Cycling in Montreal... And the markets... And stand up...
There is a cycle hire place down at Canal-de-Lachine where Atwater Avenue crosses the canal and this morning we decided to use them to go out cycling... (No, not that way, on bikes). The weather is finally a bit cooler and overcast and perfect for cycling, as it would have been great for walking and hiking too.
You can see Canal-de-Lachine to the right of the picture below, and the cycle hire place where Hans was negotiating a deal.
At one stage, road 15 crossed the canal above Hans' head while there was a smaller cycling and pedestrian bridge lower down where there was a view along Canal-de-Lachine towards downtown Montreal between the trees and the cranes and the industrial units.
Well, we handed back our bikes and walked across Canal-de-Lachine and stumbled onto a very authentic looking market place. What a nice surprise, in particular since it was now lunchtime. Di was grinning...
Only a truly authentic market would have a trolley loaded with meat being left right in the middle of the walkway. The butchers here had so much amazing stuff and we were drooling.
We also got ourselves a small piece of cheese called Les Meyers at the Fromagerie. Very good.
And, there was a truly amazing bakery there, with bread truly out of this world. Yes, Hans is a true bread fan when it comes to good European style bread. After a bit of observation, Hans noted that the Parisien baguette in particular was very popular and that was what Hans bought. Heaven, rustic, fresh, sourdough baguette for $3.10. Now, Hans is grinning (of course he had to share a bit with Di...). Picnic time.
In fact, Hans is drinking a glass of red and enjoying a second dose of the bread while writing this...
This was very tempting too. We had our lunch at a table next to this... A charcuterie.
Just after 2pm we dragged ourselves away without buying too much more. We stopped at a grocery store for a new bottle of red wine and for some chicken pieces for tomorrow night's curry. Di insisted in trying her French language skills but sometimes it does not work and she gets a laugh - for example Chook Maryland pieces are known as Cuisses de Poulet, with Cuisses pronounced "quease".
The butcher laughed and asked whether she want the left or right legs of the chicken, in English - right of course tastes better...
We wandered the streets slowly back towards the hostel. Then this...
Vineet is our mate with whom we stayed in Scottsdale, AZ (now in San Francisco). We figured this was the French spelling of his name.
We went through a mix of residential areas. Some nice homes, perhaps a little small as this is 2 separate residences. We thought the door on the right led upstairs and the door on the left was for this level and downstairs, but we didn't know for certain of course.
Some nice leafy quiet streets with nice homes...
...Across the road from what looked like government housing with old furniture and TV sets left on the sidewalk, graffiti and damage. Surprising language on this boarded up community hall, ex church..."Negro Community Centre".
Back home for a bit of an afternoon nap and shower. Di then cooked up the chicken tikka masala curry while she had the kitchen to herself around 5pm. It will be better tomorrow. Curry always is.
We had some red wine with our leftovers dinners (pasta boscaiola - still good) at 7pm and then wandered up the road to see some of the "Just For Laughs" comedians in a show called "Best of the Fest". The venue, the Comedyworks, is 2 blocks away from where we are staying.
The venue is tiny so they pack it full and charge quite a bit for a ticket and drinks. It is a requirement to buy at least one drink each in addition to the $30 entry fee. They did not have anything we wanted and what we got was awful, and cost $15.50. The waitress got a bit shirty when we did not tip her. We really dislike mandatory tipping, but this time we just plain forgot and did not feel obliged when we were overpaying anyway. But we weren't here for the drinks...back to the show.
Comedyworks was buzzing and we had great seats. We were at the back of the room, just in front of the mixer table, so you can see how "intimate" it was.
There were the mandatory photos on the wall of comics who had performed at Comedyworks but it was hard for us to recognize them from where we sat. We saw one we knew - Ray Romano.
A self portrait as we waiting excitedly.
Our MC was a comedian himself, called Lee Kemp, and he was brilliant. Funny stuff about Charles Darwin and how he might have gone about promoting evolution using twitter and a blog in the modern world.
Our first act (of about 8 comics) was this guy, and we missed his name which is a shame because he was very funny. Like nearly all the comedians who performed tonight he was an American but we could still relate to his stories and jokes.
This lady was the funniest female and she performed a little song about the anxieties she had when a waiter in Australia said "no worries" to her and she started to worry...
The funniest comedian of the night was this guy. A riot - talking about his 10 year old "good for nothing" daughter and him providing "realistic" oversight to her and her mother's expectations of life. He didn't spare his words...
The show finished after a very fast 90 minutes and we felt we got good value with about 10 minutes of stand up per comedian.
The Comedyworks hosted another show at 10.30pm with some repeat comics and some new ones. On the way out, we saw coming in "Finn", the dwarf from one of our favorite movies The Station Agent. The actor's name is Peter Dinklage and he also played a great role as a "racist dwarf" in another favorite movie "In Brugges". Damn - someone we know and like a lot and we missed his show. Oh well, the lineup was a surprise so you can't predict who would be on.
We had lots of fun and lots of laughs, a very good night. Home around 10pm to blog and call it a night. Good night.
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