Bonjour Montreal!

Our final trip before I return to my last year of training in the neurology department was our 1st family vacation since Izzy was born.  After traveling with her by plane on several occasions, we decided to try a trip by car.  Our destination… Montreal.  It seemed like a fun place to visit for several days.  Abe grew up speaking French back in Syria so we thought that would help.  And we found many hotels had set-ups similar to small apartments letting us have a separate place for Izzy to sleep, a kitchen to cook, a living room to hang out in and a bathroom which wasn't right off the bedroom.  We definitely enjoyed where we stayed.

By the end of a few days, Abe and I started to make a list of things about Montreal.  We thought we'd share them with you.

1.  I counted a total of 5 pregnant women in Montreal, unlike Boston where around every corner there is pregnant woman or an infant.  Izzy seemed to be the only infant where ever we went.  If you put all this together it shouldn't surprise you that the city is not made for strollers.  Abe & I got very good and hauling Izzy & stroller up & down stairs (especially the subway).

2.  At the first sign of trouble, people in Montreal will graciously switch to English.  This made for an entertaining show when Abe would try to use his rusty French.  By the end, he did get better.  For those of you afraid to go to Quebec where French is spoken.. we learned that if you try most people will then speak in English to help you.

3.  Counterfeiting is alive and well!  Little did we know how much counterfeiting there was in Canada but we learned the hard way.  So take a good look at your $5 & $10 bills as they could be fake and you would just be out of money.

Our 1st stop was Parc Olympique (Olympic Park for those English speakers) where we planned on seeing the Biodome.  However, due to labor disputes this was closed indefinitely.  So we settled on riding the Tour Montreal (a 2 minute ride to the top of an observatory sitting on the world's highest leaning tower) for a wonderful view of the city.

Our 2nd stop that day was to the Jardin Botanique (Botanical Gardens).  This was by far the best botanical garden that I have ever been to and one of the largest.  It had many different areas such as the pines and roses.  Our favorite was the Chinese and Japanese gardens.

A great family picture that we captured.

Once we made it to the Japanese gardens, we saw a HUGE coy pond.  There was a portion that lead to a small river running right up to the trail.  The fish came to the people easily (I think they are feed too much).  Izzy was so excited that she couldn't stop smacking her lips together for the sound that fish make.  We did capture this on video which I will try to put up on my facebook site later.

Izzy loves water and couldn't get enough of the sunken garden area.

This was a feeble attempt at capturing the beauty of this place.

We took a trip to Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal) and stopped to see Basilique Notre-Same de Montreal. Again too beautiful for a single photo to capture.

Vieux-Montreal

Because this is a French colony, they had the best pastry shops around.  We stopped at one near our hotel and got a chocolate & carmel cake drizzled in liquor as well as some marzipan.  Each one of us got a different one (see below).

We stopped at a toy store and had a French Caniche (poodle) made for Izzy.  We named her Loulou.  She loved it and slept with it every night including tonight.

The week we visited was also the Jazz Festival 2010.  It was a pretty amazing event and the city was well set-up for it.

On our final day, we took a trip to Parc du Mont-Royal.  This was designed by Olmstead… the same gentleman who designed Central Park in NYC and our Emerald Necklace with JP pond right by our place here in Boston.  Again, I've not seen a park as large as this one with so many trails to hike, run or bike.

Izzy enjoying a ride from daddy.

On our way up to Montreal, we decided to stop in Burlington, VT to stay the night as we didn't know how Izzy would do with a 5 hour drive.  But on the way home, we did it in on shot.  I drove while daddy spent his time entertaining her.  I bought this book when we visited Diane in San Antonio to keep Izzy engaged during our flights.  She spent most of the time this trip tearing out the parts you can flip.  The book didn't last long.  But it was worth buying as our drive home was fairly smooth.