Montreal!

pikolo croissants are not so hot imo. i used to really love the place across the street, a couple blocks over, which had a super old fashioned tea room, &c, which just closed after presumably 500 years in operation. it is not a hot neighbourhood for croissants anymore. very sad.

& yes! plougastel! so good.
gonna check out paltoquet, i have not tried.

my fav recent~ish montreal food discovery is getting cheap samosas from the lil dep on fairmount. so good.

You—and everyone else, really—should then try Thanjai. Plamandon metro is really not that far... It's still Van Horne, even! You could bike it if you llive at Parc and Bernard (which I assume most of you do). It's South Indian: dosas, the unparalleled rasam, sambar, idli, vada, and all the gang. I've never spent more than 40 bucks for two. It is a charming, charming little place with great food. It's fuckin' spicy so don't bring your student friends (although I always see at least one table of confused people who are always scared of the menu but they are always accommodated as much as as a South Indian resto can accommodate "no spices, no sauce, just chicken please. I don't want any sauce thank you."

Running by the Lachine canal is one of my favorite activities. After being away for 5 months, it felt so so good.

been actually meaning to try that place

How is public transit in Montreal? It's hard to tell how big of a city it is just looking at a map.

its.. okay. some places (mile-end etc) arent that well served by metro.

tell me where you're gonna be and where you're gonna be going.

If you at all inclined, Bixi is the best way to get around the city. Aside from really long trips anyway.

Well right now I am lucking out on airbnbs and all the hotels are crazy expensive! Maybe I picked the wrong weekend to go?

But I am bike guy so Bixi would be awesome! How does it work? It's like a Boris Bike right?

What about ile des soeurs? Is that too remote for walking/biking?

Mile End—Parc avenue, specifically—is served by frequent and reliable buses 80 and 435. Avoid all other buses on all other routes, particularly the 55 which "serves" the eastern edge of Mile End on St-Laurent blvd. The 55 has an appallingly low frequency, overcrowding.

It isn't that long a walk to Rosemont or Laurier metro depending on what part of Mile End you're coming from.

Bixis are esp. good on the plateau because the whole city points downhill. Coast your Bixi downtown, leave it there, and take a leisurely walk home.

Oh, "how does it work"? They charge you $7 on your credit card. Then you get the bike for 30 minutes. If you return the bike after 30 minutes, they charge you an extra $5. For the 24 hours after the first trip, you can sign out a bike as many times as you like with the same card with no extra charge. They say "$7 = 24 hours" but you can't use the bike for longer than 30 minutes at a time. Bikes are in OK shape. I use them all the time, but Mile End is lousy with Bixi stations.

There's also a 72 hrs for $14 deal.

It's like a Boris Bike right?

The Boris Bikes are built by the same Montreal people who made Bixi! So... yes!

What about ile des soeurs? Is that too remote for walking/biking?

Nun's Island in english... I'd avoid it personally. Its kinda isolated from the city, and dull.

Are these actually good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cek6rK5F4EA

Nun's Island is a big no if you don't have car. If you are walking and biking, you will have way more fun at the mount royal, lachine canal, and even parc lafontaine.

lol don't go to nuns island

anyone been to blue lotus in verdun? everyone talking about it lately, supposed to be crazy good chinese food super cheap

What about ile des soeurs? Is that too remote for walking/biking?

― Chantal Anchorman (admrl), Thursday, August 22, 2013 9:24 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

don tdo

adam try and get a room at casa bianca

casabianca.ca

I have a suspicious feeling Île Ste-Hélène and Île des Sœurs/Nuns' Island have a kind of Greenland/Iceland thing going on. Someone overhears "hey there's a park on an island and you can ride bikes and do stuff etc. etc." and then they look at a map and go "oh, it must be Nuns' Island. Let's go." It was like when the vikings named Greenland to misdirect potential pillagers and invaders to a frozen wasteland.

I bet there's a tons of people who have shown up on Nuns' Island with picnic basket full of baguettes, hummus purchased at the quatre frères, white wine, Ray-Bans, an acoustic guitar, and marijuana... Ready for the party guys! HAHAHAHAAH. Condos.

My uncle and aunt from France visited Montreal this summer and they actually went to Nun's Island. I don't know why. They found it was beautiful, shed a tear and decided to become canadians. The mysteries of immigration.

Haha ok no nuns island for us!

I have booked two AirBnBs only to be rejected. I have great reviews! Is it my face? Would it help to explain that I'm not American?

I will look at this casa, socki

No casa =(

https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/700477?locale=en

^^^ great location, cute looking

googling for "gite" might help

I want that.

Ok wait, when are you coming to Montreal, admrl? if we don't hang out this time we should def hang out another time, prob where there is beer.

mile end is so great with the streetlights out. so dramatic. it's a thing they should just do on these summer nights, for ambiance. I had such a nice evening walking to olimpico, the sky this deep violet, ambient social activity audible more than visible.

ps I would love to hang with Adam but can we just establish whether or not on this trip it is going to be a candle-lit lady-&-the-tramp spaghetti-sharing wedding anniversary scene, on which several ilxors are impinging, or whether there is an actual social window

i love mile-end skies on late summer evenings, seriously one of my favourite things in the world

walk along saint-laurent as if taking a dilapidated backroad into heaven

mile end is so great with the streetlights out. so dramatic. it's a thing they should just do on these summer nights, for ambiance. I had such a nice evening walking to olimpico, the sky this deep violet, ambient social activity audible more than visible.

I'm available to start a band called The Sky This Deep Violet if you want. Must have own gear.

Oh hai

Well this is kind of a Lady and a Tramp thing, in more ways than one! I don't know if I will have a chance to hang out this time, but seeing as it is like a 4-hour drive, I doubt this will be the only time I find myself in Mtl.

Looks like I will not get to ride a Bixi, this time :(

my good friend is off on his motorcycle trip heading toward the northeastern US. he has threatened to go to montreal. you've been warned!

Ok!

these lilac clouds

caught on a pole like a kite in a tree near my apartment,

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTWvmmdIUAANee3.jpg

caught on a pole like a kite in a tree near my apartment,

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/BTWvmmdIUAANee3.jpg

montreal thread: I don't know if this is just a sad & transparent manifestation of the ebbing of summer, the greying skies, &c, but I want to swim in a river while the water is still habitable. can you do that here? have you done it? to take a train & swim near a bridge?

You have the beach at Cap Saint Jacques, it's a beautiful place. Heard about a beach in Île Bizard but never been there.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BUeG86kCcAAPPKu.jpg

this always just reminds me of mulholland drive

Hi Montreal. Your airport can eat two dicks (and Tim Hortons 1.5).

heh

Trudeau still feels like an upgrade to us who've been through Mirabel for all those years.

After 15 years of YYZ it feels cozy and comforting

now that's a long drum solo

I had no beef with the infrastructure btw, but with customs being redirected into two queues, one of which was served by five counters, the other by one (1); and me thus missing my connecting flight.