Derby in Dundas

The jammers take off on the second whistle

It was one of those days where I needed a break. I'd been working in my apartment with little exposure to the outside and now it was the weekend. Being a freelancer weekends really don't mean much to me other than the fact that other people have these days off. That and that events are usually planned for weekends to accommodate those 9 to 5, weekday type working people.



Weekends put emphasis on the fact that I've been inside so much. People call to ask "what are you doing?", "Are you awake?", "Are you alive?", "Do you want to grab food?". During weekdays most people have too much on their own plate to be concerned if you're around, let alone if you're alive or not. I know. I used to be a cog in that slow grind called consistent work. Usually by the end of the work day you were (or I was) too tired to take on any interesting activities other than make food and go to sleep.

This weekend was no exception. A whole slew of things were going on. Even if I did have time off officially there would be no way to attend them all. WoofStock (dog festival), Roller Derby in Dundas, NXNE (music festival), birthdays, erotic cabaret, Canadian comic book creator awards, and a whole bunch of other neat stuff.

In the end, after taking a inventory of the work I had to do, I decided to go shoot the roller derby. Leah, the team captain of the Steel Tank Girls, had invited me to the rink about a month ago. Shooting the derby is a challenge with the quick action and the low lighting.


SleazeBag #666 of the Steel Tank Girls


BJ Hooker #36-24-36 of the Hamilton Harlots


The audience fav, Cheese Grater #289 of the Steel Tank Girls


Fans

I woke up early today.

Working out the kinks with my panoramic gear.

I got up at about 5:30am, maybe 6:00am. I suppose it was the sun coming through the windows that did it. I spent a few minutes writing a postcard then put on the running shoes, grabbed the tripod, camera gear and went off to the post office. There was one conveniently located just west of our hotel but in the end found a mailbox that was closer between our hotel and the Notre Dame church.

It was a pretty nice time to be out, cooing pigeons and Montreal street cleaners seemed to be the only other people wandering around. I set up my tripod with panoramic gear next to the fountain (see photo) and shot a number of photos. I'm still working out the kinks in the gear.

On my way back into the hotel I bumped into Michelle. She was on her way out to look for a drug store. With nothing better to do I joined her in her quest. With the exception of the local McDonalds and a variety store located near the student residence near the S.A.T. building everything was closed until 9am. This idea seemed incomprehensible to Kyoko who required a place to grab coffee to function.




Brick work


A nice reflection in the windows of old Montreal


Mural over the parking lot across from our hotel


Entrance to our hotel


Fresh out of the taxi on St. Laurent.


Past and maybe present.


"Curse you Santropol!". The restaurant is closed.


A random post hopefully not referring to one's smell.


The Food


Kyoko's Breakfast


A quick shot of where we were


Kyoko the fish


The cross on Mount Royal


The used record, CD, DVD, book store


Where was this?


Michelle is not happy with the consistency of the warm Wendy's Frosty.


My fries in the chilli technique

Knock, Knock, Knocking, on the hotel door.

Knock, knock , knock. Three knocks, not really loud, like someone knocking with just the knuckle of their index finger. It was enough to pull me out of my deep sleep. Dazed, I sat up getting out of the cocoon I had been enjoying on the couch. Where was I? Oh yea, I was in the living room of the Hotel room that we rented in Montreal. I looked toward the two bedrooms. The doors were closed. I waited a second to see if anyone else heard the knocking. Did I even hear knocking? I was asleep, maybe it was a dream.

Despite being groggy I gently moved my body off the couch. My legs were surprisingly working. Slowly making my way over to the main door I wondered if it was the maid or some hotel worker with the wrong room. It was just before 9am. How many hours did I sleep? Apparently not enough.

The door had one of those fish eye peep holes. I cautiously peered through as though a finger were to stick out of the hole and poke me in the eye. The image I saw was a bit unnerving. It was Hilary. She was standing there, looking straight ahead, waiting for someone to open the door but she was kind of vibrating like someone who had more energy than their body knew what to do with. I can't really describe it, it wasn't really vibrating but something inbetween a body twitch and a flinch.

I looked at my watch to double check the time, then looked back through the peep hole. Satisfied that I wasn't hallucinating I opened the door slowly while keeping myself behind the door, kind of like a shield. "Where does she get all this energy?", I thought. Once Hilary was in I closed the door, mumbled some kind of good morning then promptly went back to my cocoon.

Hilary sat down at one of the bar stools. Kind of like an animal freaking out before a storm, Hilary sat there, being ever so still, waiting like something was going to happen. The living room was quiet and I attempted to drift back to sleep.

It seemed like only seconds went by when people started coming into the room talking. It was like my couch was transported into the middle of some stage play where the volume was increased so people in the back of the theatre could hear. The last thing I really needed was real life surround sound. I was so tired and wanted to go back to sleep... until someone mentioned breakfast. Damn them.


"The Bagel" revisited


While Kyoko hides from my camera behind Sean, Chris takes pictures.


A cup o fruit.

For breakfast I found myself at the Bagel. A restaurant with a patio located between our hotel and the Beer Festival. It was a place I had visited on my last trip and I thought that the bagel sandwich I had there last time was pretty good. I guess someone heard me and decided to take the group there. The Force is strong with this one. Too bad my jedi mind powers couldn't get the Bagel workers to give me a free breakfast. What about a bonus for referral? Ah well.

