The Lobby of Hotel Gault

Ben and I have wanted to go to Montreal for years. For some people this may be an odd choice of cities but for the two of us, it sounded perfect: a beautiful city with amazing food. Before taking off, we were told that traveling to Montreal was the shortest plane ride to Europe that you will ever take. Neither one of us really believed this statement until we arrived in Quebec.

Duck Poutine from Au Pied du Cochon

It is a fascinating city. For all intents and purposes, it is French. I think that we both knew this but did not fully grasp its French-ness until we arrived and observed that the city was one step away from selling foie gras out of a vending machine. The thing that fascinated me the most about the city was the interplay of the French and English language. An unofficial goal of the trip (after eating our body's weight in food) was to determine the protocol of speaking French versus English. While I failed at determining this protocol, I may have succeeded in being the single individual who eavesdropped on over one hundred conversations only to understand zero of them.

While I would love to share every minute of our trip, I have decided spare you and instead compile a list of my favorite things (starting with the food, of course):

Au Pied de Cochon
Au Cinquieme Peche
Boulangerie Kouign-Amann
Engaufrez-vous
Le Cartet
Les Givres
Liverpool House
Mami Clafoutis
Olive and Gourmando
Schwartz's Deli
St Viateur Bagels
Atwater Market
Bota Bota Spa
Celebrating Ben's birthday over a giant s'more-like ice cream dessert
Date (not fig) Newtons
Fantastic street art
Hotel Gault
Jean Talon Market
Happening upon the Folk Festival
Maple syrup on a stick
- A group of hipsters rocking a cardboard DJ booth in a vacant lot
- Observing an odd lack of ducks (yet an odd number of duck entrees...)