Montreal et la Route Verte

The long awaited post from Montreal is now upon thee. I can only hope that it is as welcomed as is an extravagant breakfast is to us. We love breakfast; there is no avoiding that. Today we went to a nice spot on St. Denis and enjoyed a large plate of potatoes, bacon, sausage, eggs, baguette, baked beans and fresh fruit. The crepes from yesterday were also just excellent. A lot of our energy comes from breakfast...maybe all the coffee helps out.
Alas, I am sure you did not log on to read this because you were interested in breakfast, although if you have sadly I will not be continuing breakfast discussion passed this sentence.
It seems a long time ago that we left Espanola. We have journeyed about 750 kms since then. It is crazier to think that we have come nearly 5000 kilometers since beginning two months ago. Living two months on a bike, in a tent...wow. It has been both an eternity and a blink of the eye. We have seen so much of our beautiful country by now. The ride home is but an afternoon stroll compared to what we have done. To me, biking into Ottawa signaled the end being near. Biking into Ottawa was just awesome. I said to myself "Wow, I have actually been here before".
Before we made it to Ottawa however we saw the last bit of northern Ontario. Day 1 out of Espanola was a short day to Sudbury. Yes, we saw the nickel. And yes, it was indeed quite giant. To our dismay, there is no campground actually in Sudbury. We asked a few people and they all said that we were out of luck. We decided to just get something to eat and then figure out camping after. While at the grocery store a man struck up a conversation with me (as many people do). After a while, and after learning of our bike trip and that we were looking for camping, this man offered us his front lawn to camp on. Graciously we accepted. He was also kind enough to let us shower. Neal and I biked to the movies and saw Harry Potter. It was enjoyable to watch wizards buzz around and battle for a few hours. We enjoyed it.
We were quite late the next day leaving Sudbury, since we had to venture to a bike shop. Our perpetual problem with tires and tubes was not remedied while in Sudbury. We did manage to get in contact with a bike shop in North Bay where a bike tire would await our arrival. So, off to North Bay we went. We camped in a campground outside of Sturgeon Falls. The weather had been crappy and we were tired when we arrived. My bike tube and tire had been failing all day. Alas, the campground owner let us free camp! "Free camping to all cyclists!" he decreed. He then let us camp under a large outdoor tent, so as to keep our tent dry. Double bonus. The one thing about that campground was that there were just way too many mosquitoes.
Making it to the bike shop in North Bay was so sweet. I was so glad to be rid of my crappy blown tires and patched tubes. Hit up a used CD store in North Bay and we got some pizza. North Bay was a nice little town. We made it to Mattawa that day. It was during Voyageur days, so there were tons of extra people in town, thus there was nowhere for us to camp. We tried a couple places. After being rejected we went across the street from the campground we just tried and set up camp in a vacant lot behind some shrubs and trees. Free camp win. Drunks during the night fail.
Leaving Mattawa we encountered some of our last big hills of the trip. We heard they were big. We powered through an uphill right out of town and turn around to read the sign that said 8% grade. Boom. We wrecked that hill. The land flattened out over the course of that day. The road crumbled beneath us sadly. It was one of the worst highway stretches we came across. It is hard to believe sometimes. Our biggest highway. The highway that connects the Atlantic to the Pacific. The highway that should be a symbol of our unity. The highway that allows us to travel across a continent in a beautiful country. Well, that highway is garbage. Canada should be ashamed of its highways. Canada needs to get a lot of highways fixed and twinned. Canada also needs a bike path that connects the oceans. OK, so I am dreaming now. La Route Verte is very real though. We shall journey there in a moment.
Mattawa to Pembroke...boom. Yeah we did that. Pembrooke to Ottawa...boom. Yeah we did that too. No big deal. We stayed in a hotel in Pembroke because the weather had been terrible. We also found our first Irving Big Stop there and gorged ourselves. The trucker breakfast that allowed us to bike into Ottawa was a good call too. Aw dang, I guess I lied when I said I wouldn't talk about breakfast again. All you breakfast enthusiasts will be excited though.
