a montreal itinerary;

{this past valentines day weekend i got myself on a greyhound and traveled all the way to montreal. for other itineraries, click here.}

get to south station at 7am after a valentine’s date of romantic egg sandwiches eaten under the glow of subway lights and alfred hitchcock, which is to say i was under a pretty hefty bagel coma.

promptly down the largest mcdonald’s coffee and delight in all of the artificial sweetener, fake cream, and ambiance. then, take two melatonins.

but actually don’t, because that’s like a big LOL to your body. if you feel the need to shake your right leg in place and scratch your head, but also fall asleep, you’re doing it right.

allow seven hours of talking to patchouli-scented busmates and buying $9 maple syrup at a sunoco in white river junction, vermont to pass. this is very important. do not question me.

gallivant the city of montreal solo hell-bent on trying new things like poutine and maybe use some high school french (french club president 08-09, hollaaaaaa), but end up speaking english and ordering a fast food tofu green curry on styrofoam plates almost immediately. it happens.
extra points if you accidentally shout “I’D VOUDRAIS A  VERT TOFU CARI S’IL VOUS PLAIT?” when you get nervous.

that also happens.

delight in the dreamboatiness of josh ritter and fantasize about him noticing your glance across the room, prompting him to say “you want to pull on my suspenders, don’t you? come on over. don’t be shy.”

what actually happens:
1. you forget to get cash out for coat check and the canadian bouncer is really not jiving with you holding your puffer coat the whole concert, but your card shuts down before you can because you’ve only just crossed the canadian border abruptly and are buying erratic things like ear plugs, sketchy hostel reservations, and $9 bottles of maple syrup. you are essentially a terrorist.
2. also, get a nose bleed in the middle of the concert.
3. get one of those delightful chronic uti’s is also a plus (tmi, but i need you all to really understand the gravitas of this comedic display of sad). go to the bathroom eight times, strategically placing the bathroom door cracked so you can still sing along to “bright smile”.
4. forget to pull your skirt down when you return from the bathroom for the sixth time. don’t notice that everyone can see the butt flap on your sweater tights until you go back for time #7.

even so, fun was had.
home girl doesn’t play around. she plays for keeps.

spend the next morning prancing around mont royal imagining how on earth montreal hospitals and public parks can be sexy. they’ve taken it to an art form, ya’ll.

eat a burrito-sized crepe filled with nutella and raspberries on a stoop near mcgill because you really don’t feel like tipping anyone.

pretend to your instagram followers that you went into museums, because you truly can’t afford it. but pretty pictures outsides and selfies in gift shops count for something.

realize that your southern accent is coming back the more you go north on this continent. it’s probably been at least 11 hours since you’ve spoken to someone, so you spend two hours laughing about “montre-ya’ll” as a pun. this will help in hiking up mont royal, somehow.
this is how you solo travel, ya’ll.

if you’re ever in the market for a porn version of “dude, where’s my car?” or some disney channel original movie (i’d be all for a “luck of the irish” version personally), fear not; montreal has already done it and it’s playing right around the corner.

meet up with lovely blog soul-sister, emily. and delight in all things kitschy and dairy-filled (foreshadowing*~).

suddenly your mind is filled with all kinds of exclamation points: accordion players! french things! kitschy thrift stops with clear coffins with a dead jesus inside of it (really, this happened. it was right below the cash register)!!

bike baskets outside of erotic movie theatres! erotic bookstores! erotic lingerie stores! i was significantly disappointed on not finding an erotic bakery, but you win some you lose some.

and then the inevitable happened. seeing as emily and were those types of girls: the kinds who ordered virtually ordered all the same things at all the restaurants we went to, we got lactose-sick off of a plateful of omelet du fromage, sadly enough.

we hobbled from shop to shop, through creepy jesus-sarcophagus-filled thrift stores to  shop-dog-filled shops, but realized a nap in our hostel bunk bed was what the doctor ordered.

seeing as we had been calling out things as “so0oo0o instagrammable” (you know what i’m talking about: lattes, cats, flowers, clouds, anything fluffy/sparkly/alcohol-induced) all around the city, we decided to strike the most instagrammable poses; that of us crouching in pain inside a metro station. we tried to make a statement and i think it worked.