Solo travelling to Canada day 2

On my second day in Montreal I woke up at 5am, probably because I went to bed at 4pm the day before but also maybe beacause that's 1pm French time lol. I decided to look for a coffee shop or anything that was open at that time and all I could find was a mcdonalds. So I left the hotel at 6am and headed for the mcdonalds. 

The mcdonalds was on boulevard Saint Laurent, which was on my list of things to visit but as I'd planned it for another day I didn't explore too much. I ordered a bacon and egg muffin and two hash browns because they're not available in France and when we cook them from frozen they never taste the same. I also got a watermelon lemonade type of drink and a large coke because I was thirsty and it was already hot. I didn't expect the drink to be that huge... It must have been at least one liter! The seating area wasn't open yet so I sat on a nearby bench and a woman sat next to me and we spoke for over an hour and she gave me lots of recommendations!

I obviously had to take Lily with me to Canada... Here we were sat on a bench, waiting for the science museum to open!

I decided to go to the science museum as soon as it opened as the woman at the front desk the day before said it would take 3 hours to visit. I was very dissapointed in the museum, not because it's boring, but just because I think I wasn't the target audience. I spent 45 minutes in the museum... If you were here with children it would be perfect I think, it's very interactive, but as a young adult, I didn't find it as interesting / exciting. They had multiple places within the museum where you could refill your water bottle which was very practical because by 10am my 1.5L water bottle was already empty lol. So basically I wouldn't recommend this if you're an adult without children but if you're with children definitely go for it. But bare in mind, its 52 cad to go in (well, for an adult, I can't actually remember how much it is for children) but if I would've known I probably woudn't have gone there. 

I then had a short walk to the next museum I was going to, they had these water fountains which I found quite cool. By that point I was having a hypo again so I went to the museum's café and had a sugarry drink which had 40g of sugar in it if i remember right, and it was still going down so I was quite worried but eventually it went back up.

The next museum I did was Pointe à Caillère. I thought it would be really interesting as it's an archeology and history museum, but I have to say, it was the most boring museum I've ever been to. Thankfully it was free because I'm under 26 but even then, it felt like a waste of my time lol sorry. The only fun part of the museum was the viewpoint at the top of the museum where you could see all of the old port which I found very pretty and I stayed up there quite a while. 

More yellow buses!

I then walked around place Jacques Cartier as well as the Jacques Cartier pier. I think if I had to name one of my favourite things about my trip to Canada it would be this area of Montreal. I loved the vibe of it, I went to a couple of different souvenir shops as I wanted to bring loads of stuff back for my family. I loved the pier because it had loads of little independant shops, lots of food trucks for different things (even thought I always had the same thing!!)

By that point, I was having a hypo again... reoccuring theme you'll see in these next few blog posts lol. I had a strawberry and mago smoothie and it was a great value for price in my opinion, it was over a Pint I think, the cup was huge (it might not look like it but it was!) and it wasn't that expensive. So I definitely reccomend. If you walk around the food area at the pier, it's near the picnic tables opposite the ice cream stand! There's only one so you'll find it straight away!

I was going to do another museum but I was scared of being dissapointed again so I went to check it out reluctantly and it ended up being a church, so I only stayed about 2mn because it was quite busy and wasn't very intersting to me. Here's what it looked like from the outside though.

I had spotted somewhere I wanted to have lunch at while I was at the pier in the morning so I went back there for lunch. I saw a man on a funny bike which made me laugh lol. 

With no surprise I had my first poutine of the trip (first of many). There's a restaurant in Lille owned by people from Canda and they do the proper poutine with the real cheese and everything but I'm never in Lille anymore so I never have it anymore. Plus obviously I had to have at least one while I was in Canada!!!! It was very very nice. If you're ever at the Jacques Cartier pier you'll find it straight away, there's a line of food trucks and it's the second food truck of the line. Definitely recommend. Without tips and tax it was 11 cad I think so considering it's a huge portion I didn't find it too bad. 

I was getting a bit tired by then, but there was a couple of thrift shops I wanted to check out so I went on a walk which ended up being about 2 hours because the first one I wanted to go to, the map was sending me to someone's house so I didn't explore too far. And the other one was in a main street (I can't remember the name) but the shop didn't exist, the place the map told me would be the thrift shop, it was a glasses shop or something so I gave up. 

By then I was, as you can probably guess, having a hypo again. I just wanted a quick sugarry drink but there were no shops or corner shops around where I was (or there was but it was a bit far away and as my blood sugar levels were dropping rapidly, I didn't risk it). I ended up walking past a coffee shop that had a sign outside saying they had lavendar flavoured lemode or iced tea or something like that I can't really remember, so I went in. Then inside they had a sign saying they had maple syrup iced coffee so I thought ok I'll have that instead (as it was something I really wanted to try and thought having a hypo was the perfect excuse to have that). When it was my turn to order, I couldn't see the maple syrup iced coffee on the menu so I panicked and just got a normal latte. I speak french, so I should've guessed, but I didn't realise that café glacé was iced coffee so I ended up having a hot coffee which wasn't ideal because of the heat but it did the job lol. I went to 49th parallel coffee shop. I definitely recommend, the coffee was very nice!

