This weekend I got to see my family and visit a different country! Thursday after my history midterm I drove 3.5 hours to the Burlington, VT airport to pick up my grandma, mom, brother, and sister. It was raining when I left and as I was driving through southern Vermont I noticed the rain had changed and it took me a few minutes to realize it was snowing! This didn’t last very long and when I got to Burlington it had stopped.
We made our way to Montreal, stopping at the border for only about 15 minutes. After finally finding the hotel on a tiny street, we walked around and saw the Hotel de Ville and Notre Dame Basilica. Our hotel was located in Old Montreal, which felt like walking around a European city because everyone was speaking French, the building were old, and had cobblestone streets.
On Friday we walked more around Old Montreal and stopped at the Museum of the Bank of Montreal (kind of cool, especially for those who enjoy collecting money like my brother), History Center of Montreal (very informative and interesting – I recommend stopping if visiting the city), and Bonsecours Market (mostly expensive clothing and art stores, but some souvenir shops). In the afternoon we drove around the city and stopped at Juliette et Chocolat, which was located on a very busy street so at a stoplight me, Tyler, and Brittany jumped out of the car and bought hot chocolate while my mom and grandma drove around. My mom drank a dark hot chocolate, which she said is the best one she has ever tasted. We then drove to Mont Royal Park (if you say Mont Royal fast it sounds like “Montreal”!). The top offered an amazing view of the city. The Park, along with the whole city, has bicycle trials and there are places to rent bicycles every few blocks (like B Cycle in Madison and other companies in various cities). We then made our way to St. Joseph Observatory and by the time we got there it was dark outside, but it looked amazing lit up.
After walking around Old Montreal little more on Sunday, we drove back to Burlington and lunch on Church St before I dropped them off at the airport.
I spent several hours of my first day of cancelled classes doing homework and writing this post at Uncommon Grounds in Saratoga (Amanda had work and classes all day). For a Monday this place is pretty busy and I got one of the last available tables even though this place is huge for a coffee shop. They have a good drink menu and even had a few seasonal flavors, but I was most impressed with the several bagel sandwich options, kinds of bagels, and cream cheese flavors.
Tuesday afternoon I found out that all classes for the rest of the week were cancelled! So I decided to go home since I didn’t want to stay on campus and it would be pretty expensive to travel around for 5 days, plus I would have to go by myself. That night I slept at Kelley’s house and early Wednesday morning I drove to the Logan airport in Boston. Now I am in Madison!
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