Monday, December 29, 2014

Montreal, jour un

I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been excited to wake up at 6 AM. No matter how much sleep you get the night before or how much you’re looking forward to the next day, it just isn’t a fun thing to do.

This trip, though, cracked that list. Gina and I were up well before the sun rose to get on the road to Montreal, a trip we’ve had in the works for a few months now. We knew it would be cold once we got there and had come to terms with that, but had been dreading the chance of heavy snow making the 400-mile drive up from New Jersey a treacherous endeavor, certainly a plausible possibility given a venture through upstate New York at the end of December.

We were fortunate, then, that the only snow we saw in six hours was in patches on the ground in the northwoods of the Adirondacks and the farmlands of Quebec. After failing to go to Madison Avenue in New York City over Thanksgiving, I’m pleased to report that we did make it Madison Avenue in New York this time around – in Albany, the state capital, where we took a few pictures of the capitol building and stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts, where a homeless man asked how tall I was and if I played basketball…before proceeding to solicit me for money. And there I was, thinking I was something special. I even felt flattered for a minute.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, if not supremely picturesque. It must be absolutely gorgeous to head that way during autumn to see the full effects of changing foliage, but alas, we had to content ourselves with the relatively unspoiled forests and trees that make up eastern and northern New York. I had been eagerly anticipating the chance to drive in Canada, particularly in Quebec as French is the primary language of the province and would be all over its road signs (I don’t speak French, so this titillating sense of the unknown and the distinct possibility of committing some unknown driving infraction appealed to me greatly), but I’m here to tell you that it was a bit of a letdown. Yes, I was permitted to go 100 on the highway, and reaching that triple digit mark was exciting, but I knew from previous family trips to Canada when I was younger that it was in kilometers per hour and not miles per hour. The scenery into Montreal from Plattsburgh, New York was nothing to write home about – if you want to see snowy farms, Iowa is the place for you – and drivers in Quebec were just as terrible as they are in the US, even if it was a small sample size on which to judge.

Bonjour, Canada

The border, though, is where the fun truly began. To prevent from being charged absurdly high international rates on our phones, we turned our cellular data off. My GPS was handy for navigating us to Montreal itself, and to be fair you couldn’t miss its skyline, but when it said we had 23.5 miles to go to our hotel as we crossed the bridge over the St. Lawrence River and had downtown Montreal square in our sights, I angrily cast it aside. Fortunately Gina is conversant in French, but such is the spoiled life of young adults in 2014 that without phones for backup, doing a bit of old school navigating in a different country in which English isn’t the first language with only a map, street signs, and addresses as guides was a challenge.

I was very proud of us when we reached our destination, the LHotel in beautiful Old Montreal, only stopping once to pull over near the 19th-century, Second Empire-style Montreal City Hall just a few streets away to consult our map. Montreal is the second-largest city by population in Canada and the ninth-largest in North America, so to get there and drive in the heart of a city of that size without really knowing exactly what we were doing or with any electronic assistance was an accomplishment.

Home sweet home

We picked a great location to base ourselves for the first couple days of our stay in Montreal. We were in walking distance from everything in the old part of town, which dates back to the late 1600s, and were happy to go off exploring and familiarizing ourselves with our immediate environs. We were one minute away from the Notre-Dame Basilica, completed in the Gothic Revival style in 1829. It was impressive during the late afternoon, but coming back at night to see the brilliant blues of the stained glass windows lit up was something to behold. We walked through the various little shops in Bonsecours Market, which was completed in 1847 and was the area’s main public market for more than 100 years. We strolled through Place Jacques-Cartier, a public square filled with lighted trees and hotspots – essentially small, controlled fires that people can gather around during the winter months – and lined on both sides of the broad, steep street by restaurants, a preponderance of which seemed to feature pasta and pizza.

As much as we love those two foods – and believe me, we do – we opted for something a bit more local for dinner. The four-course meal at Chez Suzette – Caesar salad, French onion soup with perfectly melted cheese on top, a dinner crepe with ham, Swiss cheese, asparagus, and béchamel sauce and a dessert crepe with vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, and Chantilly cream – was delicious enough, to be sure, and served by our terrific waiter Pedro, and though we were there for over two hours that wasn’t the highlight of the evening.

