MONTREAL BITCHES!

March 12, 2010
CNF’s leaving for Pittsburgh, so I go into the city blind. People aren’t picking up their phones. I get home at 7:30 and need to make the 8:20. Pick out an outfit. Change. Get some pregaming done. Sweater and coat on. Wallet, keys, iPod, camera, cellphone, cigs. Check. Get a pregaming bottle ready. Run out the door. We have 20 minutes to walk to the station. Run run run! Walk fast!
Call people on the way. I’m blind. People aren’t picking up. I don’t know what the plans are. I just assume things are going to work out. I get into the city and things get figured out. We go to Gobo. I personally had a horrible dish and it took a while, so that sort of slowed down the night.
Unfortunately, Kim didn’t have an ID on her to try to get into Fat Cat. I felt bad that we couldn’t hang out with her and Candace for the night. CNF and I cab to the East Village. I was texting Jill throughout the night because she’s also in the city, but nothing gets happening.
CNF and I go to a bar and chill out. We meet up with Stefan for a second. We run over to Baoguette quickly and catch the 1:19 to get home.

March 13, 2010
At night, we go to get soup dumplings, despite the shitty rain. Evan and CNF are home. We picked up some gin. We go to Alon’s while the kids play Smash Bros. Josh, Kenny, and Doug are there as well. There’s some drinking and cocktail making. My drinks don’t turn out well. Fresh lemon, seltzer, and gin is fine. I don’t need no more than that. We play some poker. That’s about it.

March 20, 2010
Spamps is back from Ithaca. Hasan comes over and he doesn't want to go out for the night. People seem busy and stuff, but Evan turns out to be free. I make sure that shit gets rolling so that we can go to Astoria. We pick up Spamps and then Evan. Scott is getting home a bit later so he meets us there. We end up at Bohemia Garden, but this time we're acutally outside because the weather finally warmed up. We have a few drinks and then move onto Sweet Afton. I wanted to come back for their Pat LaFrieda burger and also their Sweet Tea cocktail.
I get Erdem a drink as well. We then move onto El Rey del Taco. Boy are their tacos good. Scott and Evan already left for home by now instead of meeting us, so we end up leaving too.

March 21, 2010
There's apparently supposed to be a BBQ gathering going on today. People can't plan for shit and even attempt an epic fail at AIM chat. I let the kids soak in their incompetence. We don't get things started for three hours until 8ish and it's with just Spamps and I shopping at the supermarket. We make burgers. I make a salad that gets finished quick fast. We chill there for a while until it's moved to my place. People stay for a little bit and then head home.

March 22, 2010
It’s a food tour day, but with only Miah and I. We drive into the city around 4:00. We go to Prosperity Dumpling. Then I get a belt on Canal. It probably would cost $15 at a “real” story and a belt is just a strip of leather that I can’t see myself spending much on. The same goes for a wallet, but I don’t find out that I really like.
We then go to Banh Mi on Mott Street. Then to Mei Lei bakery for a pork bun. Then Teado for some tea drinks. Then we go to the East Village at night. Evan and Jonah are busy. Miah and I slum around for a while. I try a burger at Mark. Then next to This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef. Had some food and got stuffed like a beast. Read about it at dweez.yelp.com.
At night, Scott, Avi, Candace, Damien, and Kim come buy to chill for a bit.

March 25, 2010
I leave work early and it’s time for my drive to Binghamton to stay the night and leave the morning for MONTREAL. I drop off my mom at JFK for New Orleans. The drive is pretty long to Binghamton. Then again, it really isn’t but I never go on a long distance trip. I stop at Sonic on the way, which is really blegh food. Pennsylvania also doesn’t have a strict no cell policy so I speak to Corinne and Bolanos on the way because listening to the radio and singing along only goes so far.
I arrive to stay at Atron’s place. Murray meets up with us for Lost Dog Café, one of Binghamton’s best restaurants, though that doesn’t say much. We then go back to his place and pregame a bit. We go in between The Rat, a pseudo bar/club and Tom and Marty’s, an Irish dive bar. My pregame went pretty wild and I stopped at one point to grab some late night pizza. I actually liked their crust, though Aaron tells me that it’s shit pizza and that I was drunk.
And boy, Binghamton is awesome. The drinks are cheap as fuck. It’s special’s on Thursday and you get a plastic mug of beer for $2.50. Then, you can order whatever you like. I order a Jack and coke. It’s more like a cup of ice with two shots of Jack Daniels and a splash of coke. That motherfucker was strong as the Hulk. I also get to meet the two girls from Atron’s frat that we’re going with to Montreal. I get pretty bombed and make an inappropriate drunk dial involving the words “naked” and “boobs” dozens of times. Classy man.

