And then there was Canada. And then there was the two weeks or so since I've been back. We'll get to those two weeks tomorrow in a post that will literally be me copying and pasting my word doc. Hey, but before I went to Canada, I was in NYC for two nights (I got back from Michigan on a Wednesday evening, went to Canada Friday morning). On the first night I got back I had a Victory Whirlwind Wit at home, the next night I had a Victory Whirlwind Wit and a Butternut Weiss at home and 2 Founders Pale Ales at Franklin Park with doods planning our Canada trip.
So while I was in Michigan, the guys decided we were going to go to Montreal for a weekend. Why? I still have no idea. It was essentially a weekend long bachelor party but none of were getting married. Also, I don't have any pictures because let's be real, I'm not taking pictures of our shenanigans. The record on the weekend is a little shaky. I mean the numbers are legit, but there are a few cases where I don't remember beer or bar names. After my Michigan posts dropped, my dad marveled at my ability to remember all of those beers I drank. Well, here's the thing, I didn't actually retain the memories of all those beers. After everyday, I would write down in a word doc what I drank and where I drank it so I wouldn't have to worry about forgetting beers. In Montreal, I didn't have my laptop, nor did I have my phone. My other trick is text myself what beers I've drank when I'm out at bars, and being phone-less, I couldn't even do that. So, therefore, in conclusion, with that said, as such, I've got the numbers on lock down, but the specific details, well they get a little fuzzy here and there.
Our trip began fine enough with the border guy asking not if we had any weed in the car, but whether we smoked weed, which was kind of weird. He went through the laundry list of items that I guess border agents are supposed to ask, and then at the end, just asked if we smoked weed. I'm 80% sure he was asking because we seemed like cool guys he wanted to hang with that evening, but we said no and went on our merry way! The first beers I drank in Canada were at this vegetarian bar/restaurant Casa del Popolo that the singer from Mars Volta or something owns. Had a Griffon Blonde and a Griffon Rouse there, both were just ok! The thing about this trip to Montreal was our planning literally ended at going to that restaurant when we got there. From there we figured we'd just ask around and go where the wind took us. Let's see how that worked out!
A quick interjection here. My near and dear friend Saeed told us a wonderful Iranian proverb while we were on the trip. "Cat can't grab the meat. Says, 'Piff piff, it's off.'" His American translation was, you know when a guy goes and tries to pick up a girl and strikes out and then says that the girl was beat or he didn't want to pick her up anyway? Well that's a cat that can't grab the meat, so he's saying "Piff piff, it's off." Now I'm not saying we weren't a group of five stone-cold lady killers, but there were a few times where the cats couldn't grab the meat, as it were. So we're at Casa del Popolo, looking to head to another bar, so two of my cohorts approach a group of ladies to get a recommendation of where to go next. Apparently, apparently, these ladies don't speak English. Now I know we're in Quebec here, but I'm about 90% certain that all Quebecois (is that the term for people from Quebec?) speak English. So when the guys come back and tell me this, I'm pretty sure these cats could not grab the meat and these girls were just messing with them. But this story takes a shocking turn later!
So we meander out of the bar. It's still pretty early (like 10 or so) so we find a dive-y looking sports bar to grab a couple of pitchers and watch awful Canadian football while we wait for things to pick up. We ordered a pitcher of Bsomethingcanadian Blonde and Bsomethingcanadian Rouse. I had one of the former and two of the latter. Then it was off to hit the town! Unfortunately, the part of the town we were hitting was smack dab in the middle of McGill University and only had super-expensive, shall we say, tre-douchey night clubs. So we stubbled into an insanely over priced faux-Irish pub. Canada has those too! I get a 1664 (that's a beer). While this place kind of sucked, it did provide two very interesting insights about Montreal. First, Montrealian people do not care for Journey. There was a pretty competent, general cover band playing the bar. They closed their set with Journey's "Don't Stop Believing." Now anyone who has ever been to a bar in America knows that whenever that song is played, something akin to this happens:
People go nuts. Everyone will stop what they're doing and just start singing along. I don't know why this happens, but no one can deny that it does in fact happen. Doesn't matter what type of bar. You play that song any time after 10 pm anywhere and people will go nuts. You know what happened in this faux-Irish bar when they played it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. People kept on conversing as if there wasn't even a band playing. It was so crazy. This led me to the second interesting insight about Montreal. Girls in Montreal do not speak any English. There is your shocking twist to the previous story as well. After the song was over, I approached a group of girls to ask them about why no one went nuts for the song and if they knew any place we could go around there. None of them spoke more English than you would learn in an English 101 course. I mean obviously this cat can grab the meat (ok, I'm done with that phrase now, as it now just sounds disgusting), so these girls clearly weren't just messing with me. So there you have it. Despite living in Canada, Montreal women do not speak English. I believe my sample size is large enough to state that as a definitive fact. After that bar, we go to, let's say a place. Then we leave that place and a few of us go this goth-punk club and watch a pretty good French-Canadian hardcore band. I don't know why I was shocked that Montreal had something akin to a "scene," as its a major city and all. I have a beer, but for the life of me can't remember what it was. Also, I could have sworn that I heard the band covering Minor Threat's "Straight Edge," in French, but they were also chugging whiskey by the bottle, so maybe not!
On the walk home I found out another interesting tidbit about Montreal. It is filled with prostitutes. Disgusting, disgusting prostitutes, that will proposition you in ways and for things that you would not imagine. For instance, you'd imagine a normal prostitute would say something like, "Hey boys, do you want 'A'?" 'A' being the first and most obvious thing in the lexical order of what prostitutes might offer. In Montreal, prostitutes would say things like, "Hey boys, do you want 'n'?" meaning that they have already passed the A through Z of sexual things a prostitute might offer, started over at 'a' and made it all the way to 'n' and decided that 'n' was what they should offer from the get go. I'm not saying I know anything about prostitutes, so maybe this is common place, but I would imagine that a normal prostitute would offer me 'A' and I'd have to artfully negotiate up to 'n'. Nope. Not in Montreal. So there's that!
The next day we woke up and summited Mount Royal. That's not a euphemism for anything. We really did climb to the top of a mountain. Then we went to an art museum. But none of that has anything to with beer (then again neither did the prostitute story, but it's my blog so we can all deal with things). After the art museum, I drank two Molson Drys in the hotel, then we went to the casino where I came out a whole loonie ahead, then to dinner and then to downtown! First stop was Crobar, which we hurried into to get out of the rain. It was filled with 17 year olds and over priced beer, so I downed a Moosehead Lager and got the hell out of there. Next stop was Brutopia, an honest-to-God (happy parents?) microbrewery in Montreal. I had their IPA, their Scotch Ale, and their Honey Brown. The Scotch Ale was really good, the other two were just ok. Then it was to a dance club! If my calculations are correct, the Montreal population is something like 30% women ages 19 and under and 70% guys of all ages. These numbers do not make for good dance clubs. But we persisted. I drank a Stella. Saeed was the only one who had any sort of luck talking with girls. Dave and I danced on some stage till some girls, to the delight of the million doods in the place, gently pushed us off and took over. Then we went to a place I'd rather just not talk about where I drank some beers I can't count toward my total anyway, on account of them being macrobeers. Then we went back to the hotel at about 3 in the morning! Then we left Canada! All in all, Canada reaffirmed my belief in free market capitalism, the English language, and the superiority of the good ol' U.S. of A. USA! USA! USA! USA!
Parents are happy
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