Sat 6 Jul - Montreal, QC

Time has come for us to leave United States... With one spare day left on our 6 months visa, we need to move on. Canada is next, Montreal, Quebec.

Di returned to the hostel at 7am, we packed up our things, took up the offer of free hot breakfast for the last time and walked with our bags from 40 Berkeley across to South Station, about 20 minutes.

Along the way, we passed Boston's Chinatown for the first time through Beach Street.

Boston's Chinatown is, of course, not as large as Chinatown in New York City, nor Sydney's, but commerce was in full swing this Saturday morning, including this "entrepreneur" who was selling fish from the back of his truck. Never seen that before... Didn't it use to be loudspeakers?

Boston South Station's bus terminal was busy this Saturday morning. Our Greyhound bus departure time to Montreal was 10am which was the same time as some 5-6 other buses were supposed to leave in various directions. Anyway, a few minutes after 10am, we are on our way as the driver announces a number of stops along the way, including a driver change in Burlington, Vermont. The bus is little more than half full.

A pretty uneventful trip, a quick stop at Manchester Airport in New Hampshire, a 30 mins lunch stop at White River Junction where we shared a Subway foot long sandwich and then... We stopped at Burlington International Airport. Serious deja vu. It was at this very airport that we changed our deer damaged car for another car a couple of weeks ago. Well, we didn't expect that we would return to this exact same location. Made us reminisce. No, not really...

One of the bus passengers was a smoker and she made sure to let everybody know that. As soon as there is any stop, even to pick up one single in passenger at Manchester, NH (less than an hour after we set off) she was on her way to the exit with her cigarette pack in her hand, talking smoko, nicotine... Of course, most stops were very short and the driver would not allow her nor anybody else to leave the bus. Grumbling, grumbling to anyone who would "appreciate" her inconvenience. Ahh, did we tell you that she was Dutch?

We arrived at the American / Canadian border just before 4pm. Crossing the border was quick and easy, and took perhaps 10 minutes. The immigration / custom control is a joint effort between the two countries and after a few mandatory questions, we were through and inside Canadian territory.

The road was more narrow, not in as good condition as on the USA side and there were fewer cars as well. Corn crops were the consistent farming all the way north to Montreal.

We arrived in downtown Montreal at about 5.30pm and needed to do a few things before leaving the bus station - get Canadian $ and collect our tickets for our next Greyhound trip, to Ottawa. Customer service at the ticket counter was the B-team compared to what we've had for the last 6 months. French anyone...? Oh well.

The metro to our hostel, HI Montreal (HI stands for Hostel International as is sort of a "chain"), was an easy 5 stop journey, although it costs at least 50% more than the prices of New York's subway. We had been warned that everything here would be noticeably more expensive and we could already see that.

First impressions of our hostel are great (see the photo below). We got a small, quiet private room with aircon and our own bathroom (we didn't expect that). Good common facilities (including a big kitchen and a bar) and a nice central location too. After settling in we head out for dinner and grocery shopping and to check out our immediate area.

We were given directions at the hostel to the restaurant and bar strip about 2 blocks away and chose a dinner location based on karma, a place called 3 Brasseurs (3 brewers). It paid off well - we sat outside, had great drinks including brewed on premises IPA for Hans, nice service and quite nice flammenkuchen (very thin German style pizza).
Flammenkuchen are actually not round, they are oval. Otherwise, yes, a very thin pizza.
Hans sampled the home brewed IPA which was excellent but he ordered another one just to be sure...

Di got a pint of their special sangria (with a shot of triple sec). Yummy but after 2 of these (ie: more than a liter) she was staring to lean a little...

All good except the cost. Quebec has a 15% sales tax added onto quoted prices. A tip of 15% on top is not a must but is very much expected (they even do the calculation for you). So 2 drinks each and some pizza cost $72. In regional USA this would have been about $40. Well, at least it's getting us used to what we will face in the UK and Europe.

Something of note - over the last few months we have seen many beggars with cardboard signs - most with a sad tale. While drinking on the terrace we finally saw a beggar with a sense of humor. His sign? "Too ugly for prostituion!" LOL.

As the sun set (around 9pm) we decided to do our grocery shopping (for 2 home cooked dinners and basic breakfast before we leave for Ottawa in 3 days time).

After getting over the price shock, and enjoying the novelty of joint french and english signs (the former in larger print), we decided to "splurge" a little ...Tim Tams! They were actually cheaper than many local cookies. Gotta have them.

They were also selling quite a few Australian red wines, none of which we had heard of. Wine regions such as "high up in the Aussie mountains" did not really clarify anything either. Regardless, we bought ourselves a bottle of Oz plonk.

Back at HI Montreal around 9.30pm where we sorted, labelled and tried to disguise our goodies for storage in the communal fridge and shelves. Fingers crossed it is all there in the morning (although a good sign was that 2 commercial fridges were nearly full already, so others have their own stuff too).

Great entree into Montreal. Good night.

 

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