Day #2 in Montreal

When we arrived at the hotel, I spent some time reading the tourist guides that were provided in our room. I learned that Montreal is actually an island and it is the oldest city in Canada.

I started dog-earing the pages that described promising adventures for the family and soon became overwhelmed by the amount of "must see things!" We only had two full days in Montreal. How on earth would we be able to fit everything in?

On Saturday morning, we awoke early and ventured down to the hotel's swimming pool. This was at the top of the girls' priority lists; definitely the thing they were looking forward to most.

Equipped in their new flotation swimsuits, Amanda and Eva excitedly got out of the elevator and made their way to the pool. While Amanda got right in, Eva was a bit more reluctant. For the longest time, she was happy just sitting on the edge of the pool and "dingling" her feet in the water. (We kept correcting her, saying "dangle" but she preferred to call it "dingle." That's Eva for you!)

However, once Eva saw Liam in the pool, she quickly decided it was safe to come in. Though it was his first time in a pool, Liam took to the water like a fish!

Seeing Liam in his little swimming trunks made him look so much older!

After a few minutes in the water, he started slapping the water with his hand. Each time the water splashed in his face, he seemed startled -- completely unaware that he was the one responsible for the sensation of water in his face. I guess he's a little young to understand the notion of cause and effect.

After our swim, we walked to a neighborhood grocery store to buy food for breakfast and some snacks for the day. It was a very peaceful walk and I really enjoyed looking at all the houses - or were they condos? They reminded me of the brownstones you see in New York City - lots of brick, long staircases, and greenery.

We stayed in the Quartier Latin (Latin Quarter) on Rue Sherbrooke.

We stocked up on a healthy assortment of apples, plums and strawberries, a variety of cheeses, Greek yogurt, Kefir, a warm baguette... and a not-so-healthy treat of ketchup potato chips for Dave and chocolate donuts for the girls...and myself! When we got back to the hote, we realized that somehow the baguette hadn't made it into the bag. Bummer!

Oddly enough, this turned out to be a champion breakfast - minus the potato chips! The blackberry Greek yogurt was by far the best yogurt I have ever tasted. It was so creamy that it might as well have been ice cream.

Why, oh why, don't we have this in the States??

I found myself wishing I had brought a cooler so I could transport a load of it home with me. As I looked at the ingredients on the label, I realized why it was so good. Milk, cream, and blackberries. Everything was recognizable - no artificial ingredients or preservatives!

After we were sufficiently fueled up for the day, we retrieved our car from the valet parking service and drove to Parc du Mont-Royal (Mount Royal Park.)

In the winter, Beaver Lake becomes a skating rink.

This is one of Montreal's largest greenspaces. What a fabulous park!! It seemed like the whole city was there that day. The smell of grilled food filled the air as people around us were biking, roller blading, walking, running, and flying kites.

After a while, we stopped for a snack break/diaper change at an old shelter nestled amongst the tall, shady trees. That's when we realized that somehow Liam's diapers were not in our day bag. (Ahem, remember how I told you this was a recurring theme?)

We walked around the park for nearly two hours, eventually making our way to the summit to take in the panoramic view.

The perfect opportunity for a family shot... minus Liam.

He was more interested in napping.
Instead of cuddling with his blue bunny, he used Amanda's sunglasses. Whatever works!

Looking out over the city, we were able to spot Olympic Stadium, Molson Brewery, Biodome and a few other recognizable buildings. We also saw the colorful tents marking the site of Cirque du Soleil.

This is the view from the Kondiaronk Belvedere, overlooking Montreal.

After going for an early morning walk with Liam, Dave returned to the hotel asking me to look up tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show. Ironically enough, when channel surfing the night before, we had landed on a show that was actually the one they're performing now: Totem. Good thing we caught part on TV because it would have cost several hundred dollars for tickets!

I had read about the Tam Tam drummers who routinely meet around one of the statues in the park and I really wanted to see this. It seemed like something the kids would really get into. According to one of the guide books, it happens every Sunday in the summer. Technically it wasn't summer yet, so I didn't even know if it was worth trying to seek out.