Time for dessert

That honor went to the young woman dining two tables down from us. I’ve never seen anything like it, and this was one occasion in which I had no shame in staring. She was eating by herself, which was interesting to me because even though I do it all the time, it’s rare to see a good-looking woman doing that, at least in my experience. She performed the sign of the cross before her food came, and I’m Catholic, so hey, that’s fine. Maybe a little much for me personally, but no problem there. She began taking frantic notes in a little journal, and hey, I get it, I blog, I love watching people, maybe it was a little excessive but again, I didn’t think it was anything over the top. But that’s when things got interesting.

Once her food arrived, she whipped out her small camera and began taking pictures like it was a runway in New York during fashion week. She arranged her napkin in three different places, the right side, in front of, and the left side of her plate, before finally deciding she didn’t need it all her for her pictures and putting it on her lap. Then she lifted the small bit of maple syrup in a receptacle similar to the one you’d find on cough medicine or Pepto-Bismol bottles, sniffed it, put it down, pulled it back up to sniff again, put it down, then reached up for a third whiff before drizzling some of it over her meal. Then she took her camera, tilted her head to the side, and took a multitude of selfies of the side of her head, which was covered in her long, black hair. Not even an inch of her face or cheek, mind you. All hair, and I promise that’s not an exaggeration. Then she took the rest of the maple syrup, sniffed it, put it down, sniffed it again, and then poured the rest over her dinner, as if in the five minutes that had passed before her previous sniff series that the syrup had been poisoned by one of those notorious Québécois. She took more selfies, this time managing to actually get her face in the shots, before closing her meal by taking several pictures of her empty plate and performing another sign of the cross.

That about closed our first night in Montreal, as we’re old and fell asleep watching the Steelers-Bengals game in the hotel. Unlike our New York adventures, my goal is to blog at the end of each of the three days we’re here. Today we covered even more ground – 7.8 miles of walking, to be exact – and witnessed some of the best views of the entire city. More details about that, and our escapades on the ice, soon.

Monday, December 22, 2014

Thanksgiving, Part Three

After my personal debacle at Chicago the previous night, I was determined to make up for it over the next two days. Some big things were in store, things that likely required me staying awake for the duration, so I committed myself to doing just that.

Gina and I had originally planned to walk the High Line, an elevated park converted from a disused railroad line on the West Side of Manhattan, but the prospect of doing that in 30-degree weather with the wind gusting didn’t particularly appeal to us. Instead, we committed our morning and early afternoon to doing things all tourists to New York City probably do – though of course we don’t lower ourselves to those standards.

We walked to the 30 Rock building, the home of NBC Studios, and saw the Tonight Show marquee that Jimmy Fallon had just lit for the first time only the night before on the show. There should be no doubt that he’s the most talented of the late night hosts. His interviewing skills may not be the most polished, but his musical and comedic abilities, evident in reoccurring skits or new skits he is willing to try, and his rapport with his guests (go watch clips with Ricky Gervais or Fallon’s bestie, Justin Timberlake) are unrivaled. Having a group as accomplished as The Roots as the house band is a coup for Fallon, and they are a significant contributor to the show’s appeal, as is the show’s announcer, Steve Higgins.

Ice skating, anyone?

We took the obligatory pictures around the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center, but were disappointed when we saw the famous Christmas tree had scaffolding around it and wasn’t yet in its full glory. We then marched onward to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which also had prominent scaffolding as part of a massive, five-year, $175 million renovation project that will repair, restore, and clean the marble exterior of the 135-year old church as well as the stained-glass windows on the inside. Somehow we survived ten minutes inside the house of worship without spontaneously combusting or being set ablaze by an act of the heavens.

