On the move

It has been another adventure in moving this past month. The previous owners moved out of my condo in mid-June, so I have been spending the past few weeks making it home. I've painted the bedrooms, moved in most of my stuff and I am in the process of getting settled - finally! The move itself went remarkably well, but my new appliances are late, so I'm living without a fridge and stove until next week. Good thing I always plan an overlap when I do local moves, so my refrigerated and frozen food is still living at my old place. I still have some odds and ends to take care of at my old place, so at least my food isn't getting lonely ;) Meanwhile, I'm learning all the good or not-so-good take-out places in my new neighbourhood.


I have also been on the move with various road trips. On my birthday, I drove to Ottawa to order a digital SLR camera as a gift to myself. It was a beautiful summer day and a roadtrip was a great way to spend it. The next weekend, the Extreme Foodie group from MeetIn did a roadtrip to Marieville in the Eastern Townships for the Slow Food Festival, followed by wine tasting... somewhere around there. The Slow Food Festival featured a variety of locally produced food, mostly organic. The week after was the St. Jean-Baptiste long weekend, so I drove to Ottawa to pick up my new toy, then to Stouffville to visit friends, then to Whitby for a pig roast and hot tub party. Men in a mid-life crisis really should avoid the alcohol and hot tub combination. I was merely an observer, but it was like watching a train wreck. The next morning I drove with a friend to Kitchener to hang out there for the weekend. We decided to try out my new camera in Stratford - the most photogenic town in the area and one of my personal favourites. I drove back to Montreal the next day. At least I'm putting the kilometres on my car before I sell it this weekend. A blog exclusive picture from Stratford is above.

I'm still maintaining my local social life, though at a slower pace. To add to the list of MeetIn dinners, we experienced the best of Malaysian, Northern Indian, Persian, and Italian. We also went to see U2 3D at the Imax, followed by a late dinner in Chinatown. For an event of a different pace, we also had a strawberry picking event in the West Island. One of the best things about summer are strawberries that are red all the way through the fruit. For a 40th birthday party from the Alumni crowd, I experienced a very trendy Greek restaurant. It seemed like the place to be that night. Speaking of the Alumni crowd, we held our first Alumni award dinner in five years -- a cocktail dinatoire at the McCord Museum. Everyone had a great time and I got to wear "the perfect dress". At work, the movie night in June was to see Kung Fu Panda. Ever since I started working in the game industry, I can't watch 3D animated films the same way. Every once in awhile I caught myself looking at the art and wondering what techniques were used to create it. I do have an increased appreciation, though, of what goes into those movies. OK, so maybe it would have been better to say my social life was at a slowing pace. The rest of July and August will be slower.


Summer is festival season in Montreal. I enjoyed bits and pieces of the Jazz festival on my way home from work every night, since the festival was literally next door. I tried to attend the big Bran Van 3000 street party after a quick MeetIn dinner at a cafe in the Gay Village (yes, that's what it's called). According to the Gazette the next morning, there were 100,000 people crammed in the street between Place des Arts and Complexe Desjardins. After spending the whole day painting, my tolerance for crowds was at an all-time low so I felt like toothpaste in a tightly squeezed tube. I tried to find a better spot with no luck, so I went home... where I promptly fell asleep. Just For Laughs is on right now. I plan on going to see the street performances in the Latin Quarter tomorrow night. I have been too swamped with moving to get tickets to one of the shows. Next year...

Whoosh! Part 2 - So much merriment

I wanted the title to be "Eat, Drink and Be Merry", but it would have made the link too long. As the title suggests, April and May continued to have a lot of culinary and related events.

One MeetIn member is a pastry chef and he holds pastry tasting events every couple of months. I was finally able to attend one in early April. For a nominal charge, we sampled artisan tarts, mousses, cakes, chocolates and truffles on a Friday evening. Loaded up on sugar, we then headed out to Les Deux Pierrots for some merriment. It was described to me as a traditional Old Montreal hangout. The crowd spanned all ages, all there to have some drinks, listen to the live music and, if the music is good, dance. For those of you with some Kingston context, it's kind of like the Wellington (circa mid-90's) mixed with Clark Hall Pub on two floors. The music covered traditional Quebecois music (which is very similar to traditional Irish, Celtic, Newfie, etc. music) to rock covers spanning the 60's to this decade. We were the group of 30-somethings dancing off to the side while the students crowded the stage. I had so much fun that I went back with my Vancouver visitor over the May long weekend.

The "In Search of the Best..." theme dinners continued. They fill so quickly that I often wasn't able to RSVP in time. Still, my culinary adventures included Japanese shabu-shabu (fondue), traditional Mexican (think: mole rather than fajitas), Tibetan, a very unique wine bar (every hear of candy cap mushroom milk foam in a dessert?) , couscous, and Greek. Outside of the official MeetIn theme dinners, I also experienced a more traditional fondue place and a couple of terrasses in Old Montreal, an Irish pub, a fine Italian restaurant, and an all night Chinese food place after one pub night. Although it seemed like a good idea at the time, I'm not sure about the last experience. Next time I'll stick with poutine. I've started collecting business cards from all the restaurants and will keep a scrapbook, just so I remember where I've been.

As much fun as the restaurants have been, I wanted some more culture in my life. In April, I attended "Shakespeare Unplugged" at the Atwater library. The two-person play expertly wove together scenes and lines from a variety of Shakespeare's best known plays. I was surprised at how many I recognized.

The first Friday in May, I hosted my first MeetIn event to attend a concert/cocktail party at the contemporary art museum. That was a unique experience. For the price of admission to the museum ($8), we could sip yummy cocktails from the cash bar, enjoy the museum (which we didn't manage to do) and attend an hour-long concert in the performance hall. The museum holds the Vendredi Nocturnes every month and it's so popular that they don't announce the name of the band until the day of. We saw Bob, a dark, eclectic local band which included "go-go boys" (read: performance art) in their act. The band was excellent, though not exactly my thing. A picture of a "go-go boy" and a toy reminding me of a Replicator from Stargate SG-1 is below:A little more of a traditional cultural event, a friend from MeetIn and I went to see Neil Simon's The Odd Couple at a small theatre. The acting was fantastic and the intimacy of the theatre put G and I in the "splash zone" of flying beer spray and chips as Oscar was demonstrating his typical hosting style.

Working for a company that builds games for licensed movie franchises has its benefits. Our social club sponsored two movie nights to see Iron Man and Indiana Jones. Both movies were great fun. We'll be going to one more movie in June.

Since moving to Montreal, I've been watching Sex and the City reruns on TV. May was capped off with a girl's night out to the Sex and the City movie last night. I'm pretty sure every woman in Montreal was at the movie theatre last night. The movie was great, which we discussed over cosmos (what else?) and martinis at Jello Bar. Once again, I wish I had had my camera. The lava lamps were mesmerizing. Ah... more for my cell phone photo gallery.

Stay tuned for Whoosh! Part 3...