Here's Wikipedia's description:

In the summer time, Mount Royal hosts a popular activity known as the "Tam Tam Jam", whereby a number of Montrealers and visitors play hand drums ("tam-tams" in French) such as djembes on the east slope of the mountain, around the monument to Sir George-Etienne Cartier.

The Sunday gatherings attract people of various backgrounds, and often dozens of tam-tam players perform their art at the same time, encouraging others to dance. In addition, many children and adults participate in a continuous mock medieval battle with foam-padded weapons.

Since we didn't have any diapers and were running on borrowed time, we scrapped the Tam Tam idea and instead made a quick pitstop at the hotel.

When we got back on the road a few minutes later, we starting looking for a place to eat lunch. We ended up at a great, albeit pricey, bar and grill type of place. For two kids' hamburgers (which were surprisingly tasty for being a kids' meal), a Greek salad, a Spinach salad, one beer, a glass of wine, and two chocolate milks, the bill came to $78!!! We soon learned that the cost of dining out would be significantly higher than what we were used to!

While we ate, we discussed how we should spend the rest of the day. It was already 2:00 pm and the girls were getting antsy to go swimming again. It was a very warm day and they were tired of walking and being in the sun.

Dave and I made the executive decision to explore the Insectarium and Jardin Botanique (Botannical Garden), located right across the street from Olympic Stadium, site of the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

La tour de Montreal at Stade Olympique (Olympic Stadium)

A little side note here... La tour de Montreal is the tallest inclined structure in the world and it is an amazing thing to see. We stood there, all of us looking up in awe, wondering how they could have built it. In this picture, you can just barely make out the cables coming from the center of the tower.

In hindsight, we readily admit that our afternoon plan of exploring the gardens and Insectarium was too ambitious, but you couldn't buy a ticket for just one or the other. It was a package deal, which we hadn't known going into it. Considering the temperaments of the girls as well as the weather, we were lucky if we had time for one, let alone both of them!

We could have spent an entire day here, especially once we found out that the Botanical Garden alone covers 185 acres and is among the largest in the world! With the hope of fending off potential meltdowns, we chose to start with the kid-friendly Insectarium and see how far we could get.

The girls enjoyed the bee exhibits more than anything else. We must have spent nearly 10 minutes at one particular exhibit, watching one bee attempt to carry the carcass of his dead friends (or relatives?) to another location. Each time he tried to pick up a dead bee, he dropped it and made his way to a different one. We watched him repeatedly cycle through the dead bees, with the same failed result every time. The girls thought this was the most entertaining thing they had seen all day!

Before we were even halfway through the Insectarium, the girls began pleading to go on the insect-themed playground. We spent more time there than anything, partly because of the sprinkler misting area. If only we had known, we could have saved the $40 and gone to a regular old playground! Oh well, live and learn. (Now I know how my parents felt when they drove us all the way to Disney World, and all we wanted to do was go back to the hotel to swim! Sorry, Mom and Dad!)

After the playground, we hopped on the Tram and rode through the entire Botanical Garden. The key word here is rode. At no point did we get out and walk around the gardens. At the end of the day, the only thing we had seen was the Japanese Garden, and that's only because it happened to be on the way to our parked car.

A bonsai forest - approximately 100 years old

When we got back to the hotel, Dave and the girls went for a quick swim while Liam and I stayed in the room. Because it was getting late, Dave volunteered to walk with Liam to get Chinese take-out while the girls and I rested in the room. They watched cartoons in French, all the while seeming intrigued by the French language.

Around 9:00 pm (yes, our strict bedtime routine went out the window while we were on vacation!), Dave finally returned with food. Unfortunately he opted for Indian rather then Chinese, much to the girls' disappointment. To their credit, they tried the food, but everything other than the rice was just too spicy for them. Dave headed out for the second time that night, in search of a plain, old cheese pizza.

After polishing off their pizza, the girls fell asleep relatively quickly, completed exhausted from the day. It had been a very long day for all of us, but we felt good knowing that we had accomplished a lot.