Vacation in Quebec — Day 1

The day started very early. 4:00 a.m. in fact. That gave us an hour to get ready before we had to leave for the OC airport. Somehow we conned Everett into taking us to the airport, which was very nice given the ungodly hour.


Tim riding the tram at the Cincinnati airport. (09/24/05)

We made our way through the security check in plenty of time to catch our 6:45 a.m. flight to lovely Cincinnati where we had a 1.5-hour layover. Actually, it’s my very first time in the Buckeye state (although you could hardly call it an actual visit to the state).

I was surprised to see the plane that was going to take us to Montreal. Unlike the 183-person-capacity 757 that took us from California to Cincinnati, the plane that took us to Montreal was a 50-seater CRJ50. It made for a slightly choppier ride than I would have liked, but it was nice.

After landing and making our way through customs, we picked up our car (a white Jeep SUV) and headed to downtown Montreal. Just driving into it, I got a glimpse as to what a great-looking city this is. Lots of old buildings, many of them made from stone.


Driving up the Rue de Guy looking for our hotel. (09/24/05)

Our hotel, although somewhat shady looking from the outside, is actually quite nice on the inside. Plus we have a great view overlooking Crescent Street, a lively street filled with restaurants, bars and clubs.


The view from our hotel, overlooking the bars and restaurants on Crescent Street. (09/24/05)

We had about an hour-and-a-half to unpack and rest before we had to head back to the airport to pick up Doris and Jenn. What we didn’t know was that the second leg of their flight, leaving out of Chicago, was delayed by an hour-and-a-half.

Considering we only had an hour-and-a-half to kill, and we didn’t know Montreal in the slightest, we just decided to get a bite to eat at a somewhat upscale restaurant at the airport (as upscale as an airport restaurant can be, anyway).


Ordering food at the Altitude resto bar. I'm not exactly sure how a resto bar is different from a regular restaurant, but I didn't ask questions. (09/24/05).

When they finally arrived, they were starving, not having eaten anything in hours. So we made our way to Crescent Street where we found a nice little Portuguese tapas bar where we got a bottle of vinho verde and sampled some great appetizers (including a fabulous anchovy salad — Doris is the only other person I currently know that likes anchovies).

By then it was 12:30 a.m. and the street was still packed with people. But we were exhausted and headed back to our hotel for some much-needed sleep.