Valentine's Day!

New Orleans’s loss was my gain last weekend, as after the meatball’s plans to go to Mardi Gras in the Big Easy fell through, she decided to come slum it with me in the Mid-Atlantic. Naturally since it was Valentine’s Day on Saturday, we had many romantic things planned for the weekend – starting with eating, progressing to more eating, and finishing with even more eating. We did take a break long enough to fulfill our outdoor activities quota, though!

Gina arrived in Baltimore Thursday night after a long drive from Columbia; she’s now halfway to evening up our dedicationometer after my two treks to South Carolina by car this year. We went grocery shopping, as we always do on our visits, at Target and made dinner in the house. Rigatoni with vodka sauce and parmesan with some chicken strips and bacon mixed in, garlic bread, and pita chips with roasted red pepper and feta cheese dip. 

She then, in her cute way, fell asleep on the couch while we watched Michigan suffer yet another heartbreaking loss in overtime at Illinois, managing to pry defeat from the jaws of victory by collapsing at the end of regulation against the Fighting Illini. After seeing Michigan win both of the first two games I went to in person, the Wolverines are now 0-3 in contests I’ve either attended or watched with Gina. Clearly an ominous sign for our relationship.

We met at my office for lunch on Friday, enjoying the remainder of our crackers and dip from the night before and winning admiring looks and stares from a couple co-workers, who bombarded me with questions and comments after we finished and I made my way back up to my desk. “Was that THE Gina?” “She’s SO cute Michael.” “Would it have been creepy if we came and said hi?” Yes, I know, and maybe, if you would’ve attacked her the same way you did to me five seconds ago.

We went out for dinner that evening, at the delicious Annabel Lee Tavern close to my house. Hint: if it’s Friday night and you didn’t make a reservation, there’s no chance you’re getting in, as we had found out a couple times previously. We had, though, also eaten there once before, and it was just as satisfying this time around. We started off with a mountainous plate of BBQ chicken and applewood smoked bacon nachos, so big that it wound up being boxed and finished by me for lunch earlier this week, before moving onto our respective main courses: roasted duck with poached eggs and Cajun hollandaise sauce over grits for Gina, and a nice, solid crab cake with mashed potatoes and seasoned asparagus for me. We did what damage we could, and I was more than happy to finish those leftovers this week as well.

Mouth is watering just posting this.

After being truly, deeply touched by Gina’s Valentine’s Day gift on Friday night, which included the most thoughtful and loving objects to set the five senses alight, we drove our separate cars back down to Fredericksburg Saturday morning for a quick pit stop at my house before setting out together once again. We made our way westward (though not quite as far west as we will in July. The panicking and hyperventilating that will result from desperate attempts to take pictures, mental notes, and blog after that trip makes my body seize up even now), heading for our second national park in as many weeks.

We’d visited Congaree National Park in South Carolina recently, and it had inspired a quest. There are 59 protected areas in[1] the United States run by the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior that have been established as national parks for their natural beauty, unique geological features, unusual ecosystems, and recreational opportunities, and our new goal is to visit all of them. We’ve already been to a good handful of them on our own, though I know I don’t really remember trips when I was very young to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Sequoia National Park in California, and the Badlands of South Dakota, amongst others, so I’d like to start from scratch and do them all.

There are not many national parks that are conveniently located for East Coasters like us; the vast majority of them are in or west of the Rocky Mountains, so we needed to seize an opportunity that had presented itself. Shenandoah National Park is just a couple hours from my house in Fredericksburg, and though it was far too cold on this February Saturday to do any hiking, Skyline Drive runs for 105 miles down the spine of the park in the Blue Ridge Mountains and was calling our names, begging to be driven on at nothing exceeding 35 miles per hour.

