DAY 2: MONTREAL

After a turbulent 4 hour flight we finally arrived into montreal at 7:05am local time. we had to circle for ages cause there were birds on the runway and then another plane had parked at our gate. we werent happy to us it felt like 5am and we'd been up since 8 the day b4 suffice to say we were exhausted! we missed the airport shuttle literaly by 2 mins so instead of waiting another hour for the next one we hopped in a taxi. we thought it wld only cost about $30 turned out to be $10 dearer we think we were cheated but never mind!

we werent allowed to check-in till 1pm so we dumped our stuff in storage and headed into the city centre. we got lost pretty much straight away and the hostel had no maps to help us. after a bit of a search we found the info centre where after some debate we decided to book ourselves onto the afternoon sight seeing tour. it was raining, we were exhausted and had already gotten lost so we figured it was ok to let someone else do the hard work and drive us around. we went in search of food while we waited for our tour and wandered around the city. we had breakie at rubens which according to the lonely plant guide was a must go to restaurant and it didnt disapoint!

First stop on the tour was the Notre-Damm Basilica which was a gorgeous church (the one where celine dion got married). we didnt have a lot of time in there cause apparently a wedding was taking place that afternoon. 6 or 7 weddings take place there every sat! wish i could afford to be married there lol. after that we just drove around the city stopping off to take pictures at various attractions. we saw the olympic stadium from the 197? games which apparently was a complete disaster. everything that could go wrong with the construction did and it all got blamed on the architect, no surprises there. since the games the $1 billion dollar building is hardly ever used and the city 20 something years later has only just finished paying it off in taxes! we saw st-josephs oratory where people make pilgrimages to and we headed to the top of mont-royal park to get pretty good view of the city. cause of the rain it was really dull and overcast though so the pics werent great.

After the tour we grabbed a subway and headed back to the hostel to check in. we were put in a 6 bed dorm but had to be on top bunks and these were the flimsiest bunks ever so we upgraded to a private room for the night with the plan to move back to the dorms in the morning. as of right now i have been awake for 38hrs straight (the cat nap on the plane doesnt count). so cause of our lack of sleep 2day was a get to know montreal day and 2morro we're gonna explore china town, old montreal and lots more!

DAY 3 Montreal

Well we didnt move back to the dorms lol we like the private rooms too much! didnt get up till 11am this morning we were both exhausted but after about 13hrs sleep lol we were up and ready to go! we got lost trying to find the bus stop to take us to old montreal but after asking the info centre we were on our way. the bus driver was pretty rude kinda expected i guess. we spent all afternoon looking round old montreal. we had lunch at this cute little poutine (montreal delicacy, fries covered in gravy and cheese curds) restaurant. i dont like cheese curds so didnt have any. after that we pretty much just visited all the touristy places and took a walk down by the river. it was soooo windy but at least it wasnt raining! we popped into lots of souvenier stores which all looked the same lol.

after visiting old montreal we headed to china town. i'd never been to a china town before so didnt know wot to expect. it was pretty small and smelled of noodles but pretty cool. then we headed to the underground shopping mall. it was created for the winter so people dont have to shop outside in the freezing cold. theres 20miles worth of shops and its pretty easy to get lost in which remarkably we didnt!

we headed back to the hostel after that to get ready for dinner. the plan was to go to the hard rock cafe but when we went looking for it we found it closed down a month ago and is gonna be replaced by a hooters!!! so we went to a pub called the winston churhhill (nope wasnt an english one) the food was really good. spent after dinner chilling out and getting ready for 2morro. got an early start so i'll sign out!