DAY 45 : August 21st Sunday Montreal
Woke up around 6:30am again, sigh, but stayed in bed and snoozed. Kiddos crawled in with us around 7:30 or so and snuggled. Lots of great snuggles on this trip. This morning we put more stickers on the side panel!
Tried to get an Uber to come pick us up, but because we are so far out here, it didn’t look like anyone wanted to come out and get us. We ended up calling the taxi company and had our fingers crossed it wouldn’t be a young smoker/texter like last time. Luckily when he arrived, he was super friendly and allowed Jonathan to sit in the front seat so we were not crushed in the back. We got dropped off at Longeuil Station and used our fare cards again to hop on the Metro to Berri and changed lines to Place D’Armes which would take us across the street from the Science Museum.
We had decided with the heat yesterday, that the Science Museum was an agreed choice for today’s activity, and both kids were excited to get in there and explore. I waited in line for a coffee for Jonathan and the kids waited in line at the ticket booth while Jonathan went to look for a washroom. He came back to take his place in line for his coffee and I jumped in with the kids to buy tickets. We got a $5 promo upgrade to add on an Imax film for 1:50pm, then went to the Fabrik Zone where we’d find Jane and her daughter, Althea, our friends from Vancouver who were also visiting Montreal this weekend. The same friends we narrowly missed seeing in the Muskokas! She had mentioned they planned to check out the Science Centre, so I had texted to see if she was there. We were allowed to join her table in the creation zone and we had a nice little visit while the kids built Rube Goldberg type machines from all the supply of pegs, tubes, found items, plastic toys and golf balls.
Hugs and goodbyes, and Jane and Althea moved on to have lunch with their friends, and we went to get seats for the Lions De Mer iMax movie. It was a neat 3D movie about the SeaLions of Australia. It was all en Français and I gotta say, I was super pleased with myself that I understood 90% of the film and was able to whisper some details to Amelia so she could get a sense of what was going on.
By 3pm we were back into the exhibits and the kids we super pumped. I was a very interactive and spacious area, and Oliver commented on how “we could stay until it closes right?”. It was here in the exploration gallery where we saw through the big floor to ceiling windows that there was a massive thunder and lightening storm outside that had rolled in while we were watching the movie!! We sure have experienced our share of thunderstorms this trip! We had not packed for any kind of weather other than sun, so we hoped it might ease off before we left the museum, and continued to enjoy all the exhibits.
Ollie liked the extreme sports exhibit with the squirrel suits and a parkour section. We were just into the Guiness Book of World Record science exhibit when we heard the notice over the announcements that the Musée would be closing in 15 minutes! We managed to rush through and literally got kicked out of the area by an employee, along with a few other lingering families. We made our way out (snapped a couple pics at the extreme bike/skateboard set up) and walked to the front entrance where several groups of people were standing in the lobby looking out at the pouring rain. Jonathan checked on Uber for a possible lift to the Mont Royal area where we wanted to seek out the St-Viateur Bagels. Not surprisingly, the uber prices were sky high due to the large demand, so we set a timer to wait out the big rain in hopes it would be more feasible to walk the few blocks up to St. Laurent without getting drenched.
Luck was on our side and we only had to wait a few minutes before we decided the rain wasn’t strong enough to soak us, and we dodged puddles over the train tracks and up into Vieux Quebec to the Metro station. Onto the Metro we went… up to Mont Royal and by this time the rain has pretty much stopped and we were on a new pedestrian only street in the mix of sun/rain drizzle where you expected to find a rainbow. The streets were pretty much clear of people as we wandered up towards St-Viateur. We arrived around 5:30pm or so and was pleased to find there were only a couple other people inside and no line up. We used our best French to order bagel sandwiches (hardboiled egg with salad for Amelia, Cream Cheese and fig confiture for Jonathan, and the traditionnel : Smoked Salmon and cream cheese for Ollie and myself. They did not disappoint! Sooooooo yummy. We noticed at 6pm they blocked off the deli side of the cash tills, so we realized that we just snuck in for the sandwiches! Whew!
I grabbed a t-shirt (which ended up being a unisex medium and not a women’s cut medium, doh) and the kids and I ordered some bagels to go while Jonathan chatted with one of the shop keepers. A friendly older baker walked over to the kids and grabbed two rounds of raw bagel dough and handed them to the kids. He spoke in French at first, and when he handed Amelia her’s, she accidentally dropped it, and he smiled and swooped it off the floor and handed her the other one saying, “oops! Sorry, none for you!” to Ollie. But he laughed and grabbed a new on off the baking tray for Oliver, and said, “here you go! Like bagel play doh! Enjoy!” We took two each of the bagels available (raisin, blueberry and poppyseed) and walked back to Jonathan at the table. He had been telling the guy about our trip, and he couldn’t believe we’d driven from Vancouver and were still going to be away for a few more months. He turned and took two St-Viateur Bagel Stuffies from behind him on the merchandise shelf and handed one to each of the kids. “A gift for your trip!” We thanked him and said one would be fine, to which he replied, “Non! I have two kids… when you have two, you need two!” ;-)
Photo op in front of the bagel cafe after our lovely experience there. Again Montreal has gifted us with more generosity. Xo By now the rain had fully cleared and the streets were fresh with some blue sky and sunshine peeking through the clouds. We walked back down the pedestrian street, stopped in a toy store where the kids found a very fun little bug “tiki” terrarium that that was set up inside like a tropical resort. Very funny. They begged to buy it for “Star of the Show”, but I would not let them (despite actually kinda wanting it because it was so cute!). Back to the Metro where once on the orange line to head back to Berri Uqam Station, Jonathan asked if we might have time to ride the line to the Bell Centre (the real bell centre, not the old forum again), and so we hopped onto the green line at Berri and rode it right to the Bell Centre.
Lots of cool memorabilia and nostalgia around the centre. Tons of Montreal Canadiens history, commemorative jerseys, murals, statues, etc. It was really quite cool to walk around and take it all in.
Across the way was a Café Starbucks and we ordered a coffee for Jonathan, two cake pops and a bag of coffee to be ground for us. There was a muddle with using my Starbucks card, plus Jonathan’s gift card, and then cash for payment. In the kerfuffle and waiting for my change, the cashier forgot to give the kids their cake pops. They finally got their treats, Jonathan had his coffee and I had my change. Not realizing that the other hadn’t received the bag of coffee, we walked out in a fog to the nearest station to head home. Kind of a dodgy station. It wasn’t super late, only 8pm, but there were a few people in the area that were having some issues. Security was watching this one woman tweaking out a bit but not intervening.
When we got to Longeuil, we were pretty tired and the kids were pretty punchy and silly. Tired energy. We were annoyed at ourselves for forgetting the coffee, but had to laugh it off. It was more disappointing that we wouldn’t have any coffee for the morning! Jonathan called an Uber and thought he pinned Longueil as the pick up spot. But when the car showed up as arriving, Jay couldn’t see us on the map. Turned out that he pinned Longeuil… the city in general - not the station. doh. He cancelled and rebooked and finally someone came to pick us up. Super nice Egyptian guy who was sweet and chatty. We were back at the campground around 9pm … had cooling clean showers and tucked straight into bed!!
Waiting for the Uber at Longeuil!
Entertained by Sesame the Bagel(s)
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