$5995 for these bad boys

Don’t worry, though, everyone, the shopping in New York City was at its non-scaffolding finest. My aversion to shopping for myself is well-documented, but even I recognize the need for some new clothes from time to time. Two shirts from H&M later, a handsome red and black plaid number and a light grey sweater, I was satisfied, and it was off to Saks Fifth Avenue for some browsing. It has ten floors, which in itself was imposing, but not nearly as overwhelming as the prices for the merchandise found on those floors. Gina and I played a fun little game, one that you kids at home can play as well, in which one of us would find a pair of women’s shoes and then the other would have to find a more expensive pair. I was certain that when my eyes settled upon a lovely number that was just under $2,000 that I had found the winner, but Gina merely scoffed, saw my $2,000, and eventually raised me to a pair of diamond-encrusted, red bottom (that means something from what I gather) Louboutins for a mere $5,995. How anyone could afford shoes that expensive, much less physically walk in them, I do not know.

We continued moseying around Midtown, stopping in Michael Kors, Express, Barnes and Noble, Grand Central Station, and the ice skating rink at Bryant Park along the way. We had an encounter with someone on the street promoting global female education in which I was forced, hesitantly of course, to admit that I was with Gina and, indeed, supported her in all of her endeavors, but I left the financial commitment to a young Nicaraguan girl up to her. Gina had literally just bought I Am Malala, the story of Malala Yousafzai, a 17-year old Pakistani human rights activist for education and for women who was nearly assassinated by the Taliban, who had banned girls from attending school in her native province, a few minutes before, so I thought we’d done what we could for the cause.

From there it was time for lunch – delicious burgers and cheese fries – before settling in at our hotel for an hour of Family Feud with Steve Harvey and his pocket squares, and a quick nap before our trip to Brooklyn that evening.

I went to Barclays Center two years ago to watch Michigan play in person for the first time, and my obsessive fandom over the years had been rewarded with an 81-66 victory over West Virginia. Michigan started off that season 16-0 and would go on to appear in the national championship game, in which they lost to Louisville, and after seeing them win again in Lincoln, Nebraska this past January in a season in which they went to the Elite Eight, I was hopeful that seeing the Wolverines in Brooklyn this time would be a harbinger of success to come this year.

The night started off with an appetizer that appealed to my roots growing up in Virginia, as VCU controlled their game against Oregon from beginning to end, cruising comfortably to the victory. If anyone in New York had more fun than VCU’s band that night, I would’ve been amazed. Those kids were getting after it in ways I didn’t think a band was capable of, ways that made me reexamine the shortcomings of my own life. No one partied harder than the guy playing the tuba.

Won't be conference champions this year, sad to say

Michigan’s game against Villanova, a matchup of two top-15 teams, didn’t start until close to 10:30, which is absurd. No basketball game played on the East Coast should ever start that late, but fine, I was just happy to be there. Michigan has played in New York or New Jersey in four out of the past five seasons, catering to their very sizable alumni base in the area stemming from the outstanding business school in Ann Arbor, and with the additions of Maryland and Rutgers to the Big Ten I’ll have even more chances to watch the Maize and Blue in person now. The arena was split probably 60-40 in favor of Michigan fans, even though the Villanova contingent had a quick drive up from Philadelphia. It was a great game, played back and forth for nearly the whole way, and Villanova’s greater experience and toughness showed as the Wildcats battled back from a small deficit in the final minutes and held Michigan nearly scoreless to close out the game and a 60-55 win. I was disappointed, and Michigan’s season since then has gone as far down the tank as the tank holds, but glad to experience that atmosphere and all the noise and passion in the arena.

The next morning, Gina and I battled the elements on our walk to Penn Station to head back to New Jersey, where we would celebrate Thanksgiving at her dad’s house. The usual jitters for a boyfriend meeting the girlfriend’s dad were there at first, but quickly went away as I was made to feel right at home. It was my first time eating fried turkey, and along with all the sides it was a delicious meal with great company. Gina’s brother Cameron managed to get through a meal without setting anyone on fire, so that was definitely a step in the right direction. After dinner, the six of us played a dice game called Farkle and a rousing comeback from yours truly led to a breathtakingly stirring victory that left Gina speechless. Granted, she’s speechless most of the time, but still.

I left New Jersey bright and early the next morning to have Thanksgiving with my family at home in Virginia. We went to our old neighbors’ house and had yet another fantastic meal – I feel confident my obesity level has risen exponentially in the past month with Thanksgiving and with holiday candy and lunches before Christmas.