It was an adventure in itself just to get out there. We were bogged down by traffic in Culpeper, just thirty miles from Fredericksburg but a world apart. Who knew Culpeper was so lively? Then, after needing lunch and gas but being far too stubborn and childish to stop in Culpeper, I decided to drive onwards, figuring we could stop in Sperryville because it looked fairly decent-sized on the map. Let me tell you, it is not. Certainly it is bigger than Woodville, which we drove in and out of faster than Usain Bolt runs the 100 meters. If a town has one line written about it on Wikipedia, that’s all you need to know about it. Sperryville is unique. There was literally not a single gas station, which begs the question where its 342 residents fuel up their cars. Yet, every other edifice on its streets was an art gallery or antique shop, begging another question, who exactly buys any of those things? There was a mixture of gravel and paved roads, no surprise for a small town, until you consider that there were no automobiles in sight. Gina spotted a peasant simply trudging through the middle of an empty field. I spotted a vending machine just on the side of the road that had to predate the 1960s. It was the oddest little town, one without petrol, so frustratingly I had to admit I was wrong and we drove on.

We then stopped in Luray, where I knew there would be gas and food because I had actually been there before, having gone on several school field trips as a youngster to the tourist trap that is Luray Caverns. Stalactites and stalagmites, anyone? We pulled into a gas station there, where having been so flustered by our experience in Sperryville, I drove up to what was, unbeknownst to me, a pump that only emitted diesel. If it wasn’t for the kind, rednecky soul in a small pickup truck at the pump next to ours, I would’ve injected my little Toyota Camry with a fuel that would’ve ruined its system and set me back hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Thank you, sir.

Finally, after making it to Shenandoah, we set out on the 35-mile stretch of Skyline Drive that was most convenient for us to get back to Fredericksburg. We drove from Thornton Gap to Swift Run, pulling off at lookout points every couple of miles to soak in the cold mountain air, enjoy the views from 3500 feet up, and get the best pictures for Instagram. Skyline Drive, and the larger Blue Ridge Parkway that runs through North Carolina and Virginia, is very well known and highly-traveled during the fall, when the leaves change and the foliage is colored brilliantly. In February, though, it was nearly empty, and that was perfect for us. Snow covered some areas on the ground and icicles had formed over the carved parts of the mountain that had been either tunneled through or exposed to construct the road running through it. The sight of the valleys below was something to behold.

View from above

I had wanted to visit Shenandoah since reading A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson’s memoirs of hiking the Appalachian Trail with his childhood friend from Iowa. I’ve been on a Bryson kick since last fall, devouring his travel writing from his exploits in Europe and the United States and it pleased me to no end to come across some of the same places he wrote about during his time in Shenandoah.

We spent a couple hours in the park, which we had been delighted to enter for free since it was Presidents’ Day weekend and the National Park Service wasn’t charging admission to enter its federal lands. On the way home, Gina was her most patient self, indulging me on a stop at Madison County High School, the opponent in my first ever varsity soccer game and somewhere I hadn’t been in over a decade. It didn’t look exactly as I had remembered it, and we drove around both the high school’s football stadium and an open space outside of the local middle school trying to jog some memories. In conclusion, after many minutes later and what surely was constant angry hair-pulling from Gina, I still can’t be exactly sure where we played but I was fairly confident it was actually at the middle school.

That night, since it actually was Valentine’s Day and I felt I should at least try to be romantic, we went to dinner at Brock's, a restaurant on the banks of the Rappahannock River in downtown Fredericksburg. There we dined in style, next to a table of 8 or 10 high school girls all dolled up, with fancy dresses and full makeup and heels, with literally nowhere to go unless their daddies came to pick them up and drive them somewhere else. Gina enjoyed a house salad and a glass of red wine to start, with a fish special for dinner that unfortunately I cannot remember the name of because our waitress may very well have been high when she recited its description and laughed in that ever-so-charming fake way as she did so, and I had chicken tortilla soup and a mediocre seafood carbonara pasta dish. I was a bit disappointed, in all honesty, though we did salvage the night by taking an excellent selfie to commemorate the occasion and stopping at Wegmans on the way home for chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream.

