Montreal Day 1 - Getting Here

[Composed 8/13/2019]

Bonjour from Montreal! Shira and our 3 nieces spent the day getting to and situated in the Airbnb that will be our home for the week.

The flight here was almost too short. I started, but didn't finish Alita: Battle Angel. From the previews, I thought it may be an ideal film for the girls. There's a young and fierce female protagonist, and it looked like the movie raised interesting questions about what it means to be human and/or different. Actually watching the film revealed it was anything but appropriate for a 10, 8 and 6 year old. Between the language, violence and themes in general, I'm shocked it's rated PG-13; feels like an R rated flick to me. Still, it did deliver on the action and touched on some of the themes I hoped it would.

C has a history of getting car sick so I thought I'd try a new (for us) approach to keeping her from hurling on the flight: Sea Bands. While the girls loved wearing the power bracelets, they ultimately failed us. As we were landing, C discretely upchucked into an air sickness bag. Those bands had such promise, and yet, they were an obvious no go. Kudos for how well C handled losing her lunch, though.

On the way to our Airbnb we stopped by Chez Benny, a Kosher grill. The kids had burgers, but I got more local and tried a Schwarma Poutine. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but found a heaping plate full of meat, fries and gravy. As I dug in, I couldn't tell if this was the best meal I'd ever eaten or the worst. It was so...salty. I'm definitely glad I tried it though.

Our Airbnb matched what was promised in the pictures. I was a bit surprised to find so much food in the kitchen; with every cabinet and even the fridge already nearly full. But whatever effort I had to put into making space for our kitchen supplies was more than made up for by the fact that the kids found three rooms filled with toys and games. The biggest challenge: two of the rooms were obviously decorated and filled with girl stuff, while one of the rooms was obviously meant for a boy. None of the girls wanted to spend the week sleeping in the boy's room. I could hardly blame them, these were some fun rooms. We worked out a rotation where every night the girls would switch rooms and everybody was satisfied. I was impressed that T stepped up to sleep in the boy's room first; way to demonstrate a bit of delayed gratification.

After hitting up a supermarket across the street, we found ourselves worn out but ready for our vacation to begin in earnest. Tomorrow morning we truly start exploring Montreal!