre Dame Church and The Palace De Armes, which are both rich with history. They offered us horse drawn buggy to explore, but I would have rather been able to move around freely to inspect my surroundings.

Notre Dame

Hotel DeVille

I took this picture to illustrate some of the beautiful architecture of Montreal.

By this time we were getting hungry because in Montreal you either walk or take the metro. We did both but it seems more walking than Metro because it was about $5 (CAD) to take the metro. As we headed back in the direction of our hotel, we ran into a cute little diner called McGill's. We stopped in for a bite to eat. Our waitress was HORRIBLE. She was on old hag that seemed annoyed that we didn't speak French. I ordered a burger club and Aaron, poor thing, thought that the Mexican burger sounded good. When our meals came out mine was great Aaron's, however, looked more like a piece of beef with Chef Boyardee slapped all over it. Unfortunately the service was poor so we ate and left promptly.

We continued down to our part of the city, via China Town. It was a very cute part of Montreal with little Asian shops filled floor to ceiling. It seemed like a completely different "city" within the city.

Aaron took me down to China Town.

Once we got home Aaron said he wanted to rest. We had been up since a pretty early hour and done quite a bit of walking. He laid his head on the pillow and then immediately darted to the bathroom, where he stayed for the rest of the night not able to keep a drop of liquid down.

**As an aside: We, at first, suspected he had food poisoning from McGill's. However now that I came down, days later, with what he got we know it was just a bug. He was such a trooper. When I am sick, I like to be at home in MY bed. I can't imagine being as sick as he was in a hotel room, in a new city, in another country!**

Aaron stayed in the hotel room for the rest of the night, but I took the opportunity to go out on the town to visit some of the shops. I ate in the hotel restaurant having the best french onion soup of my life. I had to dine alone, so the Maitradee sat down with me and spoke of Montreal and all it's offerings. He told me about it's history, the best time to visit (summer), the must-see's, and that Montreal is actually an island (surrounded by the St. Lawrence River). Who knew? He was such a sweet old gentleman and I much enjoyed his conversation, knowledge, and company. Once I returned, (the Maitradee packed up a meal for Aaron free of charge), I laid in bed and watched TV until I fell asleep.

So concluded Montreal Day 2.

Stay tuned for Montreal Day 3! It does get better ;)