vacation chapter 1: Montreal, Je ne parle pas français

Saturday morning (July 21) we drove from Detroit to Montreal. The drive actually went really well even though it was long. Canada sucks because the exchange rate is pretty much 1-to-1 right now. The Canadians blame it on the U.S. dollar being weak but whatever. We know the truth.

Sunday morning we walked down to the old part of the city.

And we happened upon some locks! Yay!! I love boat locks.

And I wanted to get on this guy's boat.

Where did Jesse go?


We ended up going to see the Bodyworlds 2 exhibit at the science center. I hadn't seen it before and found it very interesting. And creepy. And when we went to a deli afterward to get lunch, I looked at the shaved meats and decided to eat a bag of chips instead. Yuck and yuck.

The Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal wasn't far from where we were walking around so we decided to check it out. It was pretty cool. Sorry about the link that is in French. I couldn't get the English one to work.


I like cemeterys so we went to Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges because it is huge and really old. When we pulled in we saw a lot of signs like this one.

I don't speak or read French and Jesse was driving so couldn't stop to try to read the sign. When we drove into the cemetery we noticed nobody had mowed in a long ass time. I'm terrified of snakes and I know that snakes like to live in cemeterys that haven't been mowed in a long ass time so we didn't walk much off the road.

Right next to that cemetery is the Le Cimetière Mont-Royal that had been mowed recently. It was really pretty until I stepped in a small hole and twisted my ankle.

Back in the Cimetière Notre-Dame-des-Neiges I stopped to take a photo of this.

Right when I was done taking the picture I turned and a fox ran out from the tall grass. I was afraid of snakes when I should have been afraid of foxes. It was much cuter than a snake and I tried to find it again. The grass was much too tall.

And we found out that the signs at the entrance of the cemetery were in regards to the work stoppage at the cemetery. Apparently the workers were locked out when they demanded higher wages, better benefits, all that good stuff. I hope they get to go back to work soon.

We went to a fancy dinner at a restaurant where apparently, Ben Affleck has been sighted. I ordered some kind of fancy squash ravioli and was mortified when my entree showed up and there were 5 raviolis on my plate. 5. And they were skinny little things. So I ate dinner again later.

After fancy dinner, we were walking around and found a parade beginning to form. There were brides in underwear and grooms with the asses cut out of their pants (and they were commando!). And I didn't have my camera!! We ran back to the hotel room and grabbed the camera and went back. I didn't see the brides and brooms but I took some photos of goofy Canadiens anyway.


We were tired from a long day of walking around the city. Monday morning we got up and found a little place to get crepes and then headed toward Quebec, and eventually Maine.

Coming soon!
Chapter 2: Quebec, Je ne parle toujours pas français.