Montreal Fun

I mentioned about a week ago that Daniel and I were making plans to get away. I also noted at that time that it would be our first get-away in almost 5 years. Someone later asked me how that's possible when we've not even been married 6 years.

I'm not sure. But it is.

(And, trust me, I would include a get-away with just a nursing baby if there had been such a thing.)

Honestly, the last time Daniel and I went somewhere just to be together (read: no playing guitar or standing with the groom in a wedding, attending a funeral, or visiting with family) was for an early 1-year anniversary celebration in September 2002 when I was pregnant with Gabriel (we were celebrating early because of Hellstop and, for those of you from here, that says enough about how our actual anniversary was spent!).

At any rate, we really did get away! And it really was wonderful.

We left Monday morning and stayed here that night. After checking into the hotel and dropping off our suitcase, we found an amazing street full of shopping, cafes, bookstores, and coffee shops. Since it was already around 1pm, we decided that locating a fun place where we could get salads and share a sandwich was top priority. And we were not disappointed:

You can't really see all the flower boxes lining the second-floor awning-covered porch we ate on (I'm blocking everything from view these days!), but it was beautiful-- and the whole street was packed with such wonderful places to eat.

The meal was followed by, well, what else?-- shopping, of course! I've had gift cards burning holes in my wallet (living in a rural area forces one to save up!) and there were so many interesting and new places to check out. We stopped in one particularly cute bookstore only to realize that almost all the books were written in French so, after enjoying the atmosphere for a few minutes, we left empty-handed.

It was still fun.

Both that evening and the next day we walked the 20 minutes to Old Montreal, passing by this:

I know, I know... I cut Victoria's head off...

and this:

Something that actually makes me look small!

Old Montreal is a blast. It's full of outdoor eating like this:

and this street full of fun shops stretches on quite a ways:

Monday night, we walked the distance to Old Montreal and found what looked to be the perfect place to eat dinner. But I felt wretched and after a minute of sitting (I don't think we'd even gotten our water yet), I told Daniel I thought I might throw up. Needless to say, we went back to the hotel where I laid in bed and fell asleep while Daniel ate McDonald's (I felt too sick to care what exactly he was ingesting, though I was appalled the next morning) and watched baseball.

It was still fun, simply because I could lay there and go to bed early without having to worry about putting a single little person to bed. On top of that, the room had a queen-sized bed, which meant I could sprawl to my heart's content. *deep sigh*

The next morning, we slept in. You know... until 7:08am or so. (Sorry, Josh, I don't know what's wrong with me these days!) And since I was feeling great, we walked back down to Old Montreal and strolled along the St. Lawrence. We found a great little place to eat at that specialized in crepes. Yum.

I ordered a crepe filled with asparagus and covered with a white sauce and toasted pine nuts while Daniel had some sort of seafood crepe. And then we shared a cream and chocolate crepe-- which might be my new favorite dessert!

It was all so wonderful! We walked and walked (until I had blisters on blisters!) and talked and talked. The sight-seeing and shopping and eating was all extra on top of those things.

In fact, it was so wonderful, I think we'll try to get away again-- maybe even sooner than 5 years from now!