December 26, 2009
Seed of this trip was sown on my mind at the DCDC. I can’t remember – was it Tanya who tried to talk me into it? Or was it Jimmy? Josh and Dola helped in the instigation too.
December 28, 2009
The list was whittled down with Tanya dropping out. I told Jimmy and Luz that I was in as long as they still were interested. My understanding was that the plan would be carried out if we get a fourth person involved.
December 29, 2009
For a while it didn’t look like it wasn’t going to happen because Jimmy and Luz lacked a fourth. However by mid-afternoon, they decided to go never mind lack of interest from others. I needed something different to deal with doldrums and annoyances of every day life of late, and taking a crazy road trip involving well over 900 miles of driving roundtrip for a new year’s celebration seemed like a perfectly reasonable/insane prescription. Tally ho!
Sometime around 9 PM, I learned that we have a fourth! Kim! Who is she? Oh, I see – cool!
The initial plan according to Jimmy was to depart DC area sometime between 11 and midnight.
December 30, 2009
The plan was changed to a 1 AM departure, then a 2 AM departure.
Around 2:30 AM, Jimmy called me to say he’ll pick me up in 15 minutes. The Jimmy, Luz, Kim trio arrived shortly after 3:30 AM.
Jimmy’s GPS has an interesting set of driving directions involving multiple roads with traffic lights. Jimmy did most of the driving – despite the evidence to contrary. Blame motion sickness for Jimmy insisting this – or maybe it has to do with macho alpha male blah factor mentioned by Luz. It did mean a heavy dose of Jimmy’s music with Cameo being one of the highlights.
On route, I learned that a fifth person would be join us – for the drive back in anyway. She bought a one-way airplane ticket while we were still on the road. And I thought I was being impulsive. I guess I’ll find out the identity of our fifth Chelley at the party tonight.
Arrival at Montreal 2:30 PM. I had perhaps 2 hours of shuteye after breakfast. Luz did a little bit of the driving in New York with Kim riding shotgun. I was mostly dormant and passive on the rear left of the car. The topic of discussion was quite heavy-duty dance at a scope and depth I rarely get into so I mostly listened only. Snowy landscape in the mountains of New York made the snowscape in DC after the recent 20-inch snowfall pale in comparison.
Finding the Hotel Lord Berri was smoothly done in light snow. Finding a spot in the underground parking lot – much more difficult. I thought I was back in Europe seeing such tight space. Trying to back out of the underground lot with snow on the ground was something we could not do without severe risk to our health.
In search of a restaurant, we went west on Rue Berri for two blocks – a reasonable start. Then we turned right on Boulevard de Maisonneuve (wrong!), then turned right again on Rue Saint-Hubert (getting colder!), then turned left on Rue Ste-Catherine (icing on the cake). After a few more blocks, we turned around heading south on Rue Ste-Catherine until we finally found Rue St-Denis, which was the street I was looking for in the first place based upon Jimmy talking about the Latin Quarter. We ate at Lymai (Vietnamese), which was all right considering how little effort we placed in finding quality – we were too cold to look around much. Jimmy was particularly happy with his fish dish. My Pad Thai would have to be ranked somewhere in the middle of all the Pad Thais I have tried to date. Kim seemed happy enough with her dish (with spinach, not pork) whereas Luz appeared underwhelmed with hers. Jimmy, Luz and I also stopped for desserts (pistachio éclair was a hit I think... my tiramisu was so so) at La Brioche Lyonnaise on the way back to the hotel.
Before the party started, we opted for a nap for a couple of hours with the alarm set at 8:30 PM. Easier said than done. There were signs all against it such as when Luz came back from check-in with lists of things not allowed in the hotel (it included no bottles in the hallway) or a large crowd of young people in the lobby surrounding tables advertising nightlife tour of Montreal or a hotel personnel reassuring us that these party-seeking folks were all staying at floor below us. The truth was that there were plenty of loud unruly kids on our floor (the ninth) with people keeping their doors open looking to converse with other people passing on the hallway. On their defence, I would imagine that the last thing they would have expected was bunch of sleep-deprived people in the hotel wanting quiet-time between 6-9 PM the evening before new year’s eve.
The hubbub at the hotel reminded me of my freshman dormitory, in particular of one night when one of the sophomores got angry one night by noise generated by us freshmen partying on the hallway while he was trying to sleep. Security was called then too. I wonder what the reaction of the proprietors and security personnel – both at the dormitory and the hotel.
