Drive to Montreal

The backseat of Chris' car

The trip to Montreal started at 6:55am. It was at this time that I went out to the front of the house to be picked up via car. The idea Michelle and Hilary were to meet at Chris and Kyoko's at 6:50am, at 7:00am they'd pick me up, we'd make our way to Sean's. Spread people out over the two cars and drive from there to Montreal. Seemed simple enough, only by 7:10 I was wondering if Kyoko was being late again. It's very easy to put the blame on the person who's usually late, but it the last few events Kyoko has actually been more or less on time.

Normally I'd be figuring they'd be around sometime between 7:00 and 7:30, but I got an order to be outside no later than 7:00 sharp. After ten minutes I called to see what was up. They were waiting for Michelle it seemed. So okay. I went back to the porch and sat on a new chair the upstairs neighbours had bought.

It was at this time that Lisa, the owner of the chair from upstairs, had come out. At first I thought it was to say "Get out of the chair" but it was actually to take the dog out for his morning poo. (It's funny how most dog owners will say the morning walk, but let's be realistic).

After a bit of chatting, Lisa went back in to get ready for work. "Oh yeah It's friday", I thought to myself. I lost track of what day it was again. Lost in my thoughts I caught a glimpse of the car through the corner of my eye.


Stop off at Tim Hortons

Our first stop was a Tim Horton's on the way to Sean and Allison's apartment, located somewhere in Scarborough. A Peach drink and a cheese crossaint and I was good to go. I started feeling tired at this point. Staying awake so I'd be up for 7am was starting to take it's toll.

I transferred over tot he other car where I scored the whole back seat. I attempted to sleep on the way to Montreal but found that I went in and out of consciousness. It was pretty humid and my body seemed to automatically wake up each time we stopped for gas or food. I noted we stopped three times.


POV from Sean's car

The first time was another Tim Hortons, the second time was at a Wendy's/Tim Horton's (it looked the same as the first stop), the third stop was a bit more blurry. I think I woke up just enough to open the door to let the cool air in.


The lost cookie

Hilary takes time to eat a Wendy's burger in the parking lot (our second stop).


The two car convoy.

Once on the road again I crashed and later came to while getting close to Montreal. Sean was commenting on some dumb ass drivers all while trying to figure out the google map directions with Allison. Sitting upright I noticed we were on some side street parked. Chris had come of their car to talk to Sean about directions. We were off again. From that point it didn't seem to take long at all to get to the hotel. After Allison checked us in we drove our cars into the build parking garage.


The tiny, cramped hotel parking garage.

The parking garage was tight and to get to another level you had to drive into the car elevator that seemed to be made for subcompact cars. Sean's car seemed to fit with only centimeters to spare on either side. Once on the proper floor a professional car parker asked Sean if he could park the car for him. Once parked I was wondering if the doors could open to allow me to get out.


Kyoko


Hilary


The fancy schmancy hotel room

We took about half an hour to unload our stuff and get refreshed, met in the lobby and then wandered off to the Keg. Kyoko wanted to say "Hello" to some employees she knew. It's a Keg employee thing.


The view outside


The Jello building...


...actually I don't know what building this is.


Hilary shows Kyoko the manual labour of making the brick


A mini burger of three called Sliders at the Keg

I order the sliders (Three mini-burgers) and a Keg Caesar. The burgers were pretty tasty. They were the width of about three and a half keys on your key board. They'd cover A to F if you placed it on your keyboard. Yes they were small.


Figuring out the bill at the Keg


Inside the Beer Festival

After the Keg it was off to the Beer Festival. For those that know me you're probably thinking "Why are you going to a beer festival, you don't drink beer?". Yes it's true. I think I wanted to go if just to squash the idea that a beer festival is made up of a bunch of frat boys with a keg. I was told by Hilary that this is where frat boys graduate to if they're still into beer later on in life.
Beers here were described by the group as the Mercedes of beers.


Hilary gives her beer the thumbs up

The way it worked was that you bought a bunch of coupons. I think they were two dollars each. Then at the various beer tents you would trade on average 3 or 4 coupons for a beer sample, being half or a full glass (see picture of Kyoko below). For $8 you'd get the official beer tasting mug. Buying this would get you more beer. Chris figured that the plastic cups they gave out with samples were about 2/3 the amount you'd get if you used the mug.


Kyoko shows off the beer fest cup


A picture for Zee.


Outside at the beer festival


Liquid Nitrogen made desserts

I wandered around with Hilary scoping out the various beer stands while the others took turns holding down a table and chairs outside. We passed by a stand with clouds billowing out from the counter and I immediately made a bee line towards it. Turns out it was liquid nitrogen being used to super cool some kind of cream. To sample it cost two coupons or $4. The cream was the size of a tablespoon. It was because of this tiny size that I didn't try it.


The gang splits off

From the beer festival, Kyoko, Chris, Sean and Allison were off on their way to another pub for more beer. Michelle had skipped the beer festival altogether to go to visit her aunt and cousin. This left Hilary and me to wonder the streets looking for the night's Mutek event. Mutek is a festival for electronic music and is supposedly world renown. First time I had heard of it.

We had a tip that there was a thing playing at a St. Laurent studio, so we began our night walk going to St. Laurent. We walked into the S.A.T. building, the same place that Darryl had his HLAP party last year, to find some artsie person or literature that could tell us where this studio was. It turned out that S.A.T. was holding a Mutek event. From there we were told that another event was starting at 10pm at the Metropolis. A theatre/dance club a few blocks away (57 St. Catherines).

The ticket to get in was pretty steep. It cost 35.75 to get in. For the amount of money you could come and go as you pleased until 3am. We mulled it over at the corner La Belle De Province, a local burger place that had $2.40 cheese burgers. I really hadn't eaten anything all day other than the cheese crossaint, the Caesar salad, and the 1.5 mini burgers (I split the mini burgers with Michelle).

We decided "What the hell". Went over to the Metropolis, went in and after a drink or two went off to dance. As I don't usually go out to dance, this was my second time in the last week, the first being with Brigitte, Luke and Ted. Perhaps it was to get the full $35.75 worth or maybe it's Brigitte that created a dancing fool but I ended up dancing for nearly four and a half hours. From 10:15 to 2:50am we were dancing up a storm. It got to the point my feet were hurting by the time we left.

Note: To TheOtherBear. Writing your name with your ass doesn't really work for electronic music. (If you as the reader are thinking "What the hell?" or something like that click here)


Hilary at the Metropolis


The Lights


Leaving after five hours of dancing I managed to get a blurry shot of the marquee

The event was to end at 3am so we left about 10 minutes before that to avoid the crowd. Back to the burger place, at this point I was starving, I picked up two cheeseburgers. We got back to the hotel around 3:30am and I stayed up for another hour and a half catching up on my emails.


Hilary waits as I order two cheese burgers (for me) at La Belle Province

It was when the sun started coming up that my brain told my body it was finally time to sleep. Exhausted, I made my way to the couch, my head hit the pillow, that's the last thing I remember.


Gads! The sun is coming up!

For more Montreal trip details from another POV check out this blog. It's kind of like those comicbook cross overs.