a montréal diary
Osheaga, public drinking, train travel, etc!
Hi everybody! It’s been a minute, and I’ve been away on my one (1) vacation of 2024, so I thought I would tell you all about it :) I’ve been to MTL twice in the past—once to meet up with the Baltimore slam poet I was dating through Tumblr, and once to attend a week of feminist facilitation training by Girls Action. Both of those were nearly a decade ago now, which is crazy to think about and makes me feel very old and also proud of how adventurous I used to be. On neither trip did I have more than $200 in my bank account, resulting in me shoplifting NeoCitran from a Pharmaprix in 2014 when I got a brutal fever and couldn’t afford medicine. I would never endorse shoplifting btw. That was very very wrong of me and I should have just suffered.
Oh, and I should mention that I had horrible PMS for this entire trip, and got my period on the very last day. So it was sort of hard to enjoy anything.
Anyways! Here’s a mini recap of my trip :)
Wednesday-Thursday: train day baby
I learned many valuable lessons on this trip, such as: I am too tall for 20-hour train rides. I do not fit in the seats comfortably enough to sleep. During the day, however, the train is lovely. At night it becomes hell, and sometimes teenage girls decide to have a flash photography photoshoot at midnight, and you run out of trail mix and tea costs $3.45, and for some reason your data doesn’t work (Wi-Fi would be too much to ask for, naturally).
On Thursday night I went to dinner at Anemone in Little Italy, and had the best vegan bang bang noodles of my life. They featured a lot of fennel and mushrooms and they were even better than either of my friends’ non-vegan meals. Also on Thursday we went to Ping Pong and had the most delicious cocktails (particularly the Orange Stormy) and then made our way over to Doubles, where we watched Simone Biles at the bar over G&Ts.
Friday-Sunday: Osheaga
Probably the best concert I’ve ever been to was Arcade Fire in 2011. They were only opening for U2, but I really didn’t care about that. My mom took me and my best friend, and it was maybe the purest, most joyous experience of my life. The crowd was small enough that we were close to the stage and could dance together. We knew every single lyric and the names of every band member. It felt ecstatic; it felt like a miracle. (Yes, it sucked to read about Win Butler’s MeToo-ification this year.)
So I’ve never been to a big music festival (unless you count working at FollyFest in 2017!!!) and Osheaga has been a dream since I was in high school. At the end of it I was left feeling this… grief? Because I feel like my younger self would have been able to feel happiness over this experience, whereas I, at 29.5 years of age, mostly felt lonely and anxious. Did I get to cross off a major bucket list item before 30 and see several of my favourite artists in one weekend? Yes. How stressful and sad was it? Yes.
Best sets I saw: Mannequin Pussy, Chappell Roan, Amyl & the Sniffers, DIIV, Hozier, Denzel Curry, Tyla
Sets that were okay: SZA (too far away, only played the first verse of Forgiveless which is my favourite song and got me through work at Mulberry in 2022); Kevin Abstract (sorry but Brockhampton was way better than his solo work); Renee Rapp
I just wish I could have had this experience when I was young enough to be more excited, to bring energy, to feel that it was magic. Instead I felt too self conscious about my body to dress in a fun outfit. I was too stressed about the heat wave and the crowds to wait for a good view of my favourite artist (I still literally sobbed uncontrollably at Chappell). The long lines for water and the insane bottlenecks to get from one stage to another just made me want to stay put in one place all day. It got a lot better when Noah accompanied me on the third day, and the sun finally broke and we got a little rain, but still, I just felt old. It’s a privilege to even attend something like this, and it meant a lot to me, but I don’t think I would do it again unless I had a big group of friends who were all excited to go with me.
Monday-Wednesday: tourist mode
Monday was mostly a recovery day. I think I slept until noon. If you get a chance, I recommend visiting Shaughnessy Cafe, aka what Ella and I call HPCF or the Hot People Cafe. Everyone there is just really hot. Also they have a cute selection of artisan sardines that made my dad, the descendent of many sardine canning Grand Mananers, laugh. After making my daily HPCF trek I walked around Mile End and got St Viateur bagel, Cheskies pain au chocolat, and a Cafe Alphabet latte. The barista there was also very pretty, and we compared clavicle tattoos about femininity. That night we got cozy and watched Inside Out. I was wrong, it’s not a kids movie, and it rules.
On Tuesday we went to the Musee des Beaux Arts, which was such a delight. I get bored of exhibitions of ancient artifacts pretty quickly, but the curation here was incredible and very engaging. And the Saints Sinners Lovers and Fools exhibition was amazing. That night we had a picnic at Parc La Fontaine with wine and juicy beers, fresh mango and strawberries, and naan bread with carrot hummus. I watched bats swing overhead like a pendulum and couldn’t stop sighing and saying “I needed this.”
On Wednesday I said goodbye to Noah and spent the day with Ella at the Atwater market and canal. I got to eat a pistachio cronut, drink some tart mango lemonade, and watch the swan pedalboats from a shady picnic table. Please forgive me if this is uninteresting to big city people, but they had these little misters that gently cooled the area with water, and I don’t understand why those don’t exist everywhere, except that actually probably homeless people could use them to not get heat stroke, and cities hate homeless people. So we’ll likely never get them in Fredericton. It’s a nice idea though.
The train home was a lot less awful, cause I actually got two seats, so I could sort of lay down if I scrunched into a little ball. Also I didn’t have any money left on my debit card (not much has changed since 2014) and the VIA Rail staff gave me free veggies, hummus, and coffee. Shoutout VIA Rail staff for saving me from 10 hours of nothing but water and dried pineapple.
So, hot take, but Montreal is a very nice city. I would go again for sure, just ideally at a time when I’m not so cranky and depressed and sore I can’t enjoy anything. Also I would maybe do one day of Osheaga next time; three consecutive days did irreparable damage to my body odour and jean shorts.
To Will and Noah and Ella, thank you from the bottom of my heart for making my trip special. See you soon, but not soon enough. <3
Shan