Chellely called during preparations to say she made it to the airport but not her luggage, which led to a scramble to help piece together an emergency outfit for her between extra clothing, make-up and accessories Luz and Kim had. I was most surprised by large earrings Luz decided to use.
I think we arrived at the Cat’s Corner Studio a little after 11. For me it was quite an enjoyable party on par with my first night at the DC congress. Best part – plenty of likeable followers to choose from. This was a rare night where everyone I danced with was someone I had never danced with before – all I had to do was not dance with Luz or Kim. I thought such was a rather unique event at the time, but in retrospect this sort of thing happened many times before (e.g. when I was visiting new places by myself – London, Portland, Madrid, Paris, DC). I must have been too tired to think straight. More or less the only weak part was humidity, which led to me stop dancing for the last half hour in an attempt to dry off. I was far from dried by the nominal closing time of 2 AM.
Eating after big Salsa event apparently is considered a DC tradition of sorts. Dola, Josh and Kelvin joined the group for this outing. Hanging out with this crew was cool, but food was not particularly to my liking. I did not bother with poutine, a Quebec diner staple. Then again, their pogo (corndog) was not very good either.
December 31, 2009
I think I had about 6 hours of sleep after going to sleep around 5 AM.
Dola and Kelvin joined our group of 5 at the Lord Berri Hotel for a brunch outing. Late brunch – it did not end until 4 PM after all. The venue of choice was Brioche Lyonnaise in Latin Quarter (Rue St. Denis). It turned out to be a pretty good choice. Clean fresh healthy-ish breakfast rather than a greasy spoon. Omelettes were popular (both of the typical “complete” style and of salmon-themed “Norvegiene” style). Kelvin seemed to be in a competitive eating mode – having his two main dishes as well as digging in on a crepe someone else ordered but never got around to touching. His aim was to not needing to eat again until the end of the party. Despite cleaning my plate of omelette, potatoes and fruits, I felt like an amateur eater in this crowd – maybe it’s because I have been living in Europe for so long. I thought it ironic that I was having such a drawn out meal back in the Americas after not being involved in such scene in the UK. We also made the waitress work a lot asking for various items one at a time whether it was jam, coffee, ketchup or Tabasco sauce.
What can be done for diversion of a couple of hours in a cold dark night in a unfamiliar city with a large group of people? Hang out at a mall, of course. After a couple of blocks of walking mostly along Rue Ste Catherine good for a few heckles and a short taxi ride, we found ourselves on Avenue McGill College. After some fooling around for photos, we had about half hour for shopping in the large underground shopping complex. I imagine we might never have found a pharmacy without a native help in that maze. More touristy was the walk up the Avenue McGill College towards Sherbrooke admiring holiday decorations and a large group of people statues for more photo ops – at least until we were told off the public artwork by the security personnel.
After a stop at the Hotel Delta Montreal in the middle of rehearsals, Kim, Chelley and Luz headed back to the hotel on a cab while Jimmy and I decided to wander back in a more leisurely manner on foot. There was one clothing shop open where I amused myself checking out the silly T-shirt with clever/silly/provocative messages while Jimmy chatted away with an attendant. Then there was a public arts display next to Musee d’Art Contemporain de Montreal with red and white lights on the ground. A conversation with a Hilton employee in front of a men’s dress shop further convinced Jimmy that he want to come back to Montreal again and to take advantage of $60/night specials.
The Salsaglam NYE party was supposed to be a dress-up party. Kim had a black dress chosen whereas Chelley wore a gold-toned dress. Luz picked a black-and-white striped dress over a red dress, which would be saved for later in the weekend. Jimmy arguably had the most number of flip-flops regarding ties, trousers and belts. The only other debate I got involved was about the choice of eyelash glue (for translation purpose only – natural rubber glue or special eyelash glue?). I just put on the suit I brought along with a blue tie chosen over two other ties I brought along. I wonder if the lack of effort I put in at least as demonstrated by the amount of time spent in this process was considered shocking.
The girls were very interested in watching the shows. Jimmy and I were less interested – we were more concerned with food. Because most of the nearby restaurants were closed by 10 PM, we ended up in a sandwich shop, which was not so bad all things considered. By the time we returned, the shows were half over. The most talked about show was done to the song Smooth Operator, which I only caught a few glimpses of while walking in and looking for a reasonable spot to stand and watch.
