Busy Weekend + Good News

My apologies to those of you who were expecting daily updates. Last week was a bit of a blur due to L.'s very good friend Brendan being in town (different Brendan, for those of you in Van.) Below are a few of the highlights. The ones I can remember anyways.

Wednesday, November 21st
Brendan arrives late in the evening, a little shell-shocked by the snow and cold. This was to be expected as he currently resides in San Jose, CA (although he grew up in Newfoundland). Sadly, L. had to crawl into bed shortly after Brendan arrived, but I stayed up and talked with him for another 2 hours.

Thursday, November 22nd
Continuing my efforts to get to know one of L.'s best friends I invited Brendan to breakfast before his meeting with a local software company. I started to feel a little bad about dragging him through the snow in order to get to one of our new favourite haunts, Coco Gallo. Montreal is covered with all day breakfast restaurants & diners. We are within a ten minute walk of about 5 places I can think of right off the top of my head and that doesn't even include big chains like Chez Cora. After a leisurely late brunch, Brendan hoped in a cab and I went about my daily routine of grocery shopping and laundry.

After L. got off work we opted, for logistical reasons, to order in some St. Hubert's rotisserie chicken (review pending) instead of making the trek downtown to an actual restaurant. It was also decided that instead of venturing to St. Sulpice we would instead head to Vices & Versa, the excellent bar specializing in local microbrews that Alain introduced us to a few weeks ago.

However, even on a Thursday night, Vices & Versa was packed. We then opted to just venture down St-Laurent towards the Plateau as we were sure to find something before long. After some minor drama hooking up with Mark who had already beaten us to St-Sulpice we opted for a weird little bar called Bar Taverna VV. It was empty when we got there, but quickly filled with an eclectic mix of young women playing pool, local winos and a long haired guy in a suit out to get his dance on. A few beers and many laughs at the expense of the dancing guy later we excited back into the snow and L. made sure that Mark got safely into a cab home.

Friday, November 23rd
Fortuitously, L. had already booked the day off, so we all went out to another one of our local breakfast haunts. Brendan had another meeting that afternoon, so we opted to put off shopping until Saturday. L. and I got to take a much needed nap before tidying the house for our party Saturday and then I got to make a pork chop dinner for Brendan and Mark. After dinner we all jumped into a cab downtown to Le Boite de Karaoke, where we were all older than the KJ. This was the Montreal Karaoke debut for L. and I, so we opted to stick to the tried and true. L. did a little Tainted Love and a surprisingly faithful cover of Jessie's Girl. I stuck with China Girl and Ballroom Blitz and I even got to do Love Shack with Mark's wife Andrea (I was Kate Pierson to her Fred Schneider).

Saturday, November 24th
Yet another breakfast out. I opted to add a breakfast smoothie in order to get some much needed vitamins. We then accompanied Brendan out to Plaza St-Hubert, which is basically an outdoor shopping mall that spans about four blocks on both sides. I like it because it's such a bizarre mix of shops and services. High-end bridal boutiques are next to outlet shoe stores and not far from sex shops and places that sell hooker shoes with sparkly mud-flap girls on them. But, it is also home to some great little local shops like Les Delires du Terroir which specializes in artisan beers from Quebec as well as local cheeses and preserves. After striking out on finding some souvenir t-shirts, Brendan wisely opted to have a gift-basket made up here. I stayed to help him pick-out the contents and buy some goat Camembert for the party, while L. headed back to apartment to wait for Frank who was arriving early with another of our recent passions: Guitar Hero III.

After deciding that the maple syrup options at Delires were not sufficient I offered to walk Brendan through the Jean-Talon Market as the selections would be much better. After jokingly suggesting that Brendan purchase a bison rib from a kiosk at the market, he instead ordered several for the boys at home as well as a selection of game-meat sausages. We also managed to find maple syrup in a tin shaped like a sugar-shack. Perfect.

While L. went to fetch more snacks, I played guitar hero with the boys and Frank helped me hang the curtains in the living room. The party itself was very well attended, especially considering we don't really know that many people here yet. I even got to catch up with my friend Chris from Cinemuerte in Vancouver.

Being that Brendan had to be at the airport by 6 AM on Sunday, I opted to say my goodbyes before going to bed around 3 AM. All in all, not nearly as nerve racking a visit as I had feared. And who knows, maybe we will accompany him to Newfoundland this summer.

Which brings me to my Good News: The sample profiles I did for Montrealplus.ca were very well received and I have been offered eight more profiles to do for December 11th. While not enough to live on by itself, it'll certainly take the edge off while I look for more freelance gigs. Yeah me.