Wed 3 Oct 2007
Today was a great day in Montreal. After going to bed at 5.30am (gulp!) I woke up at 11.15 and set off for my cycling date with Daniella. I had been playing poker the night before with the Montreal boys and the time had literally flown by. How they all manage to stay up until that time and not worry about work I never found out, although I suspect Louis and Yorvis are secretly millionaires, Mikhael was between jobs and Andres was working afternoons. Never found out what Ben was doing, but in the morning he was gone. I only lost $10 over 2 games though and didn’t buy in, so I think my gambling problem is under control and now I have had a good practice for Las Vegas!
It wasn’t nice to have to cycle in my stinky poker clothes but I didn’t have time to go change. I walked to the Metro and made it to Daniella’s mothers apartment just after Daniella arrived to pick up the bike. It was a real old thing with wonky wheels and an old sprung saddle, I foolishly elected to ride that rather than the more modern mountain bike she had borrowed, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The newer bike’s tires were so flat propelling it along was quite a struggle. Still, it didn’t make me feel like I was sailing on the ocean like the old clunker.
We met up with Alexis, a Russian merchant seaman from Vladivostok, who spent the whole ride being frustrated by out leisurely pace. I think he was sweet on Daniella too which was fun 
We cycled west and south, past the local Dawson College where they had their own mini-shooting last year, with one student killed. Still, Canada has nearly the same ammount of guns but nowhere near the level of violence in the States. No one believed I heard shooting near the carpark of my first night in Toronto though…
First stop was a little market called Atwater, because its by the river I guess. The stalls were full of over priced fruit and veg, all beautifully laid out, and undoubtedly tasty, but very expensive. We bought a couple of grilled Lebanese flat breads for our lunch and made our way past the flowers and omni-present pumpkins back to the bikes. I cant believe its 2 weeks to Haloween and the weather is simply great. I have seen 1 day of rain so far and apart from a cold night camping have spent far too many times regretting taking my jacket out with me.
Our destination was a small Park out west along Canal Lachine. We cruised along the cycling path through some suburbs, through an industrial area and container lots, over bridges and under roads. there were few people around, but we had missed the morning cycle traffic and apparently it gets quite busy in the morning and afternoon from the commuters. Montreal is not bad for cycling, a bit hilly and has several cycle routes, however it seemed as though too many were filled with parked delivery trucks and in a state of partial repair. Out at the park the road ended and we sat down for a drink and to regain our strength for the ride back. I had a walk and took a few photos, was getting slightly limited in how many I could take as my cards were getting full and I was having trouble off loading them to my old crappy laptop. I was also well behind with my GPS track and finding that a weeks worth of tracks were too much to display on googlemaps at once. I will have to do something to sort that out. One second per point is too much, especially when you are standing still…
Back in the city we dropped the bikes off and I sat in an Cafe writing my blog and had my first weird encounter of the day. Two guys sat next to me and right away I knew that they were looking for a fight. I stared intently at my laptop as they bitched about everyone in the place, talked about what they wanted to do to the girls that walked in and generally displayed a scary attitude. I could see them looking at me out of the corner of my eye and they knew I could hear them. Steroids is my guess :p
I raced back to Mounias place for a shower but as usual nearly fell victim to my terrible sense of timing. We had booked a table at O.Noir downtown and I barely made it in time for the 9pm serving. I also had some crazy guy on the way out of the metro asking me the time twice in French, me saying I didn’t understand, him asking again, me telling him, him shouting at someone else who ignored him, me asking if he was referring to me, him asking again what the time was, me repeating the answer *again* and then him shouting thank you like I’m an idiot and storming off. Buy a fucking watch! No one else had responded to my post on Couchsurfing for more people to come along, Mounia’s 2 friends dropped out so it was just the camping gang back together for a meal. O.Noir is one of these new places that work on the principle that if you remove one of your senses the others are improved. Basically you eat in the dark
We chose our food and drinks in the darkened foyer and met our waiter Leon. Then we made a Congo chain with our hands on each others backs, went through a couple of doors, into, well a pitch black room. He led us to the bathroom and once we were nice and clean (lots of people end up eating with their hands ) were taken to our table. I would guess the room was about 5 by 15 meters and there were plenty of people already in there enjoying themselves. The restaurants motto is ‘its better in the dark’ Once we found our seats we had a good feel about, found our napkins and cutlery. No complaining about dirty forks in this place!