Ottawa! We did 310 km in two days from Mattawa to Ottawa. Worth it. Dodging thunderstorms along rivers is a beautiful and exciting way to travel. We pulled in to my relative's place in Nepean rather late. Odilia had a lasagna ready for us. We got to chat with the whole family as we ate. Erwin drove us downtown after eating and showering. No Borders, an annual ultimate tournament in Ottawa, had just happened that weekend. Funny...we pull into Ottawa the one weekend friends from Halifax are there. Funny...I stayed at my relative's house on the same weekend as I have during past summers. Anyway, some Halifax ultimate types were still there Sunday night. So we got to go drinking with Hogel and Thorney and Julia and Jazz and Nat. It was a fun night of drinks and later shawarma. It was really nice to see some friends after so long without friends (besides our power trio). The next day was so relaxing. My cousin Todd took the day off work to hang out with us. We went out to breakfast (ah..there is that breakfast thing again) and then just lounged all day. I bought a couple CDs to update my iPod with, which I ended up doing here in Montreal. We played game cube, sat on the computer and watched a movie that day in Ottawa. We often spend days off doing stuff and partying. This was a legitimate day off. A real rest day. It was great to see the family. Jason worked a lot so I didn't get to see him much. It was a good visit though.
The next day we biked along the canal towards downtown Ottawa. All of a sudden we saw lots of red shirts and heard lots of cheering. Sounds fun eh? It was a little Liberal rally. Some guy kayaked from Kingston to Ottawa in support of Michael Ignatieff. Well, guess who was there...Mr. Ignatieff himself, in fact. There was lots of media surrounding him but after a while there came a time when we could approach and chat briefly. We got our picture with him. We told him about our summer adventure and he got the surrounding crowd to cheer and applaud us. That was awesome.
An hour after our parliamentarian celebrity chance meeting we had eaten lunch, seen parliament and were in a new province. La belle province du Quebec. Finally, the endlessness of Ontario had been conquered. Immediately we were on la Route Verte; 4000+ kms of bike paths throughout Quebec. Some of the time it follows highways and is basically just a wide shoulder, but even that was way better than anything we had seen in weeks. So, la Route Verte...it is a winning idea. It took us two days to bike to Montreal. The ride was mostly pretty nicely flat and mostly pretty nicely sunny. Redundantly redundant adjectives? ...Maybe. Well, we got spritzed a few times with rain and thunder clouds constantly threatened us. The ride was fairly relaxed and easy. Our big dilemma came when we found out the bridge into Laval that we wanted to take was closed. So we followed the detour and ended up biking where we should not have biked. Alas, it is in the past. Hakuna Matata. Though, it was kinda scary there for a bit. Next time we shall do a "Are we all comfortable biking here?" type discussion before trying a ride such as that one was, if that sort of situation arises again. Well, we calmed down in Tim's and then found la Route Verte again. It took us into Montreal, pretty well right to Scott's.
Scott and Sam. We owe them much gratitude for letting us stay here for as long as we have. We arrived Wednesday evening and are leaving tomorrow morning. It is our longest stay and we owe them both. So thanks.
Of course, there is reason for this being our longest stay. It has been great to see and hang with Scott. Plus the first thing we hear about upon arrival is Osheaga. Heck yeah! Of course we want to do this festival.
Scott lives on the corner of St. Denis and Sherbrooke. Basically...a killer location. We are walking distance from everything and anything. We have countless restaurants in countless food genres. There are endless bars and shopping opportunities to us here. Living here just involves lots to do always, if one is so inclined. We have spent our time in Montreal biking around and exploring the city. We all feel like we have seen a lot of the city, but really we only tipped the top of Montreal's ice burg. We got bagels from St. Viature one morning. We wandered through parks and along streets. We hit up record shops and some clothing stores. All in all it has been really sweet.
Osheaga! We got to see so many awesome bands. Enough said.
