En Route

Well, I made it to Paris! :)

I left Detroit Sunday afternoon and flew to Montreal. I had a connection there on the way to Paris, and since I've never been I wanted to spend a night there and check out the city a bit. I got there in the evening and took a bus into downtown. Everyone spoke French everywhere, so it was kind of intidimidating and it's also a lot harder to understand Québécois. I don't think it's as pretty as Parisian French either.

Anyway I stayed at Montreal Centrale Hostel, which was really nice! Two girls I was rooming with were actually from Toulouse, so I practiced my French with them a bit, which was cool. I didn't really do much that night, since it was late, but I just walked around town a bit and grabbed a bite to eat a place called Frites, Alors! It was pretty good.

Tuesday morning I woke up, grabbed some breakfast and realized that it was raining outside so my options for sightseeing were limited. Plus I only had a few hours until my flight to Paris. But I think I made the most of it. I went to check out the Biodôme in the Olympic village, but it was a little lame I thought. Then I went to the McGill campus and walked around for a while, it was pretty cool. Maybe I'll look into going to grad school there.

At this point it finally stopped drizzling and the sun started to come out. I went to get some lunch at Schwartz's deli, which is a famous Jewish deli in Montreal. It was pretty cheap too, I was afraid it was going to be Zingerman's-style prices. I got a smoked meat sandwich and it was delicious. Then I walked around rue Saint-Laurent, and there was a little pedestrian street there with a bunch of cool little shops and cafés.

Then I booked it to Old Montreal. I only had like half an hour before I had to go back to the hostel and get my stuff to go the airport, but I really wanted to at least go there for a little bit. I ended up only seeing the Basilique Notre-Dame, which is basically Montreal's version of the same thing in Paris. But it was neat.

Then back to the hostel, airport and my plane! I got jipped with a window seat in a three person row (although row 47! [out of like 58, the plane was pretty huge]), which sucked because my legs are too long to sit like that for a long time, but other than that the flight was actually really nice. Since it was an Air France flight from Montréal to Paris, it was very French, but in a good way. There were like at least 50 movies to choose from, and all of them were pretty good and a lot them haven't even come out in the States yet. I watched "Mirmacs à tire-larigot", which is Jean-Pierre Jeunet newest film (director of Amélie), it was pretty good. Yolande Moreau was in it, and I like her a lot. The dinner they served was awesome too! Among the cool/unusual things there was pâté (which was delicious), gouda cheese, and a small bottle of Merlot (for free!). After that I took a nap, but it didn't last very long. After that I watched an episode of How I Met your Mother, and I decided to watch it dubbed in French, since I've already seen it in English. IT WAS AWESOME. (It was the episode where Barney tells Lily that he's in love with Robin, and Ted makes that chick from Scrubs he's dating watch Star Wars).

And then I landed in Paris...

TBC