WHO SAYS YOU CAN ONLY GET "MONTEZUMA'S REVENGE" IN MEXICO?

Day Two of  Swanfather's version of "OccupyMontreal" comprised of a lot of walking and ticking off items from the "MTL Bucket List".  Of course, when ticking things off the "List", there's bound to be some snafus along the way.  It's me, so it wouldn't happen any other way.

For starters, I have a specific playlist on my IPOD that I play every time I come to Montreal.  It contains a nice mix of "lite electronica", hip-hop, and jazz, which gets my juices flowing when I walk throughout the city (and I walk a LOT when I'm here).  So when I began my walking tour of the neighborhood, I realized that my IPOD battery was dead.  FUCK.  I should have known right then and there that this was going to be a shitty day.

Oh well, I'll just have to be alone with my thoughts during my walking experience.  As it turned out, I was staying near a college community, which ironically enough is named after my alma mater, Concordia College (here it's Concordia University).  Cool.  Let me take some pics.   Womp, womp... my camera battery is dead.  No pictures.   Can it get any worse than this?  Of course, it's me.

I decide to ride a bus to Fairmount Bagels in the Historic Jewish Quarter District called Mile End (which is what that cool smoked meat place in Brooklyn is named after.  I of course, get lost and stumble onto Schwartz's Deli, home of the famous smoked meat sandwiches instead.  It was just as well as this place was also on my "Montreal Bucket List".  This place is always known for being packed but I got there at around 3:30pm and it was practically empty.  Nice.

So I order the medium smoked meat sandwich (half meat, half fat), fries and a Cott's Black Cherry soda (this is what the locals do apparently).  While the sandwich looked pretty good and very reasonably priced ($6.15 for a pretty stacked sandwich- take note Mile End),  I have to say, for all of the hype that came with being the home of the BEST smoked meat sandwich in the world, reality didn't quite match up to it.  While it wasn't bad, it just wasn't as good as I expected.  I think with all things being equal, Mile End could hold their sandwich up against Schwartz's any day of the week... except for the portions & price, which Schwartz's wins hands down.

After that culinary experience, I continued on my journey to experience all that I could while on foot.  It began to rain, which turned into snow sprinkles.  Great.  My feet began to hurt at the same time and more importantly, I began to feel a rumbling in my stomach that I'd hadn't experience in a long time.  The kind of rumbling that forces you to make a hasty retreat to the restroom.  This sucked because I had planned on going to McLean's Pub to catch the Habs/Isles game with some Habs fans that I met through Facebook and Twitter.

I ended up having to hail a taxi and making a beeline back to the hotel and by the time I got to my room, I'd broken into a cold sweat and my stomach was doing summersaults.  I sprinted to the bathroom and Womp, Womp... it's was AWWWWN!  And I wasn't winning this battle.  Let's just say that I was listening to the Habs/Isles game (in French) from the humble confines of "les toilettes" Brutal.

Today is a new day and I am in a new hotel.  The last hotel (Residence Inn Westmount) was better than I expected and it served me well though I did have to walk a bit through what might be considered "gritty" blocks to get to some of the bars.  Now I'm going from one extreme (if you can call it that) to another- to the Sofitel Montreal, located on the "Golden Mile".  Talk about lofty!  This was a gift from my staff at Third and Long last Christmas and I've been chomping at the bit to use this ever since.  It's a beautiful hotel from what I can see and I'm on a high floor with great views.  I'm also located a few blocks from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which I plan to visit today.

And then, god willing, I'm going to meet up with some peeps tonight (a lot of them are coming up from NYC for the Habs/Rangers game) and make bad decisions.

Here's a question that I need answered:  Why does everyone here wear black?  Hmmm....

On another note:  How 'bout dem Jets?   Brutal in any language.


That's it.  Done blogging from Second Cup Cafe and going out to enjoy the day!  Keep things safe and fun back in NYC and enjoy the weekend!