Going Canadian

Whilst Martin and Inge (the ex owners of  Malaspina, a Nordhavn 47) were staying with us earlier in the year, they told us that we had to visit Canada. They then suggested a couple of must do things which we could hardly refuse. You can learn about those in later posts. Suffice to say that we ended up at Heathrow for a BA flight to Montreal. We chilled in the lounge before the flight, amazed at how miserable / distracted some folks can be:

Her face never cracked - not once. The crew on the other hand, had the serious business of organising some food and a glass of fortification to keep her going until she got fed on the plane:

BA had a deal going on - pay for premium economy, get a business class ticket. It felt like old times for the captain, settling into the nice pod seat, having dinner then enjoying a snooze in the flat bed it converts into. For the crew,  it was a first experience of "turning left" on a plane and it has created a monster. Future longer haul travel is unlikely to be at the back of the plane. The BA boarding process was a mess (as usual). Why they consistently get it wrong after so many years of practice is beyond belief. After a nice flight with OK service, we then spent 40 minutes taxiing around Montreal airport trying to get a gate. The BA pilot announced that it was his record time spent circling an airport too. Luckily for us, it really did not matter much as we were staying in an airport hotel and had no need to rush around the following morning.

Our first experience of the Montreal area (crew hadn't been to Canada before, the captain had only been to the Toronto district)  showed that some Canadians have poor automotive taste:

The Cybertruck looks even worse in the metal than in pictures by the way. We headed into the city, wandered around enjoying the architecture:

and wondering if we had landed in Paris by mistake:

The "you don't speak French" thing was quite noticeable until people realised we were English when it became more acceptable. The crew, despite many hours refreshing her French language studies on Duolingo, stuck to English too. We were blessed with wonderful warm weather allowing some great walks around the city centre and waterfront. This preserved old tug just looked so much like a bathtub toy:

We enjoyed an excellent first lunch out in a restaurant that seemed to serve the "business lunch" folks - we were rather casual compared to most diners and our conversation was way less employment focussed. However, not all of the locals were that worried about work:

It didn't look too comfortable though.