Montreal adventures and danger pants part 1

Montreal is the only place I know of where you can buy a Porsche, eat a Jewish lunch, an Iranian dinner and freak yourself out night skiing. And I did all of those things.

Giles picked me up from the train station on the Friday and I received the deluxe walking tour of Montreal, including his post-doctoral home at McGill University (where he spent several years pretending to do stuff but really hanging out in a fabulous graduate student lounge that serves many varieties of scotch). We walked around the old town and St Denis area, which I could picture coming to life in a fabulous way in summertime. We visted a great chocolate shop that sold truffles with honey and also some with chilli (very good) and took some home for Kirsten, who I was to meet later.

By Friday evening I was nodding off over dinner and Giles took pity on me, stopping me from face-planting into my soup and letting me stay home while he attended Kirsten's performance as Viola leader in one of the local orchestras.

On Saturday we all got up late and after my first great American breakfast experience (Kirsten is US) of coffee and Cheerios, we set off to Moren Heights for skiing in the afternoon after shopping for some supplies at the Mountain Co-op. I bought my first toque (Canadian beanie- according to them a "beanie" is something with a propeller on it). My toque had tassels on it and I felt very cool.

At Moren Heights I rented a pair of bright red ski pants, which I dubbed "danger pants" given that I am a beginner to intermediate skiier in Oz, making me an absolute beginner in Montreal. Giles went for some telemark skis (which meant his ankles were free- madness) and Kirsten is black run instructor level so it took all of their patience and our combined good humour for us to have a great afternoon and evening with it ending in laughs rather than in any broken bones, tears or both. Strangely enough, night skiing was better than twilight- I could see the patches of ice much more easily.

We returned to Montreal for dinner at a local Iranian restaurant which served us copious amounts of rice and amazingly spiced meat. Also, we watched a classic Quebecqois film on DVD (English subtitles) "Seducing Dr Lewis", which is a brilliant comedy involving the inhabitants of a small fishing town "seducing" a Montreal doctor to move there as a prequisite for them getting a factory owner to base a factory there and revitalise the town. Amongst other things, Dr Lewis is a cricket fan, which results in a lot of Canadian humour. Very cleverly done and one of the best foreign films ever.

I will continue next time with Jewish lunch and how I now own a Porsche (hint- made by the car company but not a car) in my next post.