Road Trip Recap: Day 4 (Montreal)

I secretly love when my kids are bored on tours. I'm not sure why and probably should be embarrassed by what that says about me, but here we are. 

"This is soooo boring," Meadow whispered as Francis, our tour guide turned and walked towards our next stop. 

Ok, so we've been on the move for four consecutive days and people are getting tired and cranky, especially when they need to wake up early on vacation to attend a walking tour on a hot day. It's the ONLY thing I scheduled in advance so the words deal with it kept scrolling past my forehead. I'm not a tough love kinda mom, but I don't like to be late and the complaining was a bit over the top. 

A walking tour is usually a great way to get the lay of the land and find some off the beaten path places that we'd otherwise miss. Francis was the kinda tour guide that lived and breathed his work. He had nooks and crannies of Montreal facts deeply embedded in him. He knew the other tour guides and shared that "Since he's here, he's late, but that makes us ahead of schedule."

Francis had his route down to an exact science. 

The history was interesting, we even stopped and learned a bit about one of our local legends, Benjamin Franklin. When he asked "Which famous person is buried in Philadelphia, who created the first lending library," I was delighted to know the answer! After all, I did give a tour in college of Historic Philadelphia for a class project and my favorite stop was Carpenter's Hall. I'm a sucker for an old building with a Windsor chair photo opp.  (My mom and Sean came on that college tour!)

The most memorable part of the tour was when Francis led our small group of eight into a historic bank and Meadow goes, "This ain't no PNC, that's for sure."

The tour took us to the piazza in front of the famous Basilica Notre-Dame in Old Town. Unfortunately, we did not go in but the Aura light show that they do in the evenings was something we considered. I didn't want to get in the situation of having people complain that we had to rush to something (like we did with the walking tour) so I didn't book that one. But I kinda wish I saw it!

The piazza and street around the Basilica were hectic and full. It was beautiful and dirty. It boasted live violin players offering the soundtrack to Beauty and the Beast and also was densely populated with homeless people. I'm from Philadelphia and no stranger to homelessness. It is something that is so difficult to wrap my brain around - tourists and business people walking the same streets as homeless and hungry. I wish they weren't there for many reasons, but maybe that's just me trying to ignore something that hurts to see. I'm never sure what to do with these emotions, other than share food and water.  

The walking tour ended at the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History. Francis told us there were bathrooms in the lobby that we could use and that you don't need a ticket to take the elevator up the tower and go out on the terrace to take in a beautiful view of Old Town.

Awesome, one might think, right? Yes and no because at this point one of the children was laying on the lobby bench as if they'd just ran a marathon. 

After way too much encouragement, we find our way up the tower, and see another couple from our tour. The six of us share the tiny terrace and they offer to take our picture after I take theirs. I declined because everyone was in a mood but quickly changed my mind. Here we are. Smile!

I loved this area around the museum - it was just a few minutes walk from our adorable apartment, near the Old Port, near Rue St. Paul and we could even spot our car in the parking garage (I was worried about it, phew). 

We peeled our melty children away from the museum and found lunch at an adorable cafe called TOMMY's where we dined on a shared smoothie and three "Chicken Winners." (I was trying to enforce sharing food and not ordering four of everything to cut food costs. Most people didn't like this idea. Some complained.)

Ok, so we've already had nearly a full day of activity and it was just lunchtime. We head back to the apartment to regroup before hopping an uber to the Botanical Garden properly known as the Jardin Botanique. By now, all four of us are used to saying Merci! to anyone who helps us out. Even though I was insecure about it because the kids kept saying I was pronouncing it wrong. 

I struggled with insecurity on this trip. Mom insecurity maybe? With my kids getting older and casting their judgments (opinions?) on lots of things I do, it feels easier to want to just go be alone and do my own thing. But that's where I open the invitation, to stay and consider why I'm feeling these things and respond with intention.

There was a lot of that swirling within me for the duration of this adventure. I even thought to myself at times that it was one of the lessons of the trip for me - to work with these feelings and this new-ish chapter of parenting. 

One of my favorite parenting coaches, Carrie Contey PhD, taught me that for most of our lives we will be adults with our children and that they are only children for a very small piece of our time together. If we can parent from that awareness, that we are building the foundations for a strong adult to adult relationship, we will not regret it. (I'm paraphrasing)

I'm so grateful to have heard this when my children were pretty young. I thought a lot about this idea on our road trip, especially when I wanted to snap when I felt judged. 

Back at the Jardin Botanique, we wandered and explored. There may have been a fight or two. I maybe said something babyish. There was also fun, hugs, sorrys and vending machine snackery. Sean knew this was on my list of wanting to experience, so I'm grateful that he pushed for it. 

After a taxi ride back to our apartment we got dressed for dinner at the historic William Gray Hotel Rooftop! Ok, so we weren't sure that this was our plan when we left for dinner but Francis told us about it on our tour that morning. In fact, it's where the tour began (meet next to the billiard table!) and the lobby smelled like a spa. I wanted more. 

He said that when you go, don't stop at the front door of the hotel and ask if there is a table, just go right up and ask them there. So we did and we got seated right away on a Friday night! It was super lucky and the views were breathtaking. 

We had a clear view of the Montreal Ferris Wheel that was now on the discussion table of if we would or would not be riding it.

I just ate my dinner a wished this Ferris Wheel idea would spin off into the horizon.

Tomorrow I will meet my Ferris Wheel fate. There might be a spider too.