December 18, 2006: Mont Tremblant and Montréal.

It's that time of year again. Onthesnow.com replaces Slashdot as the coffee break site of the day. I start whining about moving back to the West Coast. The All-Mountain Skier again becomes my favorite bedtime reading. I rarely do squats and lunges anymore as my quads get a regular workout without me planning it. It's the skiing season.

This winter we rent a condo in North Woodstock, 4 miles from the Loon Mountain. So, Loon is my home hill this year. For the uninitiated, this has been the worst season for snow in New England since I moved here in 2003. The Loon was only able to open for the season on December 8, and Sophia and I had a blast the opening weekend.

A week later was the perfect timing to go to the place that's been ranked #1 ski resort in the East for 10 years running, Mont Tremblant. Plus, it was a decent excuse for me to visit Montréal for the first time.

Drive there

We left my house in Nashua at around 6:30 Friday night. The drive to the border was uneventful. The weather up North in Vermont was as warm and rainy as it was around Boston. A bad sign, but we still hoped it would get better as we get farther North. The weather in Canada wasn't any different, but the landscape had somewhat changed. It was dark, and pretty much every house in the villages along the road had bright and colorful Christmas decorations, noticeably exceeding in size and colorfulness the Christmas decorations that we are used to here in New England. We figured that either the Quite Revolution hasn't reached that far South yet, or it's just the affinity to all things beautiful that we think is common to the Québec culture in general.

Montréal

At about 11 PM we crossed Pont Champlain into downtown Montréal. By that time, we already knew what restaurant we wanted to stop by for a dinner. Unfortunately, it greeted us with the "Complet" sign. The moment we got the map and the guidebook out of our pockets, we were approached by a man. "Vous cherchez quelque chose?" he asked with what I already learned to recognize as the Québec accent. "Oui," I replied, trying to buy myself some time to compose a French phrase that would explain what we were looking for. It was a late evening at the end of an eventful week, and on top of that I don't really know French, so the phrase wasn't willing to give up to my attempts. So, I decided to try my luck: "Est-ce que vous parlez anglais?" I asked. Watching the confusion on the man's face, I realized that it was not the map or the guidebook, it was this simple question that showed him how seriously from out of town we were. "Yes, I speak English," he said with no trace of an accent that I could notice. We explained to him what we were looking for, and after giving us a few hints, he turned to a woman he had been talking to prior to approaching us. To my surprise, he spoke English to her, and she also responded in English, and — again — I failed to hear any accent (well, English being my at best second language, I am not perfect at discerning accents, but still). I am saying "to my surprise" because they actually were speaking French to each other when we just came there!

We have since witnessed this (a group of people freely switching back and forth between French and English while conversing) a few more times in less than a day that we spent in Montréal (including time we spent there on our way back home). The place is definitely more bilingual than even Québec City, not to mention anything else. In fact, I don't know if there is another place that is as bilingual on this planet? I mean, really, it was absolutely my impression that the vast majority of Montréalers have two languages as their "first" language. Weird, but cool. Definitely cool.

So it was late Friday night, and we were looking for a restaurant in Downtown Montréal. We stopped by a few places, and while all of them were open, the kitchen was closed in every one of them. Getting desperate, we saw a happily-looking man, dressed in a white shirt and a tie and holding a bottle of beer, near the entrance to one of the downtown restaurants. I smiled at him and asked half-jokingly, "Is there any place around here that we can eat at?". "At this time?" he smiled back at me. "Well, it doesn't look like people are sleeping here," I continued smiling. "You mean, at quarter to midnight?" he was insisting. "Yeah, but it's Friday," I was about to give up. "Exactly," he said, "IT'S TIME TO DRINK, man!"

I love this place.

So, we started walking back to our car thinking if we can survive a fast-food, and if the fast-foods there are any better than what we are used to. At this very moment we saw an "Ouvert" sign. (Or was that "Open"?) And it looked like a restaurant. And a second later we realized it was Russian. That was going to be a hard decision. I have heard of, and Oleg claims to have been to, good Russian restaurants in the U.S. But a couple times I tried them, I pretty heavily regretted it. Okay, we figured, we should at least try — even if they are open, practice shows that nothing prevents their kitchen from being closed, and if it is closed, our conscience would be clean when we go to a fast-food. The kitchen was open. The owners were nice guys. The food was excellent. I guess, if you are in that business in Québec the province, you can't survive for too long if you don't serve good food. I almost want to go to a McDonald's next time I'm there — who knows, they can also exceed in food quality an average sit-down restaurant in the Boston area :-)

We left Montréal at around 2 AM. The time we spent there was certainly refreshing. Just like Québec City, it's neither European nor American. Unlike Québec City, it's big. Size-wise, Montréal reminded me of Chicago: it's bigger and I dare to say more urban than Boston, but smaller than New York. Most people are dressed in style, a level or two above the Boston crowd at this time of day. Everybody is in shape. Still, unlike in Europe, there is plenty of space, and the service is top-notch. In short, I guess, there is a reason the Wikipedia article on Montréal states that two Internet publications ranked it as the best city in the world to live in "for its culture, architecture, history and ambience" :-) (and I'm only half-joking here).

Mont Tremblant

So, at 2 AM we left Montréal and headed further Northwest to Mont Tremblant. The weather wasn't getting any better — it was still warm, occasionally raining, and visibility sometimes was getting close to zero because of heavy fog. At 4 AM we checked in to Tour des Voyageurs at Mont Tremblant's base village.

Skiing Saturday was actually pretty good, in spite of the warm and cloudy weather. There wasn't much natural snow on or around the mountain, and that spoiled the views. Still, the views there are beautiful. Lake Tremblant is decent-sized, the architecture in the base village is original, and everything is very clean and very well thought out. By the way, the base village is pedestrian. I assume, it's all ski-in when the weather cooperates. In short, I can totally see why this place has been ranked #1 in the East for 10 years running.

Having spent $250 on the dinner Saturday night, do I have to say it was good? :-) Still, I should probably mention that the place is named "Les Artistes", and is probably the only French restaurant in Mont Tremblant that doesn't require a reservation for the dinner.

Since we live in New England, it was hard for us to say if Sunday qualified as the worst skiing conditions day ever — this title is heavily contested by many memories of the past few years. Yet, both of us agreed that Sunday was up there at the top with various skiing sessions in rain and hail and 50-degree wet weather — simply because Sunday also sported heavy fog that severely limited visibility. When you can't see a group of snowboarders sitting on the slope from 50 feet away, you just can't ski too fast, and you are constantly taking your googles off (they don't have electric wipers yet) and on (rain and hail hitting your face is not fun when you go even at a low skiing speed). We are used to that, so we did five runs, but that was the most we were willing to do.

I want back :-)

At 3 PM on Sunday we were walking in Vieux Montréal :-) A few pictures and one long dinner later, we were leaving the city. I didn't want to state this after my first visit to Québec, but now I have to say it: I have a crush on this place. I can't yet claim that I love it, as in order to love something (or somebody, really), I'd have to know it well, so that I can appreciate its virtues and accept its flaws. And while I don't know Québec well enough to love it, the couple times I have seen it, it impressed me enough that I am okay saying I have a crush on it :-)

Pictures

After skiing this trail the whole day Saturday, I figured I could take a picture :-) :

The lake and the base village:

The base village and the lake :-) :

Base area:

A view from the Cabriolet lift (which runs from the lowest elevation in the village to the base area):

One of these buildings is the hotel we stayed in: La Tour des Voyageurs. Extrapolating the views to the presence of natural snow is left as an exercise for the viewer: