Welcome to Montreal / Welcome to Montreal

Our friendly driver Rodrigo, who was supposed to drive us from the old town to the airport in Lisbon, was on time to the minute, which turned out to be a good omen for the rest of the process at the airport. We have never experienced such a smooth process without queues and with friendly staff at an airport. The only memorable event occurred at passport control in Lisbon. The customs officer took Ms. Waas' passport and said 'Oh, you are Dutch'. Ms. Waas, who always feels at the mercy of borders, smiled de-escalatingly and wondered whether a customs officer was allowed to change her nationality just like that. But Dutch is not such a bad choice, and so both sides were satisfied when she went through the control with her third nationality.

After a 7-hour flight we arrived in Montreal. Although the flight was very smooth, Mrs. Waas and Mr. Ärmel found traveling by train with “Emma” more pleasant.

The first thing we noticed in Montreal was the friendly, open people. One even praised our (or rather Mrs. Waas') French. That is true politeness - after all, he quickly switched to English in view of the meagerness of our efforts. The whole city comes across as friendly anyway.

Today we took the metro to St. Hélène, a green island for excursions in the Saint-Laurent river. Changing trains in the metro station was a very special experience: not only were the corridors extremely wide and deserted, they were also connected to a huge hall of cryptic purpose (partly with seating) in which there were offices and an urban park with a mini playground for locals. Changing trains took a very long time because we kept having to stop and stare in amazement.

The island itself was beautiful, very green, with play areas, a biosphere museum and a swimming pool for water polo tournaments. There were also grey squirrels and a prairie dog.

At the special request of Mr. Ärmel, who is a fan of brutalist architecture, we visited Habitat 67, where Mr. Ärmel sensed the opportunity to take some very photographic photos. He was not disappointed.

However, Canada is a culinary challenge. We don't want to say much more about this sad chapter at the moment. But a separate blog article will follow at some point when we have done more research. We are still wavering between the titles "Feast like God in Canada" and "Right at the bottom".

Apart from breakfast, our hostel is pleasantly colorful and lively. As is often the case in hostels, there are guests of all ages and countries of origin who can cook together in the communal kitchen. A Portuguese tour group that brought fresh vegetables for breakfast was particularly well prepared. What clever foxes!

In the evening you can play a game of pool and get to know people. But the game of pool has to be over by the morning because then the pool table is converted back into a breakfast buffet...