It was 4am. Dark. Cold. Tendrils of steam curled up from 42nd street, like the fingers of a Broadway ghost reaching for once last turn on the stage. Buildings flashed red and blue from police cars speeding by. It’s the city that never sleeps. And I almost knew how it felt.

OK never mind me trying to write the opener to a 1950s film noir. We had to leave for the airport at 5:00am, so up at about 4, we didn’t get home from last night’s show until almost 11pm, so – yeah, I may be no maths expert but I know five hours of sleep sucks.

One thing about New York City, it’s no bother catching an uber at 5am, there are still plenty around and we had our car sorted in about 3 minutes. Expensive way to get to the airport, but that time of the morning, it was worth it for it being so simple.

They’ve completely built LaGuardia airport since we last there in 2013 – and the dirt and dinginess and cramped-ness is gone, replaced with a soaring, sprawling, shiny complex of buildings that was a pretty nice place to hang around in. We checked the luggage in, and went to the American Airlines lounge. I made a bee-line for the coffee machine, and for a machine it did an excellent cup. Not that it did much to wake me up. Something I’d never seen in airport lounge before – built in video games! No I didn’t bother playing them in my half-asleep state.

The lounge was positioned basically over a number of departure gates. So even though it took forever to get to the lounge, getting to the gate afterwards was very straightforward.

They had a good selection of food, I had some yoghourt, and they had everything you need for a delicious bagel – bagels (duh), cream cheese, smoke salmon, red onion and capers. Delish!

Before all that long it was time to board our flight, on a little Embraer plane that had one row of seating on one side, and two on the other, that was it. Sure passes the vibe-check when it came to legroom though.

The flight attendant was closing hte overhead bins with such ferocity I thought we may be in for a bumpy ride in more way than one, but no she was lovely and chatty – just very very good at closing an overhead bin and making sure it stays closed,

The flight was pretty short, only an hour an half, mind you I was only awake for takeoff (yeah I fell asleep during taxiing as usual), then woke up when I was served my in-flight meal (just kidding, it was an apple juice and a oat-based kind of protein ball), and didn’t wake up again til I felt the gentle thud of wheels on tarmac as we arrived in cold and rainy Montreal, Canada… and out of the USA and away from all the political craziness and concern.

Anyway. Hello Canada. ‘Til this point we’d been so lucky with he weather – yesterday was our first bit of rain int he whole trip, but not much. When we landed, Montreal was really turning it on. We made our long way through to customs and immigration, which was mostly automated and very fast, then a brief chat to talk about the few wooden items in the suitcase that we declared, then we were all done. The airport was practically empty, so that was a pretty easy journey.

We bought a bus ticket that takes you into town, and after some pretty average signage, found the bus stop just in time for the bus to arrive, Perfect! It’s bus number 747, which is cute, and it got us a bit less than a kilometre away from our destination in downtown Montreal.

I love the instructions at the bus shelter while we were waiting.

Very important step #2 – say hello to your driver. We made sure to follow step 2 as he very clearly did not want us to follow step 1 (tap your bus ticket on the reader). I don’t know why. Because French? Regardless, after about 30 mins waiting we were where we wanted to be, and hopped off the bus at Rene Levesque / Union. One thing we have learned about this part of Montreal as we walked to our accommodation. There is not one single awning the whole way to stop a single drop of rain from hitting you. Not one. Luckily it wasn’t that heavy, and also luckily the accommodation has a good sized lobby – more to the point, a warm and dry lobby, in which we could wait for 90 minutes until our 1pm check-in time (that I am extremely grateful we paid a little extra for rather than waiting for the standard 3pm).

At first it looked like every shop and cafe was closed – but before long we found one that was (a) open and (b) accepted card payment, coz we didn’t bring a cent of Canadian cash with us. So I ended up a very nice cafe, ‘49th Parallel Coffee Roasters’ – as soon as I saw Flat White on the menu I knew I was in safe hands. I grabbed a coffee and two donuts (to share!) while we waited out or time for the room to be available.

Perry then found there’s an IGA nearby (really!) and went out to buy a few things and before we knew it the room was ready.

It’s more a studio apartment, so quite spacious, and it has one of those travellers-holy-grail things, a washing machine and a dryer, which is great. Really nice looking place.

Now, you can take us boys out of New York but etc etc – there’s still a show to see tonight. So up we walked to Place Des Arts to check it out. On the way though, this sign sure was confusing. Which city are we in again?

On the way up to the show we stopped for dinner at a very exclusive boutique restaurant called A&W – yep an American fast food chain, for some damn nice burgers ‘n’ chips – and extra points for presentation coz would you just look at that!

Here’s the place

Here’s the show and its people

And here’s the theatre – big, and kinda pretty for a relatively modern one.

I won’t say much about the show though coz I don’t want to be one of people in its title. And we’ve just been spoiled with a week and a bit of full-on broadway productions.

Montreal is a very French-first city being in Quebec and all, but so far we’re getting by with Bonjour/Bonsoir and Merci – well that, and the fact that everybody can speak English.

So this very long day is drawing to a close, time to catch up on a bunch of lost sleep, then see what the lovely city of Montreal has to offer. Goodmnight, fais de beaux rêves! (And yes I googled that 😉