It is on that revolting, yet delicious, note that I will end this Thanksgiving series of blogs. You can have your Star Wars, your Godfathers, your Back to the Futures, your Lord of the Rings, etc., but clearly there has been no more epic trilogy than this. Yes, it’s been greatly delayed, but they do say that good things are worth waiting for. A trip to the Great White North just after Christmas awaits. It will be très exciting, oui?

Monday, December 15, 2014

Thanksgiving, Part Two


Who knew a 1.1-mile walk could feel so long?

Gina and I set out on our way to New York, bags in hand, from my uncle’s house in Little Silver early Monday morning to walk to the train station in town. Though we saw a couple cabs drive by during our walk, including one that came up to us unsolicited and asked if we needed a ride, and there was some clamoring amongst the group (hint: not from me), I steadfastly refused. There are things in this world for which I refuse to pay – a public bathroom in Europe, sprinkles on my ice cream (hey Davey!), etc. – and a cab ride of less than a mile is one of them. It just is. It was a lovely fall day, and I’m not paying when the flat cab rate would’ve been more expensive than the distance we were going. But wow, those bags were heavy.

The Garden

MSG

Ninety minutes later, after our arduous hike through the rough and tumble terrain of Branch Avenue and the ensuing train ride that followed, we found ourselves at Penn Station. There was just one natural destination for me after that: Madison Square Garden. As a lifelong sports fan, the Garden has always held a special allure and appeal to me. I’ve watched countless Rangers games played there on TV and watched innumerable college basketball games played there in November and March – one of my fondest memories in college, in fact, was watching the famous 6-overtime game between Syracuse and UConn with my roommate Anthony on March 12, 2009. Yes, it was a school night, but staying up until the very end at 1:22 AM was worth every yawn in class the next day. I’ve yet to go inside the Garden to watch a game in person, but that ranks close to the top on the personal bucket list.

We got to our hotel, a relatively modern-looking place called the Element Times Square West on West 39th and 8th, dropped off our bags, and went back out immediately to explore the city. We had to go uptown to our first point of call, the Met, and decided to amble across Central Park after we got off the subway near the American Museum of National History. I’m admittedly biased, having lived near Hyde Park in London for four months and taking advantage of its proximity and beauty multiple times a week, but Central Park ain’t too shabby either. It was a gorgeous day for a walk, with gorgeous company to talk with, and our stroll was immensely agreeable.

Central Park in fine glory

After reaching the end of the park, still heading towards the Met, we stumbled upon a site that we’d read about in the New York Times (we’re so fancy) a few weeks earlier but weren’t exactly sure where to find. Don’t you love that about big cities – that feeling of a new, unplanned discovery at every corner? The Cultural Services arm of the French Embassy in New York recently opened a new bookstore, with books in both French and English, a beautiful reading area with wood bookcases and comfortable leather couches on which to consume said reading material, and a ceiling that recalls a scene out of a Harry Potter book or a van Gogh painting. We spent an hour or so browsing, sitting, and reading – in short, filling ourselves with culture before stepping inside one of the world’s most notable art museums.

The Met


Garden at Sainte-Adresse by Claude Monet

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the largest art museum in the United States and, along with the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the Art Institute in Chicago, is certainly one of the country’s leading institutions. It boasts five of the 34 paintings in the world attributed to Jan Vermeer, a leading light of the Dutch Golden Age, a couple dozen pieces by the most famous French Impressionist, Claude Monet, and some of Rembrandt’s finest portraits, but most appealing to me were a couple paintings I had discussed with my Art Appreciation students only a week or so before. It didn’t hit me, when I covered them in class, that I would have the chance to see Rosa Bonheur’s The Horse Fair and Thomas Cole’s The Oxbow in person so soon, and I was overwhelmed with exuberance when Gina and I came across them, again unexpectedly. Gina then sat patiently as I tried to adequately convey my excitement and passion for the subject, and I understand it’s hard to describe that in words in person (and even more so in writing). But I was truly moved by seeing these bastions of Western painting with my own eyes, so much grander in scope and size than I had expected, and it was an experience I won’t soon forget.