Ok, so more is needed to be said. We saw NLF3 first and they kicked ass. We saw La Rioux and Eagles of Death Metal, both who were fun times. The amount of moustache involved in E of DM's set was huge btw. The day was perfect. The sun was shining. We were hot. There were thousands of people there. It was great. We had a lot of fun. Sadly it took forever to get something to eat. That was really aggravating. But then after a while, any ill thoughts I harboured towards the festival organizers was melting away as I was making my way deep into the beating heart of the Coldplay crowd. We all split up for the headliner. Patrick went to see Girl Talk and dance partied his face off. I wish I could have seen both Girl Talk and Coldplay, but to me, it was an easy and obvious decision. Neal chose to hang back a bit for Coldplay and I chose to try and get as close to the front as I could. The show was amazing. Coldplay were larger than life. They had all the lights and lasers. Chris Martin threw himself around on the stage and generally proved his front man worth 10 times over. They played so many sweet songs. During yellow the lights shone yellow and giant yellow balloons bombarded the audience. Confetti butterflies flew at us in the thousands throughout some songs. Giant orbs changed colours and moved around. Unrelated fireworks perpetuated the concert. Coldplay changed up their style a few times going for future dance versions of some songs and then stripped down acoustic versions of others. They moved around and played on raised platforms in a few places throughout the crowd. They even did a Michael Jackson song for us. Generally it was a wicked experience.
It took a couple lifetimes to get through the crowds and along the subway back to Scott's place.
The next day was just as exciting. Vampire Weekend were super fun. The pouring rain that said hello during breakfast (!!!!!) relented and the sun came out. Vampire Weekend are definitely best enjoyed in the sun, so it all worked out. I thought Rufus Wainwright solo was pretty boring. Sorry Rufus fans, but it was a bust.
Mark Demmons and his friend were there for the festival and we saw them. I ended up watching the Decemberists perform their new album in entirety from really close up. It was pretty sweet. I liked that it is a story (though I couldn't follow it from this first listen) and I liked the costumes they had. It absolutely poured rain on us during their set though. Ah well, it was pretty warm out and I just dried over the rest of the day. If the Decemberists were the thinker's band then the Arctic Monkeys were just a freakin sweet party. They rocked so hard and had the crowd in complete excitement. I quite enjoyed their set.
We ventured to one of the smaller venues, that had previously employed grass as a surface to enjoy, but then had transformed for completely and utterly unknown reasons into one of the largest mud bowls I've ever been in. Mud aside, we were there to party, because we were there for Crystal Castles! The wait for them was exciting. The wait for them was long. The wait for them turned just plain annoying. Where are these damn crystal folks? I checked my phone after a while to see what time it was, only to discover that it was 10:30, the time that Crystal Castles were supposed to finish. I was missing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, for this? We decided to say screw it to CCs and went to the main event to see the YYYs. They were awesome. We caught a few tracks and then the encore. They had a giant eyeball above them and huge lights lit the night up. They rocked hard and blasted us with sonic noise. I really dug it. Karen O was a wicked woman. She had a giant smile on her face the whole time and was really loving performing for us. After the YYYs we ran back to mudland and were welcomed with incredi-beats. Crystal Castles, you unreliable insane crew, you showed up. Their music was wicked on concert sized speakers with concert sized erratic lights. Alice can simply be called insane. She screamed and thrashed and generally looked to have no control over what she was doing. But we and the crowed loved it. It was a wicked dance party.
Alas, our time here is almost over. I have to end this post now as we are going to get some groceries and go to Shwartz's for some food. I think we will cap off our stay here in Montreal with a little show. Oh you know, just the Fleet Foxes. No big deal...
So excited!
So excited to be home too! It will be Quebec City in a couple days. Then we'll be in the Maritimes! Then we will be home before you know it. What then? I am not sure. I suppose we'll figure it out when we arrive home.
Sadly, these are our last few days with Patrick as he will train home from QC to go sailing with his parents before heading back to school. Patrick, you will be missed. How can we be a trio when we are a duo?
We all miss everyone and hope all is well. Party on and enjoy life!
Love Willem, Patrick and Neal!