Saturday, December 6, 2008

A Winter Saturday Evening in Old Montreal

Peg and Jeff flew in from Ohio late this afternoon. We had dinner at 3 Brasseurs on Rue St. Paul in Old Montreal. Good hamburgers, a quebequois Flamm (like a REALLY thin crust pizza), and a chevre chaud salad. Enjoyed their beer...I had a beer "cocktail"...called the Brit...a dark beer with a shot of Irish Whiskey in it...yummy! (Why it's called the Brit and not The Irish is, I suspect, best left uninvestigated).

After dinner we decided to stroll down to see the Ice Rink in the Old Port. It sits right on the edge of the quays on the St. Lawrence. One part is an artificial ice rink that is open all winter and the other part is a huge "circle trail" which becomes a rink once its cold enough to freeze the water thick enough. Not cold enough yet...

We heard music and saw bright colored lights. Little did we know that there was a party going on...sponsored by Telus. There was an Ice Bar (but not made of real ice...just everything white within a white senu-transparent white tent with windows) which served all sorts of things including hot chocolate with a delicious apple liquer in it...double yum. We went outside to listen to a Quebequois band for a bit. Then the lights dimmed and everyone huddled over by the ice rink. It was FIREWORKS....a spectacular display of fireworks synchronized to music...the theme Moon Dust. It was incredibly beautiful. There we were standing amidst winter trees, hats and gloves, spiked hot chocolate, faces lifted to the sky....mesmerized. What a dreamy evening. Jeff thought they were the best fireworks he had ever seen. Courtesy of the City of Fireworks!

Then to top it off as we left we saw these small bonfires (inside grill boxes for lack of better description). They were handing out sticks and marshmellows...and yes, we roasted a marshmellow to go. Fantastic.

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