Aw, look at us.

Sunday morning, we laid on the couch and watched the Nat Geo channel on TV for several hours. Never in my life had I learned so much about cats of prey. Fascinating creatures, honestly. Of course we had to eat, so we had brunch at IHOP, alongside what apparently was the rest of Fredericksburg’s population. I couldn’t believe how packed it was. There was a 20-minute wait to just to get a table. At IHOP!! And like idiots, we couldn’t even use the coupon I brought because it explicitly said valid Monday-Friday only on it, a slight oversight on the part of the two people who read over the coupon multiple times but only read the small print about getting a free meal under $9 if you bought another meal and two drinks. Sigh.

So that was our Valentine’s weekend. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself, but I’m looking forward to even more fun adventures next weekend when we go back to our New Jersey roots. More then.

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[1] Well, this includes parks in American Samoa, a US territory in the middle of the South Pacific; and the US Virgin Islands, a group of islands in the Caribbean not far from Puerto Rico.

Hey Ma

I’ve spent nearly half a month in Columbia, South Carolina since the start of last fall, totaling the five long weekends I’ve visited. For someone who admires very little about Southern culture besides its mouth-watering, eventual heart attack-inducing cuisine, I must admit that I’ve enjoyed my time there and feel like I’ve gotten to know the town fairly well.

My restless personality makes it exceedingly difficult for me to sit still and pass the time by doing the same activities in the same places over and over again. Thus after arriving into town on Thursday night, I was very much looking forward to waking up the next day and doing something the meatball and I hadn’t done much of since our visit to Harpers Ferry last summer – enjoying the peace and tranquility of nature.

Congaree National Park, located just twenty minutes or so outside of Columbia, is one of just 59 such protected areas in the United States to receive that designation. It is the second-smallest park by area in the continental United States, covering over 26,000 acres, and preserves the largest tract of old growth bottomland hardwood forest left in the country.

For our purposes, though, it was the site of a lovely 6.6-mile hike traversing the woods and the floodplain of the Congaree River. We were told this moderate route would take between three to four hours to complete, but even with Gina’s stumpers and small strides slowing us (my gangly long legs) down, your two champions completed the walk in about two and a half hours. Take that, trail guide!

The pose of a true outdoorswoman

I can’t tell you how relaxing it was to listen to the sounds of nature, even if we had absolutely no idea where they were coming from or what was responsible for making them, and how gratifying it was to see an environment left to itself and not artificially shaped by man. We were two of handful of people in the park that day, and I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. For a fleeting moment, we spotted a family of wild hogs scampering across the woods not too far from us, a reminder that we were part of their world, not the other way around.

After re-joining the world of the humans, serenaded on repeat on our drive back into town by the dulcet tones of Cam’Ron and his chart-topper, “Hey Ma”, we had dinner at a pasta place on the other side of town. Bacon-wrapped southeastern scallops served with a spicy sriracha slaw got us started, before I had crab bisque and a lobster ravioli dish and Gina had chicken with sautéed mushrooms, roasted red peppers, and green onions in a cayenne cream sauce over spaghetti. Not too shabby.

Dinner time

Later that evening we went out to a bar called Pinch in Five Points, one of the two main nightlife districts in Columbia, and the music there was just as on point as earlier in the day. I hadn’t heard ‘90s and early 2000s songs in a good long while, at least not since my iPod ceased functioning with any regularity several months ago, so I was comforted by the likes of Good Charlotte, Avril Lavigne, and Lou Bega. Somehow, two very intoxicated (and almost undoubtedly underage) people wearing Carolina Panthers jerseys thought grinding to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” would be the appropriate thing to do, so I had no shame in taking pictures of them without making the least effort to hide what I was doing. 