March 26, 2010
We wake up at 9:00 for our departure. Claudia and Erin are in the front for the drive. Murray, Atron, and I are in the back. After some breakfast, we back our 5-6 hour drive. We’re supposed to get there by 5:00, but we get lost when the GPS gives up working on us and we drive around like chickens with their heads cut off. We finally get to the destination around 7:00. Their hotel is downtown and it feels sort of like a mini-NYC’s 5th Ave.
We go their touristy downtown area and find some random restaurant. We hadn’t eaten since 9:00 that morning. People were famished. After that, we go back to the hotel to pregame for the nightlife. Us boys have a bottle of Red Label Johnny Walker to go through. We leave at 11:00ish for Crescent Ave., which is their touristy area and nightlife. We look around and find a place that let us in because we’re Americans. There’s no cover, but a coat check cover. Aaron’s drink is weak as hell. The place is actually really empty though we get to meet a man named Frank “Barrio.” He’s French Canadian.
On a sidenote: Montreal is in Quebec. Their official language is French. Signs are in French. The people speak it. You’re not in Canada where people are just pretending to be American, you’re actually in a different country.
Anyway, our boy Frank is a silly French man. He’s wearing a silly shirt that has two thumbs pointing to his face that reads, “Ladies Love This Guy.” He’s French. He’s funny. He’s drunk. He wants us to add him on Facebook. It sounds like “Mario,” but it’s spelt “b a r i e x s t r x z a.” Actually, we don’t remember how it was spelt, but all we know is that it’s confusing as shit.
After standing around the empty dance floor for a bit, I decide that I should take a cab to my friend Oceane’s place where I’m staying. She apparently waited for me at her train station because I thought I would get in earlier. I also turned off my phone because of the roaming. She didn’t want to go out and I didn’t want to keep her up so I split with the boys at 12:30, grab my shit at the hotel, leave their keys, and take a cab to her apartment. We catch up on things, watch Slumdog Millionaire until real late when I pass out.

March 27, 2010
Atron wakes up and gives me a call. I ride the metro to the hotel. I meet them for brunch. The place is called “Eggspectation” and is a breakfast/brunch place. The place is pretty delicious and busy. Then again, their fire alarm is going off and they ran out of water. We are so thirsty from the salty breakfast and they have to close down the restaurant after that issue, while we still have to deal with not having water.
Then, we walk around and go to their “underground” mall. It’s fucking huge. We hang out there for a bit and then I pass out for a nap in the hotel while the kids have a drink. For dinner, we go to another area in search for something more authentic than the touristy downtown area.
We go to St. Laurient. We find a restaurant called Jano, which has some pretty decent cred looking at the articles on the inside. It’s Portuguese with grilled meats. After that, we go back to chill out and pregame a bit. This time, we do wine because we’re out of Red Label. Oceane had plans to come out, but she didn’t want to. We take a cab to the St. Laurient area and find out a hella lot of clubs. There are loads of lines and I’ve really never seen such a concentration of people for nightlife.
Unfortunately, we find out that all the clubs need you to be on the guestlist. Us naive Americans did not know of this and we’re pretty stranded. Instead, we go to this awesome Irish pub. No line. No pretentiousness. No guest list. Done deal.
There’s an amazing band playing. I immediately order a shot and beer and scream out some Janis Joplin while singing along to the band. After walking around in the cold and bored, this pub suddenly became cloud nine.
After an hour or so, I take a cab to Oceane’s because I again didn’t want to keep her up waiting for me.

March 28, 2010
I wake up and it’s the same routine. Oceane’s busy today with her friend, but she said she’d get dinner later. I owe her at least something for letting me stay for the weekend. I meet with the group and we go to brunch at the Old Montreal area. It’s a shit lunch at a small café. We then walk around where I end up buying a children’s size “FBI Feminine Body Inspector” t-shirt. I then try glaces, which is basically their version of ice cream or gelator or something.
We then move back to the hotel. Murray, Atron, and I split up from the girls. We try some Burger King poutine. It’s meh. Poutine by the way is delcious. Fries, gray, cheese. It’s one hell of a combination. We go back to the hotel and chill out. We then go to Chinatown, which is actually pretty legit, though nothing like NYC. However, it’s Sunday night and it’s dead as hell. We go to a bubble tea lounge that’s for younger people. Murry, Atron, and I meet up with Oceane and have dinner there. We then go for a boys’ night out.
We get back and start pregaming the Captain Morgan that we bought. However, Atron and I beast it out and we realized that a liter is not enough for three of us. We move out and find a strip club despite me not really being interested. We get charged a cover and then the bouncer hustles us for a $2 tip. It’s pretty silly. We also have to pay for an expensive beer and the girls try to get a lap dance for us. They’re onto our cheap ways and we eventually leave. We find a place in St. Denis. Cheap pitchers and actually quite a few people, despite it raining. By then, I’m drunk. Atron’s real drunk.
After stopping myself into the second huge pitcher that seemed to have infinite beers, we walked finally to La Basquise, a famous poutine place that Anthony Bourdain visited. We go through two plates of it while Atron is mighty shitfaced.
We take a cab back and Atron is passed out in it. Murray and I stand outside for a cigarette. However, we lost Atron and really hope he got lost. When we go up, we find out that he somehow slipped away and simply passed out with his face down and all his clothes still on. I end up staying on the floor because Oceane has class in the morning.

March 29, 2010
I don’t know about Atron, but I’m pretty hungover as fuck. However, it’s a long drive and after breakfast, some water, and sleep, I’m feeling okay. We get there at night. Murray and I stay over at Atron’s until we leave tomorrow. A long driving day.

March 30, 2010
We wake up and it’s time to move out. We drive through the shit rain and it’s a long while. I drop Murray in the Bronx and Atron at home. Good thing there wasn’t traffic for me to deal with. I get home by 5:00ish at least.