The room wasn’t completely pitch black, you could see the occasional flash of the LED in the smoke detector in the ceiling, there was a faint LED over the exit and sometimes you could see a chink of light from the doors out to the exit and the kitchen but it was enough to give you the sense you were pretty blind. This is of course the other point, so many people don’t appreciate what others with disabilities have to face in their daily life
that places like this give you a clearer appreciation of the struggles something so simple as eating a meal can be for blind and partially sighted people. They employ blind and partially sighted waiters too, although I don’t think the chef was blind Ian had given me pause for thought the previous night when he told me that his trip to the same place was marred by being given meat in his meal. He is also a vegetarian.
I say ‘also’ but having since switched to eating seafood a couple of years ago I faced a similar worry. It was all good though, and not only do they have a choice of 4 entrees, mains and deserts but they give you a ’surprise’ choice for each so you have no idea what you’re going to get. We started off with bread which was nearly impossible to butter in the dark. Happily the butter was mostly melted so I managed to drip it on my bread and not stick my fingers in it like Renae did. We also got our drinks which were delivered by placing them on our shoulders and then we had to put them off the place mats so no one could knock them over.
The starter turned out to be a large veg filled ravioli in tomato sauce which smelled delicious, but until I could figure out how to get it to my mouth was so close and yet so far away. It took me a minute to feel around with my knife and fork enough to cut it into bite size pieces before I could get a taste. This of course is without knowing what you were getting. I was stabbing with my fork, getting the ravioli but it was too large to lift to my mouth. Very frustrating but fun, Mouina got the giggles which was fun to hear Eventually I got it sorted and wolfed it down, very nice food, not exactly sure it tasted better in the dark though I also had the pleasure of getting to lick my plate clean, something you can never do in a normal place
The main was Shrimp, brown rice, green beans and another tomato based sauce… I think… :p which turned out to be quite substantial and again very tasty. Easier to eat too as there was nothing to cut up. I did spend a good few minutes chasing the last green bean before I caught it I was told off for starting my main before everyone else, but Daniella had hers in front of her and didn’t even notice. It smelled quite nice but she wouldn’t even let me see what it felt like. Spoil sports, they were all touching their food. I managed to eat the lot with knife and fork, but we had all washed our hands on the way in so were at least prepared for the possibility of getting our hands messy. The night before Ian, another couchsurfer, had told me about the time they went their and he ended up eating meat. Not normally a problem, but Ian was a vegetarian, so thats not good. Kind of marred his trip out I would guess. I didn’t dare tell this to Renae in case she was put off, but she was quite happy with her veges.
The 2 (or 3 maybe) waiters would cruise the place, delivering meals, taking people in and out and off to the bathroom with no problem at all. We had to say their name and they would come to see what we wanted. It was rather fun and you could hear everyone else in the place having a roaring great time. My only regret is that in my haste to get to the place I had forgotten my video camera which has night vision! Such a shame, we could have see what everything looked like. Maybe next time, but it was rather expensive so I wont be making a habit of such trips. After a refill of wine the mains were eventually done, although of course its not easy to tell if everyone was finished, and the desserts arrived. The girls in the foyer had recommended it so I should have guessed it was chocolate, but I didn’t manage to eat it all. My three companions were all very satisfied and full at the end and we had a lovely meal.
The place was getting empty by the time we were on dessert and now we could even hear the music playing in the background. Mounia and I got up for a quick dance, which was fun. I kept one hand on Renaes shoulder so we wouldn’t drift away from the safety of the table. A short time later it seemed we were the only people left and Mounia wanted to go to the bathroom. We knew where it was as we caught a few chinks of light every once in a while, so she stood up and was going to try to get there when Leon grabbed her arm having silently sneaked up from the void. That was funny… ‘where are you going?’ in her ear in the dark. He took her to the bathroom and said we could all try to make our way out as there was only us left. Then I noticed there was a carpet in the middle of the walkway to help feel your way along, but it was still freaky to stumble along in the dark on the way out.
We ended the night smoking shisha, drinking Sangria and missing the night bus home. Very fun day!