We continued our physical exertions at South Carolina's palatial on-campus gym, which charged me an extortionately high $5 as a guest to gain admittance to its facilities. We made thorough use of the practice basketball courts, playing spirited games of one-on-one, around the world, and horse. If we would've played two more classic games, knockout and 21, my flashbacks to youth basketball would have been complete. Then we moved over to the ping pong table downstairs, a workout in itself just to get there in this place, and pretended to be Asians for a while. It was all good fun.

The main event on Saturday, though, was the university’s basketball game against Georgia. Admittedly, the prospect of seeing two middling teams from a decidedly mediocre basketball conference wouldn’t be the most exciting thing in a world to any sane, rational person, but it did have appeal to me and I relished the opportunity to do so. Well, at least for the first half. The game was brutal. It was positively unwatchable. South Carolina controlled the game from tip to buzzer and won 67-50, but I would sooner gouge my own eyeballs out then be subjected to watch anything like that again. Georgia took 50 shots in the game and made just 11 of them, including only 3 of the 17 three-pointers they attempted. The two schools combined to commit 44 fouls in a 40-minute game. The official attendance was 13,031, but there was hardly any atmosphere or noise in the building and the fans started trickling out while there were still five minutes left in the game. Still, a major college basketball game is a major college basketball game, and I was happy to attend. Cross one arena off my list in the quest to see as many games in as many different venues as I can.

Another missed shot, I'm sure

Our Saturday night was positively wild. You can’t have had a crazier night than the one us party animals had. Through the miracle of Apple, we FaceTimed with Gina’s dad in New Jersey for a while, and were delighted to hear that her brother Cameron had taken a break from lighting his girlfriend Jaime on fire long enough to be accepted to Penn State this fall, though is undecided if he will attend. We also made plans to move Merlin, Gina’s cat, to her dad’s house until Gina gets a place of her own at some point this fall and will be able to take her big boy back for good. Then we watched my ultimate man crush, Justin Timberlake, fail to act his way out of a paper bag alongside the beautiful and talented Mila Kunis in a movie I have a secret soft spot for, Friends with Benefits.  We also had Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I’d say the night was definitely a win.

We felt so refreshed and content with ourselves after our hike on Friday that we set out for another nearby park on Sunday morning for another outdoor activity. Saluda Shoals Park was the site for an hour-long bike ride on the banks of the mighty Saluda River, if by mighty you mean serene to the point of brackishness. Still, it felt good to be outside on a chilly morning, feeling the brisk breeze whipped up by our frantic pedaling on our one-speed, back-brake bikes. What a bell on those bad boys, though! We finished our time in the park by taking advantage of the children’s playground near one of the campsites. Kids have it made, with their miniature rock walls and their monkey bars and their curvy slides. I miss recess.

Morning ride

Before my flight back to Baltimore, we ate and were merry at Mellow Mushroom and Marble Slab in downtown Columbia. There are positives and negative to the immediate proximity of delicious pizza and ice cream places, I suppose; far more joyous and satisfied in the moment ranging to the despair and stomach pains afterwards. It was tough going from the beautiful, 60-degree weather of South Carolina back to the freezing temperatures of the mid-Atlantic, but we’d had yet another successful visit and are looking forward to the next one in a couple weeks. More then.

Land of the Pines

The fortuitous timing of a federal holiday last Monday and some spontaneous thinking last Thursday night combined masterfully. I was afforded a chance to pack up the ol’ Camry and head on down to South Carolina without having to miss a day of work, and there was simply no way that opportunity could be missed. The meatball was waiting!

That was what I kept reminding myself, at least, on the 530-mile slog from Baltimore, the first two hours of which were frustratingly spent in traffic on one of this country’s worst rush-hour commutes, the I-95 corridor between Baltimore, Washington, and Fredericksburg. Believe me, when the highlight of a drive is stopping for a jalapeno-filled pretzel with nacho cheese dip at Sheetz in Smithfield, North Carolina, the less said about that experience, the better.