I then ended up going back to the hotel at about 6:30pm which was reasonable considering I'd been up since 5am. I was planning on going back out for dinner at the restaurant but at that point I'd walked 13km I didn't have it in me to walk another kilometer and back for dinner to the restaurant I'd found online. Thinking about it, I could've just gone to the Italian restaurant at the end of the road my hotel was at, but I really wanted to try this vegan restaurant out. I have a Canadian friend that I met online and she told me that the Canadian version of Deliveroo is Doordash, so I checked it out and the restaurant I wanted to go to was on there!!!! Bonus!!!!! 

I ended up having butternut ravioli and the aranchini looked really nice so I ordered them too. First mistake was to not check if the hotel kitchen had any cutlery (they didn't) and to check that the restaurant gave cutlery (they didn't) so I ended up using a pringles lid as a fork !!!!! LOL !!!! It was NOT ideal but it worked lol. I can not recommend this restaurant enough, it's called LOV (without an E) and it's so lovely. I ended up eating there again another day and I physically went to the restaurant and it was so pretty. I 100% recommend the butternut ravioli but not so much the aranchini, they were a bit boring and flavourless in my opinion.

Solo travelling to Canada day 1

The day before i left for Canada I travelled to the airport. My flight was too early for me to get an early train to the airport so I stayed there overnight. I got the train to Lille at 10am, arrived at 10:30 and my train to the airport was only at 5:30pm so my friends from Lille offered to go to the restaurant with me to keep me company for a while which I appreciated but we stayed at the restaurant for 3 hours I was so bored at the end lol.

Made it to the airport at 6:30pm, had mcdonalds mainly so I could charge my phone and also because it was either that or a sandwich from the shop which would have ended up being the same price as a mcdoalds anyways. 

Waited for hours for my flight to be put up on the board, my flight was at 10:30am so I had a while to wait. 

Got to see the sunset and the sunrise at the airport.

Slept at the airport, well.. slept is a very big word. I was so scared of someone stealing my luggage that I must have slept a grand total of 10 minutes, I was so tired and uncomfortable but at the same time the anticipation from the flight and my travels meant that I couldn't manage to sleep. It was quite eerie to see the airport completely empty, I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn't be seeing!

Made it through security without my medical supplies causing any issues which is something I was quite worried about. I was allowed an extra piece of hand luggage with my flight option so I put all my medical supplies in there but I was so worried they would say I'd have to put in the luggage hold and it would get lost or would damage my insulin or something but there was no issue with that which made me feel very relaxed. I wasn't stressed about the trip or about the flight because I really enjoy flying but I was very stressed about the airport situation lol, it's always the part that stresses me out the most when I travel. 

Eeeeeek!! There's no going back now!!!! 

I was flying to Montreal which was only a 6 and a half hour flight from Paris, which was so weird because when we used to go visit my grandparents in Brittany it was an 8 hour drive. It took me less time to fly halfway around the world than to drive to the other side of France!

I always get excited about airplane food so I was more than happy when I discovered we'd be getting a meal and a snack! This was the meal. The starter was a pasta, tomato and basil salad. I chose the pesto pasta as a main, we had a flakey pastry as a snack with our meal as well as bread and as a dessert we had a blueberry cake! We also got a bottle of water which was nice and cold but we also had unlimited drinks on the plane as it was a long haul flight.

And here was the snack. We had a lemon madeleine, a yoghurt drink and humus and pepper confit bread roll which was right up my alley. In fact it was so nice I've just been inspired to make it at home!!!! I also had a kinder bueno that I'd bought at the airport and shared with my seat neighbour. She was about my age so we talked for a bit and exchanged social medias and we still talk now!

Only about 30 minutes to go at this point, I was so excited!!

Made it!!!! With a bit of stress when I landed as I got an alert message on my phone saying there was a shooter in the town and I had no idea what to do. Nobody at the airport would help so I got an uber and asked him if it was safe for me to go to my hotel and he said yes as it wasn't the same side of the town, I wasn't too chuffed but I also didn't want to waste any time I had in Montreal so I decided to still go exploring around my hotel for a while. I was reassured to find out that night that they'd killed the shooter which meant I was safe to frolick around Montreal!

My hotel was close to the canal Lachine, so I walked along it to the old port, even though my hotel was in the old port but I wanted to go to the pier and my plan also was to go to the science museum but the woman at the front desk said it takes 3 hours to visit and they shut in 30mn so I didn't go, I just walked around for a bit. 

As a Heated Rivalry fan, I was more than excited to be walking past the McGill signs every day lol!!!!

Went to a corner shop and bought a big bottle of water and saw this drink that looked very nice, my blood sugar was getting low so I got this, it did not dissapoint, it had 36g of sugar in it LOL!!! It cured my low blood sugar that's for sure, but without a surprise it made it go too high... It didn't stop me from buying more of this drink while I was there lol (I mainly got it in case I had hypos which came in very handy because I had many many hypos as I was walking so much every day!)

Very Canadian (and Quebecois) things I saw within an hour of being there! After this I decided to go back to my hotel because I arrived in Montreal at lunch but with time difference, it was 8pm French time so by the time I'd been exploring for a couple of hours it was really late in France. I have to admit I was in bed and asleep at 4pm LOL!! My hotel was really good, me and my mum looked at reviews just before I left (we should have done it before booking it but oh well), and lots of people were saying it wasn't good and that the rooms were tiny so I was expecting the worst but my room was so big. It was shared bathrooms which I was nervous about but they were really clean and really good and there was also a kitchen with a microwave but I didn't really use it except to fill up my water bottles every day.