(Originally published May 27, 2008) (Pictured: The "O" so famous hotel door. Pardon the bad jokes. I'm a tool.)
What does a good boyfriend do, I’ll tell you. He takes his girlfriend to Montreal in the middle of December for a “vacation”. Sucker.
So we left Bradford in my beat-up-piece-of-shit-Corolla-circa-1998-with-the-blue-interior on Friday, the 14th of December and headed east towards Montreal. Luckily, the weather held up for us and we made it to the land of poutine and frogs by the late afternoon (I’m just kidding, I love French people!). Seeing as how it was the winter months, we were able to get a decent price on a nice hotel, and we stayed at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth right in the heart of the downtown area. It is a beautiful hotel with a great deal of history, and is ranked in the top 500 hotels worldwide or something like that. Actually I believe it was listed at number 379, right behind the Bradford Inn. That night was viciously cold, so naturally I made Lou navigate the city with me, by foot! We went to a restaurant for some delicious eats and then hit up the convenience store for some beer and wine. Can you say two-person hotel room party!?
Saturday was equally as cold as Friday (hovering around I believe -20°C). So with my brain firmly not intact, we again decided to walk for some eats. We had a delicious brunch, and then did a little shopping, Eskimo style! That afternoon, while milling about the hotel, we made an interesting discovery.....We were staying on the 17th floor, which was the same floor that John Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous “Love-In” on. So I promptly went and took a picture of the door of the room where they stayed, which was conveniently marked for jack-asses like me. That night, we had the privilege of taking in a Hockey Night In Canada Game, as the Toronto Maple Leafs were in town to take on the Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre. The fans in Montreal are way more passionate (and entertaining) than in Toronto, although the drunks were usually all Leafs fans! The game ended with the Habs slaughtering the Leafs, by a score of 4-1, with Saku Koivu breaking out of his scoring slump to go off for a couple of goals. After the game we hit up the Peel Pub (yes it’s as seedy as the one in Toronto) for some pizza and brews. I love drinking away my sorrows and then stripping naked in the bar while singing Ricky Martin and Aqua.
Sunday, December 16, 2007 is a day that I will always remember. I awoke that morning to discover outside of the comfy confines of my hotel room laid the worst snow storm ever. After crashing my car earlier in the week while going 120km/h and hitting black ice, my winter driving confidence was bordering on non-existent to say the least. So with that in mind, we packed up our stuff and headed back west. We didn’t make it more than a kilometre from the hotel when we realized what we were up against. The motherfuckin’ Oprah Winfrey of all storms! We made our way to the 401, only to discover that part of it was closed due to blackouts. About 7 hours , 1 wiper blade, a couple of cheeseburgers, and numerous near spin-outs later, Lou and I decided to call it a day, as the driving was too treacherous and my nerves were shot. We stopped in a little town called Brockville that wasn’t even half-way home! Oh well, I was alive and able to catch some of the late football games! That night, we watched the season finale of Survivor (my first episode since that whole Romber fiasco a few years back) and starred in amazement out the window at the continuing onslaught of snow. Sugar Plum Fairies indeed.
Monday morning, after chowing down on the hotel breakfast we headed back towards the motherland. Only interesting thing to note here was the amount of cars and tractor trailers that had been abandoned overnight in ditches. Over the course of those two days I must’ve seen over 50 cars/trucks in the ditches. In the end though, we made it home and I’m not sure Lou will ever trust me to take her on a vacation again! Next vacation might have to be Nunavut in February!
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