We spent a few hours all told at the Met, and then headed back to our hotel to change before our evening activities. Of course we got food on the street right outside the museum, both before we went in (mmm, chili and cheese hot dogs!) and after (three variations of nuts, only $2!). When in New York, amIright?

 

The Theater


Dinner was at an Italian place a few blocks from the Ambassador Theater on Broadway, where we would finish our evening seeing Chicago. This place specialized in red-sauce dishes, of which I’m not the biggest fan – you’re looking at an alfredo or carbonara kind of guy – but it was still pasta and in that sense, you can’t ever go wrong. Both of us dressed up for the occasion, and I felt lucky to have the most stunning 5-foot-5 (in heels!!) girl in the world across the table from me as I proceeded to eat like the animal that I am. Those heels came back to bite us on our walk to the theater, however, as the sidewalks and streets in New York City are hardly pedestrian-friendly, and definitely not to a girl who doesn’t often wear heels. That was one occasion in which taking a cab would’ve been the way to go, which we did on the 12-block trip from our hotel to the restaurant, but we couldn’t find one from there to the show. After promising to massage Gina’s feet for hours afterwards (no tantalizing prospect if you’ve seen her toes, believe me), we made it to the Ambassador.

Proof that I was, in fact, awake for part of it

I love shows. I’ve seen On Golden Pond at the Kennedy Center, where Gina and I will be this Friday night, I’ve seen the Catch Me If You Can musical in Kansas City, and I’ve seen the Sound of Music more times than a 25-year-old guy should probably admit. Suffice it to say I was excited to see Chicago. It started out great. The performers were in great physical shape, had great voices, and I was fully invested in every note. I was right there every second of the way…right up to the point where I fell asleep. I wasn’t even tired. I’ve fallen asleep in several movies, including Shutter Island, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the Book Thief – all movies I actually WANTED to see – and even a soccer game in England. It just happens. I don’t know why. It was so dark in the Ambassador, and for probably half of the show, I was constantly doing that head nod we’ve all done. I’m ashamed, what can I say. But like Eminem, who made some mistakes but is only human, and is man enough to face them today (name that song, go!), I’ll admit to the errors of my ways. From what I did manage to stay alert for, Chicago was terrific.

The last part of this exciting Thanksgiving trilogy will cover our last day in New York. There was basketball. There was 30 Rock. There were $6000 shoes. Until then.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Thanksgiving, Part One

So, it’s been a while. The timeliness of writing Thanksgiving-themed blog posts on December 8 leaves something to be desired, I’ll admit. It’s like Parks and Rec not starting until January, though: better late than never, amIright?

Friday


I left Baltimore after work the Friday before Thanksgiving more excited than I’d been in a while – I had a full week off, was going to New York, and would be lucky enough to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. All signs pointed to a phenomenal time.

The holiday started in fine fashion as I stopped in Newark (no, not Newark. New-Ark. Why, I really don’t know.), Delaware to meet Gina’s friend Jen for coffee. Shameless plug alert: their previous exploits can be found here. Gina predicted what would happen next, and indeed, she was correct – coffee turned into an hour and a half of the best conversation. I guess Jen and I both like to talk. Not that sorry about it. Plus as beautiful and majestic as I-95 and the New Jersey Turnpike are, I was in no hurry to get back on the road. If I didn’t make it to the Garden State Parkway before 8 PM, believe me, I wasn’t going to miss anything.

Coffee was great – I’ll leave you to guess who got a girlier drink than whom – and I reached my aunt and uncle’s house in Little Silver later that night, but not before two of the fastest roadside transactions of my life occurred. Having exactly $3 of cash in my wallet when my gas light turned on about 15 miles from my destination left me in a bit of dilemma. I just didn’t want to use my card at that point, or wait around to fill up, so I told the kind-hearted gentleman at the Sunoco by the Asbury Park Toll Plaza that I had $3 and to do to his heart’s content with that information. He pumped seven-tenths of a single gallon into my car, asked for $2 (it cost $2.03, but my guy cut me a break. Shout-out to you, sir), and sent me on my merry way, all literally within 45 seconds of my arrival into the gas station. Then, having not consumed what I like to call nourishment since lunch, I pulled into the Burger King drive-thru in Red Bank. Again, it took less than a minute for my bacon cheeseburger to be ready – yes, the cheese was simply a slice that in no shape or form was anywhere near melted, but I’ll take what I can get.