The Bagel's service was a tad slow for our beer enthusiasts. There was only one waitress tending to the entire restaurant. It was a small restaurant, but still. The beer people wanted to rush over to the beer fest to stake out a table pronto. I, on the other hand, felt no pressure of time and my only goal was to walk up to the Fairmount bakery, buy a couple dozen bagels, maybe take a few pictures along the way, and return to the hotel. Maybe take a nap, maybe not. Easy Peasy.


I liked the blue, it reminded me of my parents house when it was first painted.

With the food of breakfast consumed, the beer drinking horde jolted toward the beer fest leaving Michelle and I in a cloud of dust. At least that's how I imagined it with the speediness of them leaving. On our way to a bus stop on around St. Urban Michelle and I saw a greenish water fountain. Michelle parted ways to take a bus to to visit her uncle while I went to explore the body of water.

The fountain had a silhouette cut out of a golfer swinging and next to the golfer was a golf cart, a real golf cart, in the water. I didn't really get the reasoning behind this but it explained the green water, like a putting green. Where would I be without the Wii and the Sports CD?


The golf cart and the green water.

While taking photos of the fountain it occurred to me that I forgot my tripod back at the hotel. On the way to retrieve it, I noticed these photographers. One guy had two cameras and was trying to shoot something with both of them at the same time. The other guy just seemed to be taking random pictures as if to fill his memory card for the sake of filling it. I looked into the general direction that they were pointing but nothing stood out. No people, no action, no landmarks of interest, yet there were these guys taking pictures, and quite earnestly. Photographing passing tourists?


The two photographers.


Church detail


The burger place from last night

If that wasn't strange, a few minutes later while waiting on a red light some guy with a wallet hanging from a string around his neck started talking to me about my camera. "Oooh, is that a D80?". He seemed amazed at first, then was really enthusiastic when he found out it was a D200.

At first it was interesting to be talking to a stranger about camera stuff. Then the camera guy switched over from talking about stills to talking about moving from Hong Kong to Montreal and owning the crappy video camera he had in a plastic bag. With no prompting on my part, he explained in great detail how he was trying to adapt the lenses from his Nikon F4 over to the videocam using some lens adaptors.

There are some people that blab without letting the other person get a word in edge wise or are unaware that the other person has lost interest and is struggling to maintain a listening posture, even stay awake. This guy was one of those unfortunate examples.

I felt my eyes glazing over. Energy was being sucked away. My life force meter was emptying by the second. You get the idea. My brain tried concentrating on what he was saying and my head nodded every now and then to acknowledge the little bits of info spewing from his month.
It's around that time that I noticed two people in wheelchairs zooming up the hill across the street.

I suppose the camera guy noticed my eyes flit from him to across the street. I took a quick picture. This was enough for him to change topics and eventually leave to get over to the bus stop. It was just in time as I was trying to figure out how to say "Good bye" now that I was in front of my hotel.


The hill climbing wheelchairs to the rescue.

Once back in the hotel room the couch called out to me and the next thing I realized was that I woke up about an hour and a half later to clip-clopping of hooves on the street. It was a tourist buggy rolling by.


Horse and buggy.

Almost seconds after sticking my head out to see th buggy the hotel phone rang. It was the guy at the front desk. "Do you have a car in the parking garage?". I replied "Yes, we have two.". There was a momentary pause before the phone hung up. I stood by the phone for a few minutes thinking it was a lost connection and the guy would call back to finish the conversation. Nothing.


The Cinema L'amour (for couples)

I left the hotel with tripod and made my way up to the Fairmount bakery walking up St. Laurent. It took about an hour. At the bakery I ordered two dozen chocolate bagels only to be told that there were only two left. Crap! That'll teach me to make a promise on something I have no control over. I bought the remaining two chocolate bagels along with a number of other bagels to give me a round number of four dozen. Onion, poppy, sesame, they were still warm.

The Fairmount bagel house


Dough!

I rested for a few minutes on one of the park benches in front of the bakery eating a few sesame seed bagels and watching pigeons. For some reason it really felt like a Sunday.


A moth.


A statue near Mont Royal.


Line up for Eric Lapointe

On the way back to the hotel I checked the cell phone I found I had gotten a call from Sean. He and Allison were on their way to the Bar-B Barn. The others would meet them there between 6:30pm and 7:00pm. I looked at my watch. It was 5:45pm. I was still about 15 to 20 minutes away from the hotel. I needed to drop off the tripod and bags of bagels before heading to the restaurant.

As things worked out Kyoko and Chris were at the hotel room just about to leave. We ended up splitting a cab. At the Bar-B Barn we met up with the rest of the travel gang. Linda, Darryl's girlfriend joined us there.


The Bar-B Barn


The whole hawg (nine ribs)


The group.

After the Bar-B Barn it was off to a pub, can't remember the name but it was about two blocks away from Fairmount bagels. We ended up going there after the pub as I spearheaded the campaign back to the bakery to see if they had any new chocolate bagels. They didn't. Crud.


The color of Beer

From the Fairmount bakery we walked south past Santrolpol toward the hotel. I wanted to make sure I knew what street it was on so we could go there tomorrow for breakfast/brunch.


It's Santropol!

Linda poses for Darryl in Toronto


"Why can't we have a light in Toronto?"

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.