By the time the shows were over and the chairs cleared, it was essentially the time for champagne and a countdown to New Years (probably not done to the official time).
The party itself for Salsa dancing alone was less enjoyable for me compared to the pre party. Finding people I wanted to dance with seemed problematic especially during the early part of the evening. I suppose this should not be considered surprising - a high priced fancy dress party on a big family holiday would not attract the same hardcore dance crew as a pure dance big events (e.g. congresses). The fact that it was as good as it was perhaps should be considered remarkable.
Biggest complaint - music by the second DJ was full of problems – premature stops both unintentional and intentional, degraded sound quality in addition to some songs simply not to my liking period. By after 2 AM, I thought the party was getting close to becoming something of a fiasco and that the venue might be over soon.
Music was more to my liking starting with Dola moving into the DJ booth and with the people who played after Dola. Dancing too became more enjoyable after I gave up on having great dances - and after I finally gave up wearing a tie around 3 AM. Of course, this begs the question, “what is a great dance?” For that matter, what is an enjoyable dance?
I never got around to dancing with Luz during this trip. Lately it has been a 50/50 proposition. I also danced only once with both Chelley (last night) and Kim (tonight) while in Montreal.
Anyway, I did manage to survive until 6 AM closing. Survive is the keyword - I felt so weary. Incredibly the number of people who stayed to closing was quite large with total number of people in the room staying about the same after 3 AM or so. I had taken along multiple extra shirts, which seemed like a good idea given the conditions at the pre party, but I never came close to feeling a need to change - possibly because of good ventilation (none visible) or because I did not exert myself for long at any point during the night. Dancing with jacket and tie on was not so bad either - I was careful not to overexert myself.
Perhaps the amount of enjoyment I had in this trip was the best I could have hoped for given all the recent bouts of dark moods brought upon in no small part by DS. Of course, I imagine I might have skipped Montreal if it weren’t for DS.
Why do I dance Salsa these days? Perhaps because it’s the only reason why I go out and socialize and without it I may simply turn into a hermit? Then again if this is the case, shouldn’t I try to find some other avenue – at least not become dependent on a single activity?
January 1, 2010
I did not get to sleep until after 7 AM (or was it 8 or 9 AM?). Hotel checkout was 1 PM.
Brunch was once again at La Brioche Lyonnaise lasting well past 4 PM. Same waitress as yesterday. Jimmy took over Kelvin’s part of big orderer from yesterday. Arguably the most pleasant times spent in Montreal were at the two brunches. Nice relaxed atmosphere with pleasant company. I switched to Norvegiene omelette, which I preferred over the “complete.” The least successful dish was crepe flambée (Grand Marnier) – possibly because it sat around for too long before it was lit. Others enjoyed quiche and key lime pie. As relaxing as it was, it did mean a very late start for the drive back.
Between this and that, we did not get to the US-Canada border custom until 7 PM. Chelley joined us at the duty-free shop just outside the border. Even with a big car, fitting 5 people instead of 4 made a significant difference. Apparently the middle seat in the back was rather uncomfortable. It was snowing for a large part of the drive especially up north. Once again Jimmy did the vast majority of the driving – all the way from Montreal to Clara Barton rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Two other stops were made in upstate New York (Subway for dinner) and a Exxon mart in Pennsylvania. Jimmy by then was no longer in condition to drive. Kim drove from Clara Barton to BWI for a little over an hour. After some search for Chelley’s car (going from level 5 to 3 before finding it at 4C), I took over for BWI to home for half an hour or so. I missed the exit for 295 Southbound somehow and ended up taking 95 instead.
By the way I had not seen how big an impact iPhone had on general populace in person until this trip. It is well beyond an electronic toy for geeky boys – grown up women seemingly find it as essential as a make-up kit or a handbag. Well - perhaps a better description is a lifestyle changing experience – they were spending enormous amount of time using the device. Blame wireless internet, facebook, youtube and their like also.
Home arrival was a little past 6 AM. I collapsed on my bed after directing Kim to route 1. It was a relief to drive a familiar car.
Resolution Jam in less than 24 hours? A cause for celebration or a big groan?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment