Monday, May 18, 2015
We had to get up and hustle this morning because breakfast
stopped serving at 8am. Otherwise we
wouldn’t have been in a real hurry. The only other kink in planning was the
notice that we had to be onboard for a mandatory muster drill at 5:15pm. We don’t
sail until 1am tomorrow and all aboard is at 12:30am. We have a reservation at
Jacques at 7:30pm. So anyway until we got the muster notice we thought we
really had all day to be ashore. But, in fact we don’t. The good news is that it
probably didn’t matter that much to us.
The skies were only a little cloudier than yesterday. It was
a little breezier today, mercifully. It was probably around 80F both days.
We went up to Terrace for breakfast and it was packed! Not
only with people but with all their luggage. We hustled up and got on out of
there. We came back to the room since per announcements disembarking passengers
had to be out of their cabins by 8am, but we didn’t and we didn’t need to be
taking their public space. Unfortunately, when we came by the room it was being
cleaned. We went up to Baristas where I had a 2nd breakfast! Every
time we have been there the service bar has been jammed with French-speaking chefs!
We sat at the window bar and I had another cappuccino and we ate canneles. We
don’t usually make a habit of filling out comment cards but Clay said that the
next time he got a comment card he was going to point out that they should be
able to bake a cannele without charring it! I burst out laughing. He was
startled. I pointed out that if all we had to complain about was charred
canneles then we were really nitpicking.
We waited a while and then headed back to the cabin again.
We decided to just gear up for the day and get on out of here and get back
sooner. We waited in a line to disembark (not the longest we’ve waited in on
Marina!) but it moved quickly. There was a crowd in the terminal and a long line
for taxis. We were glad it wasn’t us. Then the long slog and stairs to leave
the Alexandra Pier of the Iberville Cruise Terminal.
We had a plan today to do a modified Fodor’s Food Lovers
Tour. We were only skipping Chinatown for dim sum. We had asked a tourism rep
in the terminal building yesterday and she had marked a map for us to find a
#55 bus to Schwartz’s. Unfortunately, #55 bus doesn’t come down to Rue de la
Commune where she told us to wait for it in front of McDonald’s. The good news
is that we had decided to start North and work our way back. According to Fodor’s
that meant a Metro ride and according to the Metro website that meant we could
buy a $10 pp day pass instead of $3.25 exact change for bus fare each time. We
walked up hill a couple of blocks past Notre Dame Basilica ($5 to enter) and entered
the Metro at Place D’Armes. We took the orange line toward Montmorency. It was
pretty easy all day to take the Metro or buses and all the employees spoke English
and were helpful. In fact, in Quebec City and Montreal if anyone ever saw us
studying a map they would stop and offer to help with directions.
So, first stop was Mont-Royal were we got off and walked
about 4 blocks to St-Viateur Bagel. Montreal bagels are known as softer and sweeter.
That may be true. We both had one. I had strawberry cream cheese and Clay had
sun-dried tomato cream cheese. Both were good and we shared. It was interesting
that they cut the toasted bagels in half and then in half again and gave us
each 5 pieces. That is a bonus piece of bagel for everyone! We liked them and we
weren’t even hungry yet!
We walked back to the Metro and got back on the same Metro
train heading North still. We were heading to Marche Jean-Talon and that was
our next stop. It was very big and very busy. Today is Victoria Day and a
national holiday in Canada. We had planned to shop for cheese curds here, but
we had made 2 earlier impromptu stops and had bought some in a grocery store.
That was the good news because while we saw several cheese shops in the Marche,
they did not have curds. The first thing Clay saw was La Boite aux Huitres.
That’s oysters! He wanted to stop for a dozen, but there were no seats and he
was full already. I convinced him that we could wander the Marche and come back
and it would be better. We did. I bought a bouquet of roses, baby’s breath and orchids.
We bought some little cones of maple butter that we kept seeing everywhere.
They were good, but man are they sweet! I was glad we waited to find them
individually instead of buying one of the 6-packs we had been seeing. We found
a stall selling tourtiere (but they didn’t have any) and tarte au l’erable. We
bought a tiny maple tart to go and we still haven’t eaten it yet. We walked out
and took the Metro Orange line towards Cote-Vertu to get back to Mont-Royal. We
could see the green hill of Mont-Royal in the distance from there and I felt
too full and that it was too early to go to Schwartz’s for smoked meat
sandwiches. Clay didn’t want to walk up there and I agreed that even if we
walked there then the park was too big and uphill. We found a transit route map
and found bus #11 looped back and forth on Ave. du Mont-Royal across the park and
in front of the Mont-Royal Metro station. That decided it. We came out of the station
and crossed the street and down the block found a sign for the bus stop and
didn’t wait long. We got off the bus at the Belvedere which turned out to be
the only viewpoint on the road through the park. That was the good news. The
bad news is that when Clay had finished taking photos and there was a #11 bus
sitting right there heading back downhill that I insisted we go back across the
street and take the next #11 to come by and finishing going across the park
before going back down. This turned out
to be a 20 minute wait and we didn’t see anything else except the massive
cemeteries on the North side of the park road. My mistake. It would have been
better to get on the bus back that was sitting right there waiting. Oh well,
now you know, there is only one viewing point and then you might just as well
go back. We rode the route to the end and looped back and got off at Blvd.
St-Laurent. We walked downhill about 6 blocks before we saw the line on the
sidewalk outside Schwartz’s. At 2pm, we had about 15 minutes and felt happy we
hadn’t been there at noon. Once we got inside and seated at the bar, we had
ordered, eaten, used the restrooms and paid by 2:30pm. Now we needed to figure
out how to get back down to the port. Bus #55 was supposed to be a straight
shot up but we hadn’t asked the tourism woman about getting back and she hadn’t
pointed out that St-Laurent was one-way going north. We couldn’t even see a
south bound street from any intersection and couldn’t find a bus stop with the route
information sign still on it. Finally, we got on a northbound bus figuring
worst case that we’d just ride it and see if it went back downhill. Clay asked the
driver and she advised us to go over 2 blocks and get #55 on Rue St-Urbain. We
did and even found a bus shelter with a route map which was when we saw it
turned at Notre Dame and did not go all the way to Rue de la Commune. I asked
the driver when we got on and he said no, you get off at Notre Dame. He called
us up when he got to our closest stop. So, well done! It was about another 15
minute walk to the ship.
We have the muster drill and then the Cruise Critic Meet
& Greet, then dinner in Jacques. Back later!
We’re back. The muster drill this time lasted slightly
longer than the 45 minutes of 12 days ago in NYC. We were therefore after 6pm
getting up to Horizons for the appointed Cruise Critic gathering. When we got
up there, 2 signs announced the starboard side was set off for Go Next. They
weren’t there either. Since there was another CC gathering planned, we just
came back to the cabin and sat on our balcony with wine, cheese curds and a maple
tart.
Jacques was not as bad this time as 12 days ago. They told us the amuse bouche today was eggplant tartlet and cheese croquette. Clay ate one of the tartlets and tried to get me to have one. I reminded him they exactly like that last time and were anchovy and olive. He almost choked on a bite as he admitted this tasted a little fishy to be eggplant, maybe I better skip it. We skipped
soup this time. Clay had escargot and rack of veal with crepes Suzette. He loved
his meal except for the crepes. He also did not like that the caneles were
charred again. I had goat cheese soufflé which I liked. I had pork which was
okay. I had gratineed potatoes which were infinitely preferable to the pureed
potatoes they called mashed onboard. Clay also had green beans. The last times
we ordered side vegetables in any restaurant onboard, they brought them in
small serving dishes so you could share but tonight they were already on our
plates and we couldn’t easily share. I had Charlotte Cecile which was described
as a chocolate cake in ladyfingers or something. We still have no idea what it
actually was. It had a top white layer that was partially frozen or not fully
thawed on top of a chocolate mousse layer that was not even really very cold.
It was just freaky. Clay said he loved his meal, that he loved everything he'd eaten all day... I said, says the man who ate Montreal in a day!
Due to some technical difficulty, they announced the evening
popcorn movie has been moved back to 10pm. The movie tonight is The Wedding
Ringer which we saw recently, so we’ll pass on it.
