Montreal

We're back home following a whirlwind trip to Montreal where I attended the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and we visited with family in Montreal. Plus we added a special stop just north of Kingston to see family friends and deliver a blanket I made with the help of some friends.

Mom joined us in Montreal, so we picked her up on the way past Toronto airport. Visited friends at the old schoolhouse. Made it into Montreal that evening after a long day on the road. Abi was kept occupied with a new sticker book and her dolls when she wasn't sleeping. While in Montreal we saw the sights and ate a lot of good food. We visited with my aunt and cousins, Robin's cousins, and of course my colleagues at the conference. Rounded it out with some shopping, which also required getting lost trying to find a local yarn shop. Robin wanted to give up, but we insisted that the time lost so far would only have been in vain if we didn't find the yarn shop!

Speaking of driving in Montreal - never again! OMGs, I have seen some bad driving habits, and every region seems to have its own quirks shared by residents - but Montreal is the worst I've encountered so far. First of all, the roads are nearly impossible to navigate, the signs are poorly marked, the construction is horrendous and there are no marked detours, most roads are one-way and may randomly change directions - but the worst part was the rampant double parking - people randomly stopped in the middle of a busy road all over the place. Don't even bother driving in the right hand lane beside the parking lane. Add to that the fact that the coordinates for our destinations were almost all wrong in the GPS and we wasted a lot of time on the roads.

For photos see the flickr account, which will hopefully finish uploading soon...