After arriving at 12:30 AM and heading straight to bed like the old soul that I am, I woke up Saturday morning feeling refreshed and ready for a day of adventures. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision to come down to Columbia, so there really hadn’t been time to obsessively and compulsively plan anything, as is my usual modus operandi, but it was nice to just go with the flow for once.

Gina and I had a nice morning stroll around The Horseshoe on the university campus, stopping at Barnes and Noble (as we do) to pick up Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, one of the most acclaimed new fiction titles of the year so far, which we’ll begin reading together soon. We walked from campus to the capitol building of South Carolina, the State House, where the Confederate battle flag has been proudly displayed on the grounds since 1962. While there, we bumped into an old friend of mine from middle school and high school and had the most pleasant of times catching up. I hadn’t seen Janie in at least 6 or 7 years, but the graduate school at South Carolina has an asset in its Public History program. One of life’s most underrated pleasures is the art of conversation, and I was glad to spend some time renewing acquaintances with an old friend like no time had passed.

The South will rise again?

After that, we walked up and down Main Street for a bit – for a state capitol, Main Street in Columbia really isn’t much to brag about, though it does seem to have up-and-coming restaurants and apartment buildings – before grabbing sandwiches at Groucho’s in the Five Points district. Formula 45 sauce: delicious. Yes, it was annoying to pay 25 cents for water in a Styrofoam cup that broke and spilled everywhere, but you can’t win them all.

We fulfilled a long-standing quest of mine that afternoon by going bowling with a few of Gina’s friends and roommates. I’ve been pestering her for weeks, if not months, to go, and as is the case with most of my requests, she puts up with me heroically, despite having every reason to be nothing short of annoyed. Seven of us played for a couple hours, and when the alley turned its lights off for a bit of cosmic action, it was on.

Aw, her tiny feet

Gina, Emily, and I capped the night by going to a dueling piano bar in the fancier part of Columbia, such as it is. We may have been the youngest people in the place by about a decade, but it was still a fun time. We stood on the balcony, drinking our beers and taking part in one of the more entertaining pastimes in life: people-watching. Our favorite was unanimous: a couple in their 60s, at least, dancing and having the best time of anyone there that night. When “Shout” by the Isley Brothers – a song everyone knows, young and old – was played, both the man and woman were literally laying on the floor on their backs dancing. When I’m their age, I’m sure I’ll be lucky to stand and walk without debilitating hip, knee, and back pain, so watching them channel their inner teenagers was heart-warming. “Wagon Wheel” by Darius Rucker was also played; the second time in two days I had heard that song after going months without hearing it once. Sigh, country music.

There was lots of laughing later that night, not to mention cheese and pepperoni Bagel Bites and Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Gina and I had made bourbon-glazed salmon (thank you, Publix) for dinner with broccoli on the side for both of us, as well as penne with raspberry vinaigrette dressing for me and a sweet potato for Gina, before we went to the piano bar, so we were allowed to cheat a little. Right? Right.

We woke up Sunday with a more relaxed day on the docket. The morning got off to the best possible start with several episodes of Parks and Rec, and we went on a long walk by the Congaree River in the afternoon. See, we made up for those Bagel Bites. Despite it being nearly 60 degrees, the River Walk was filled with college girls wearing oversized, baggy sweaters as if Columbia was sub-Arctic in climate. This inexplicable choice of wardrobe, which not coincidentally was combined with full makeup and huge sunglasses, amused me tremendously.

Gorgeous day for a walk

The best part of the walk by far, though, was all of the dogs out gallivanting. Never in my life have I seen such perfect pups, of all breeds and sizes. I wanted to take so many of them right there and then from their owners for myself. Owning a husky is something I want badly one day, and there were several showing their stuff on this Sunday afternoon. There just isn’t a more beautiful dog than that.

We watched football on Sunday night (full disclosure: I couldn’t have been more wrong about Andrew Luck and the Colts) and unashamedly took full advantage of a gift certificate Gina had to a nice Mexican restaurant in town. Can’t go wrong with chips and queso, or BBQ shrimp, chicken teriyaki, and chicken pesto tacos. I may not love a lot about the South, but the one thing done better there than anywhere else I’ve been is the food.

Gina and I ran a few errands and had lunch Monday morning before I made the return drive to Baltimore. Thank God for daylight and podcasts, as they made my drive back exponentially more bearable than the slog down there on Friday. Instead of Sheetz, I stopped at a Dairy Queen in Dunn, North Carolina for a Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzard. Thanks to either the incompetence of its employees or a faulty credit card swipe machine (yes, I was going to pay $3.30 with a debit card, and I’ll be charitable and say it was the machine’s error), I even got it for free! Can’t beat that.

I return to Columbia next weekend. If it is half as rewarding as this trip, I’ll be a happy camper. More then.

Montreal, jour troix

The list of ways for me to write about shopping just isn’t an extensive one. I can tell you I bought two pairs of socks adorned with Union Jack patterns on them and a pair of red pants at H&M on our last full day in Montreal, continuing my personal quest to spice up my wardrobe in 2015, and I can tell you that Gina, the hip edgy sk8r gurl that she is, bought a hat at Vans; the truth of the matter, though, is that walking in and out of shops all morning, even on as bustling and energizing a street as Saint Catherine’s is, just doesn’t make for the most fascinating reading material.

We did manage to find the heart of the Underground City on our way back to our new hotel (quick review: very minimalist and modern, with not much warmth in the atmosphere inside and a disappointingly small room. The bathroom was heavenly, though, I must admit.), making up for our struggles in that endeavor the day before, so score one for the Americans. While it really was no different in makeup than nearly every other mall I’ve been in, it has a huge advantage during the freezing winters of Montreal in that visitors can access it from the metro system and don’t need to take a single step in the frigid outdoor air to visit countless retail establishments and entertainment options.  

Hotel St. Paul

The evening’s activities were more appealing to me – namely our Italian dinner at a restaurant very close to the first hotel we stayed in, near Notre-Dame Basilica. Gina did the best she could with her veal parmesan, and I consumed an entire plate of pasta carbonara like the appalling glutton that I am, like I hadn’t eaten a meal since the last time Michigan was good at football, etc etc.  I washed it down with a bottle of Corona, and because Gina is much classier than I can ever hope to be, she had red wine.

We then made our second trek to the Bell Centre in two nights, though this time we would actually get to see a hockey game. After discovering only the night before that the World Junior Championship was being held in Montreal, as we were surrounded by hordes of Canadian supporters on the metro headed to watch their youngsters triumph over Finland on their way to an eventual tournament title, I had looked up the schedule and found that Germany would be playing Slovakia on our last night in town. Tickets, as one might guess for a game involving two nations from central Europe playing in eastern Canada, were very cheap.

The calm before the storm. Too dramatic?

It was actually an exciting game, won 5-2 in the end by Slovakia, enabling the victors to gain a small measure of revenge against their oppressors of 1939. Slovakia would go on to finish third in the 10-team tournament, so it was fun (for me, at least) to get to watch a group of young players that seems to be on the rise and should have a chance to be even more successful as they develop with age and gain more experience on the international stage.

While all that is fine and dandy, a real highlight for Gina and I was the group of six or seven young Canadians who sat in front of us during the first period. I’ve never seen such frenzied activity on Tinder – the swipes left and right were coming too fast and furiously for my eyes to process. The girl directly in front of me had actually matched an hour or so beforehand with the captain of Germany, who likely should have his mind on other things – I don’t know, getting ready to play a game, perhaps – instead of being on Tinder in the dressing room, but what can you do? She messaged him, of course, and I hope something works out for those potential lovebirds.