Saturday


The next morning I was up before 8 to help my uncle unload and set up Christmas trees with the Little Silver volunteer fire department. The best part of that experience was the bagels there before we got started – I’ve been living a farce of a life the last 21 years since my family left New Jersey, with the “bagels” we’ve been eating since then. Anyway, there’s nothing like a bunch of big, buff Jersey guys lifting things and talking about their kids and high school football to start a Saturday morning. All of them were great to me, though, to be fair, and I was glad to contribute to a good cause. People of Monmouth County, go there to pick out your Christmas trees this year. So many different types and sizes!

Not bad, right?

Saturday afternoon was spent watching college football, as all November afternoons should be spent, and that evening my uncle, cousin Ann, and I went to Monmouth University to watch a true battle of the titans. I’m shaking as I type this. The Monmouth Hawks were taking on the Central Connecticut State Blue Devils in a tilt of colossal proportions, one that the home team would win 65-50 despite falling behind 12-0 in the first half. The game itself was alright, but it was our seats that made the occasion. I’ve been to a ton of sporting events in my life, from baseball to college basketball to college soccer here and professional soccer in the top two leagues in England, but never have I sat as close to the action as we did on this night. Courtside, first row, right behind one of the baskets. There’s honestly nothing like a team storming down the court right at you on a fast break, and seeing the raw athleticism and ability those players had, even at a low-major level of basketball. There’s also honestly nothing like sitting right by the cheerleaders and hearing the internal drama of a squad. “I hate when we do that cheer! We’re so much better at this one! Would’ve been nice if she told us what cheer we’re doing next! She always does this!” And on and on and on. Despite it being less than 40 degrees outside, we finished the evening with ice cream at Hoffman’s. That’s just how we do things.

Sunday


My last day in Little Silver for this visit was a quiet one. I went to church for the first time since the last time I was in New Jersey – the Church of the Nativity, my parish away from parish (isn’t that the saying?). We then went to a local market to get food for lunch at what had to be the exact same time that the rest of the population of Monmouth County decided to go to that very same market for the very same reason. Lunch was delicious – it’s hard to go wrong with buffalo wings and chicken tenders, and I also had a potato pancake. Just call it a hash brown, though, and be done with it.

The meatball was flying home from South Carolina for her Thanksgiving break on Sunday afternoon, too, and she came to Little Silver to meet my aunt and uncle for a little while. That went very well, if I do say so myself, and then she and I headed to her house in Howell to have dinner with her mom, brother, and his girlfriend, the latter two of which I had never met myself. There was an interesting detour at the Gap in Shrewsbury, in which I waited patiently behind two women who must’ve been outfitting their babies for the next 17 winters with all the clothes they were buying. Why parents spend so much money on baby clothes is beyond me, since they’ll last literally a few months before they don’t fit anymore, but ok. You do you, ladies. All I needed was for the sales associate to take the lock thing off a pair of jeans I had bought several weeks ago in Columbia (Shameless plug 2.0 alert: those exploits can be found here), though the cashier there decided to be derelict in his duty and leave it on. When I’m just standing there with a pair of jeans in one arm, and the women have approximately 13 bags’ worth of clothes between you, one would think they would let me go in front of them. One would be completely and utterly wrong. Yet another reason shopping and I don’t get along.

We made it back to Howell in time for a delicious dinner, featuring some of the best meatballs I’ve ever had. I confessed my fear of ice cream, sort of, though only when it is in a bowl and very melted and milky. Get that away from me, please. Do not, under any circumstances, lick the bowl in front of me like my brother does. Also Gina’s brother, Cameron, casually lit his girlfriend, Jaime, on fire at the table. So there’s that on what was a terrific Sunday dinner.

The next morning, Gina and I headed into New York City, a trip I’ll talk about at length in part two of this Thanksgiving blog. Hopefully that won’t take two weeks to write and post. Oops. More to come.