Back to Montreal

We are heading back to Montreal via train. It's really quite a civilized way to travel. This train is not quite as nice as the one that brought us to Quebec in that there are four seats across instead of three. However, compared to tomorrow's travel on a plane, this is luxury. The trains here, like those in Europe, seem to travel on time. They do not play about departure times. Arrival times seem a little more fluid if, say, your train has to move to a side rail so that another train can pass. You can see the train car here - and this is the economy car. It's quite roomy and there is wireless - gratuit!

We spent the morning packing. We talk about getting larger suitcase, but then we would go over the weight limit. Here's a way to save room in your lugggage, if you are traveling to Quebec in the late winter: don't bother bringing sweaters. The Québécois love running the heat (except in the ice hotel), so you may as well just bundle up for outside and be ready to shed it inside.  Many people wear short sleeves while inside. I'm guessing that the air was set to at least 76F in most places. Anyway, we got the suitcases and backpacks closed but just barely. I am grateful for the $8 ziplocks, which helps us reduce the bulk of the sweaters that we did not wear. 

Another thing, which I do not think we've pointed out yet and was new to us southerners: one sheds one's boots before one enters a dwelling. We've seen special trays set out as well as people just leaving them on carpeting. Two things I learned from this: pack slippers, so that you don't have to run around in your stocking feet, and do not store your shoes with your laces underneath them. This results in wet, salty laces which are yucky to lace up. 

I have to say that renting an apartment or condo is much preferred to staying in a B&B or a hotel. We had room to spread out and to have our own space for reading, etc. We had a washer and dryer, which came in handy, since we had to wear the same clothes several times and not the sweaters that we brought, and there was a small kitchen, had we wanted to cook - which we did not. We bartered staying an extra hour after checkout for washing the sheets and towels (to save them time cleaning), which saved us from having to sit in the train station. Before we left, we hit the marche de Vieux Québec again to purchase croissant, cheese, smoked salmon, and a baguette for lunch and buerre d'erable (maple butter) to haul back to Memphis. Dan also bought some maple sap, as it comes from the tree, since he regretted not trying any yesterday at the Cabane á Sucre. It was good - light and just a little sweet. 

Now in Montreal and in for the night.  For some reason, Dan wanted to go to a restaurant that is pitch black. So we did.  It's called O Noir (noir means black or night - or, as I translate it: shit!) and we arrived  to be greated by our hostess, who took our order and called for our server, Fey. All of the servers are visually impaired, and they lead the customers into a completely pitch black (like put-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face-but-don't-see-shit pitch black) room, where you are seated and the table layout is described.  ("In front of you, you can feel the placemat. Your knife is on the right, and on the left you will feel two forks. The bread plate is in the middle, and your drinks are just at the tip of the knife.") All around us, we could hear conversations in French and in English, but the chatter sounded like a cacophony. It grew louder with more people, of course. They can serve 60, but it sounded like there were 160. 

Our first course was interesting. I had a beet and goat cheese salad, which I was a little nervous about eating. I imagined leaving the restaurant covered in beet spatters, but I escaped unscathed. I credit this to eating most of the meal with my fingers. That was the only way I knew what was going into my mouth. I tried using the fork but it's a little unwieldy to do that without knowing how much is actually on your fork.  Here's how the salad looked:

Dan had trout gravlax. I'll let him tell you about it. (Dan - it's just trout (usually salmon) that is cured in salt and sugar, and, in this case, gin.) It was somewhere in front of me and I ate it. It looked something like this, only better:

For our entrees, we both had a delicious shrimp plate with what tasted and felt like lentils, some julienne something that was pickled or had a dressing, three huge shrimp (without tails or heads, thank goodness), and some goopy something.  (Dan - the julienned something was cucumber, the goopy something was avocado and black beans. At least that is what the menu said, before we entered the dining black box.)

Here's a photo:

(Dan - for that matter, here is how nice VIcki looked during dinner:)

Here's what I learned during my blind meal. I don't know how blind people do it. There's too much noise in the world. I am glad that no one could see me eating because I'm pretty sure that I must have l looked like a barbarian. I get bored when I can't look around me and see what other people are doing. I don't like not being able to see Dan. But I'm not at all self-conscious about what I look like, or whether I was holding in my stomach or sitting up straight or picking my nose. (I didn't, just FYI, but I could have and no one other than me would had known.)  It did strike me that they may have an infrared camera installed that would product a video that would then be blackmail material. But since I didn't pick my nose I figured that I had nothing Ito worry about. 

Dan - I agree with VIcki. It is amazing how much we typically people watch during a meal. Here, it was hard to even eavesdrop, because there are multiple French conversations going on around you. And you take conversational cues from seeing the people you are with - but you can't see them, so it doesn't matter. As for how I ate, I kept getting lower and lower over my plate. I also spent a lot of time scraping the plate to be sure I got it all - before sticking my finger on the plate to be sure. There are little things you think of, like the fact that my glasses were completely superfluous, that I had no way to gauge the speed I drank a cocktail - or even if I had the amount I ordered. We did not need to worry about a dress code - until we walked back into the light. The first thing I did was check my shirt to be sure I hadn't made a big mess. Definitely a meal to remember. 

Dan - I'll also mention that we Ubered twice here - and it is illegal in Montreal. We got good drivers and less expensive rides, but learned from the first guy that they always know American tourists, because they hop in the back. To make it less obvious that you are getting an illegal ride, someone should sit up front with the driver to make it less obvious that you are Ubering.

Tomorrow, we return home. It's been a great week.