We finished our evening with a couple of outrageously-priced drinks at the hotel bar, beverages that weren’t even that good, and got to bed early as we left Montreal at 7 the next morning to make the 400-mile drive back to New Jersey, where we spent New Year’s Eve catching up for a bit with my aunt and uncle, eating fondue, competing in an epic decorating battle (which I obviously won) to create the best gingerbread man, and watching the endlessly cheesy Ryan Seacrest host his show from Times Square. Talk about balls dropping with that guy, I’ll tell you…

Happy New Year!

My next adventure will be a return trip to Columbia at the end of January. After attending a football game, a women’s soccer match, and a men’s and women’s swim meet on my visits this fall, I’ll make it the quadruple by seeing South Carolina square off in a true battle of the basketball titans against Georgia. I’m already feeling tingly. Until then.

Montreal, jour deux

After sitting in a car for six hours and consuming four delightful courses for dinner the day before, some physical activity that required ambulatory locomotion was essential.

We had three sites on our list to see for the day and mapped out our route in the hotel before we left in the morning, as once we were out of range of a Wi-Fi connection for our phones, we were on our own for directions. The route was relatively simple and circuitous and would take us back to the hotel in mid-afternoon, after ice skating at Parc La Fontaine, taking in the views of Montreal from Parc du Mont-Royal, and walking around the campus of McGill University, in that order.

It really wasn’t too complicated of an endeavor, especially for two people that have been fortunate enough to travel as extensively and successfully in Europe as Gina and I have. Between us, we’ve managed to navigate everywhere from Scandinavia to Iberia, from the British Isles in the west to Poland in the east. Surely another country on the continent we call home wouldn’t be that daunting of a challenge.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we didn’t have much of an idea where we actually were after emerging from the bowels of Montreal’s ultra-efficient subway system, walking down a busy boulevard to the entrance of a large green space, and beginning our gradual climb up the trails of a small mountain for the better part of an hour, There were plenty of other walkers out, a good sign to be sure, but we didn’t see any maps along the way. We had intended to go skating on a body of water that had been frozen over, not an artificially constructed public rink, and when we spotted signs along the trail for the Lac des Castors, we figured we were in business.

The problem was, Parc La Fontaine did not appear nearly as large on Google Maps as the length of the walk we were on, so doubts consistently lingered in our minds. When we saw people climbing to a lookout point at the top of the mountain, we followed Gina’s first rule of travel and headed for where the pretty pictures could be taken. Gina got a GoPro pole for Christmas, making the art of the selfie much easier for people who don’t want to ask other tourists and travelers to take a picture of them, so we did our business overlooking the most picturesque, stunningly arresting view of all of Montreal. Fingers sufficiently frozen in the numbing cold weather, we went inside what appeared to be a visitor center on the summit to warm up. 

Hard to beat this view

We consulted a map near all the brochures extolling the virtues of the tourist sites of Quebec, which we ignored, and were bemused when we saw where we were. We had made a right at Rue Rachel instead of making the left we needed to make to head to Parc La Fontaine, so we’d ended up stumbling on Mont Royal, the triple-peaked hill just west of the heart of the city to which it gave its name. The park on Mont Royal was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who is perhaps better known for co-designing a little place you may have heard of in New York City called Central Park.

There is no more gratifying feeling when traveling then to discover something new, or to see something when it was least expected. We were going to see Mont Royal at some point that day, but to find it on a complete fluke somehow made it better, in an odd way. We went back into the open air and stood for a while, admiring the skyline of the city and gazing, as silently as a cliché, miles into the distance, including the St. Lawrence River and the Champlain Bridge we’d crossed entering Montreal the day before.

After descending the stairway from heaven – at least, it seemed that high when we walked up, huffing and puffing and stopping multiple times to catch our breath and rest our aching quad muscles – we left the park and headed for nearby McGill.

McGill has interested me for a while – I looked fairly seriously into its graduate programs in art history – as it’s an American-accredited institution and an English-language university right in the middle of a predominantly French-speaking city and province. It has a strong academic reputation and tradition, having been founded in 1821, and boasts a large number of international students. Its urban campus backs right up onto the base of Mont Royal and is conveniently located near several metro stops and the lively main commercial shopping thoroughfare in Montreal – Rue Sainte-Catherine. I can’t say it’s the most beautiful school I’ve ever seen, though my view is at odds with that of Travel and Leisure Magazine, which named McGill’s 79-acre grounds and its plethora of stone buildings one of the 17 most beautiful university campuses in the world in its September 2012 issue.  We walked around for perhaps a half an hour, and saw everything one could fairly expect to see given that none of the buildings were open due to the Christmas holiday.  

Looking onto McGill's campus

Our final stop while it was still light outside was the place we’d intended to visit first, Parc La Fontaine. Our research before the trip told us it would be an interesting place to go ice skating simply because it was an actual, real pond that had frozen over, rather than going in mind-numbingly boring, endless circles while dodging hordes of little children and teenagers who can’t be trusted to stay upright for any longer than two seconds at a much more crowded, artificial rink.

While the plan was good in theory, we (read: I) made a slight oversight: when we arrived at the park, there was nowhere to rent skates, unlike at one of those rinks I so detest. The park is right in the middle of a residential neighborhood, so while it was a great place for locals, it wasn’t ideal for tourists from America who didn’t think about, I don’t know, needing ice skates. Instead, we made the best of it as we managed to do some skating in our shoes, and had a leisurely end to our afternoon strolling hand-in-hand across the ice while the sun went down.

Nice day for a skate..on shoes

Our plans for dinner were a bit more low-key than our experience at Chez Suzette. Gina wanted to explore Montreal’s famous Underground City, a 20-mile network of shops, apartments, and restaurants connected to the metro system that is particularly beneficial in the winter when the weather is so harsh. As we reached Bonaventure metro station, one of the entrances to the Underground City, we found ourselves surrounded by throngs of people wearing Team Canada hockey jerseys, scarves, and other assorted apparel.

Before our trip, I had checked to see if the Montreal Canadiens were in town for a game when Gina and I would be in town, but when I saw they were away for our entire stay, I assumed there would be no hockey for us. Gina silently rejoiced, praising her good fortune. Somehow I managed to convince her to follow the crowd, who were headed to the Bell Centre, and after a bit of sports sleuthing on my part, we figured out the World Junior Championship was being contested and there was a game in Montreal that night – Canada vs. Finland.

At the box office, I inquired how much tickets would cost and was dismayed (Gina probably couldn’t have been more thrilled) to hear that $66 was the cheapest ticket available, ranging all the way up to $130 for better seats in the 21,273-seat capacity arena. There was zero chance or desire for us to afford that, so we moved on in our efforts to find dinner. Much of the Underground City was closed by that time of night, so it was onto Plan B.

We took the metro back to the closest stop to our hotel, and our proximity to Chinatown came in handy. After peeking in the windows of a few places, we settled on an all-you-can-eat buffet place because we’re just that classy. In addition to food you would rightly expect a Chinese place to have, other options included pizza, spaghetti with meat sauce and/or meatballs, jello, and pudding. What a selection. I opted for fried rice, some type of meat that vaguely resembled General Tso’s chicken, and shrimp that still had the eyes and feelers/tentacle things, attached. Gina did, in fact, take a jello square in addition to her mystery meat and fried rice dish. All-in-all, it actually wasn’t a bad meal by any means, and what I love about us is that we make the most out of every place we go, no matter how fancy or informal.

We still had one more day in Montreal to come, which I’ll write about in my next post. It really is a fantastic city, and despite our directional challenges over the first couple days, we were growing more and more comfortable with the environment and the locals. The next day would bring a change of hotels, but more fun activities. Hockey and shopping – the best of both worlds for us. More soon.

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 19^th-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.

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?