Volume 6: Pete in Canada Part 6. Beaver Las Canada. 1 Continent, 2 Blokes, Infinite Weird Sh*t
Day 11 – Quebec City to Montreal
Today we headed back to Montreal and the hippy refuge that is the Lipotak hostel. The only person who could speak English, the wanna be hippy who signed us in last time, was not there (no doubt busy enrolling in a Hitler Youth program after discovering he wasn’t a true hippy). So we were signed in by the tall skinny white French Rastafarian with the giant tea cosy on his head to hold his dreadlocks in. The first thing to surprise me is that when I said I had a reservation in French he actually understood what I said. He then fired off some French reply that I’d never seen in my pocket guide to French (that’s the stupid thing about foreign language guides, they focus too much on how to ask a question, not on understanding the answer to the question) but thankfully I made out the French word for “name” so guessed that he was asking for my name. I now realised I was attempting to swim in the deep end of the French language pool, so I doggy paddled back to the shallow end by giving my name in a full on Aussie accent. My second surprise was when he didn’t ask for id, essentially giving the green light for me to attempt to steal the bunk beds knowing full well they wouldn’t be able to trace it back to me. The third surprise came as I watched him write my name down on his check in sheet and spelled my name as Peta Heat. It’s almost understandable to substitute the “er” with an “a” in my first name if English is your second language (I often do it when texting on my phone), but to substitute an “a” with an “e” and a “r” with an “a” was something that only comes with destroying large numbers of brain cells by starting each day with a breakfast bong.
Anyway, after the smooth sign in “Smoky LeRue” then handed us at least one bed sheet, a couple of pillow slips and showed us to our less than secure room which didn’t have any glass in the window that led onto the balcony (read fire escape). The toilet looked liked it had been there since 1852 it had accumulated so much rust, no doubt aided by the fact the shower was practically over the toilet. As for the bunks, they were made from pine and looked like they were homemade from a year 7 student about to fail his woodwork class. In a masterful engineering decision, the ladder to climb to the top bunk was placed in such a manner that you had to fast for 10 days to squeeze in between the bunks to climb it. This was clearly the executive suite he had taken us to. The Montreal Olympic Stadium and our room; both designed by the same person.
As this was yet another hot day, Brad and I escaped the unpleasantness of the executive suite by heading down to Peels for a $6.99 jug and something to eat, before heading back to our executive suite to tidy ourselves up in anticipation of meeting Melissa and Manon back at Peels.
Back at our spiritual home in Montreal, we met the ladies at Peels after they’d finished work. When Manon asked me my star sign my initial thought was “surely you’ve got better material than that”, but after I revealed I was a Taurus both her and Melissa looked at each other with an “oh my god” face. Manon then revealed her Tarot card reader said she would soon meet and have a lot of fun with a Taurus man. I couldn’t believe my luck, it was like having a tap in putt to win the Masters at Augusta by 10 shots, it wasn’t going to get any easier. As the night carried on, and we entered our 2nd or 3rd jug, Brad and I decided it was time to serenade these ladies with our musical prowess. We then organised with the chief of karaoke for us to sing Jet’s “Are you gonna be my girl?”. I got the crowd on side by being delightfully charming by opening the song with “We’d like to dedicate this song to 2 special ladies”. To paint the picture for the reader, think Goose and Maverick and the magic they created on the piano in the 80’s classic Top Gun. We also captivated the karaoke chief and he gave us 2 double passes to see a movie the next night. The serenade had the desired effect and our table soon descended into what would have appeared to be a private orgy to the other patrons as we boosted Australian and Canadian international relations by exchanging spit.
Sometime after 1am the ladies said they had to be at work the next day, so we walked them to their car. As we pashed in the car park I was overcome with a minty sensation. It turned out she’d put gum in her mouth before departing Peels, something that Brad discovered Melissa had also done. I appreciated the dedication to dental hygiene through mastication, but it threw me a little. Talking to Manon the next day she said her and Melissa had laughed at me as they drove off as they reckoned I’d strode around the car park like a cowboy (hopefully not like one that’s been hit by a bull).
After seeing the girls off Brad and I walked back to the hostel recounting how well the evening had gone and potentially how good the night would go tomorrow. It was only when we got back to the hostel the excitement soon turned to anger as we discovered “Smoky LeRue” had booked 5 people into our 4 bedroom executive suite. I tell you what, nothing kills a hard on like being forced to sleep head to toe with a mate in a small bunk. To cap off the ideal sleeping conditions in the executive suite, the Scottish bloke on the top bunk had a form of sleeping Tourette’s syndrome, in which he’d wake up, mumble something and then slap himself twice afterwards. Viva Montreal.
Day 12 – Montreal
Not happy with the situation in the $20 executive suite, Brad and I checked out of Lipotak a day early, both agreeing that we needed at least 1 night of air conditioned comfort and for that night to be spent in separate beds. As we’d also booked a 2nd date with Melissa and Manon we also decided a hotel room would have more practical applications if all went well for our last night in Montreal (nudge nudge, wink wink). At check out Brad voiced his disapproval of the service we’d received in the executive suite the night before, but “Smoky LeRue” was still recovering from his breakfast bong so he really didn’t care.
So on yet another hot day, we hauled our stuff to a hotel on Rue Shebrooke for a room that would cost us just under 5 times the amount of the Lipotak executive suite, but the fact the room was air conditioned and had separate beds made it worth every penny. Checked in, we decided to head out to watch Andre Agassi play in the Rogers Cup tournament, an ideal way to just chill for the day while drinking some beers. The day passes for the Montreal metro were scratchy tickets, which only listed the day and the month to scratch off; an ideal situation for the local who could buy one ticket each day for 1 year, and then use one of his collection of 365 tickets over and over again for years to come.
Finally at the tennis after 3 trains, we paid our $34 for a ticket, got some hot dogs, some beers and prepared to sit down and watch some tennis. Unfortunately, the Montreal weather didn’t share the same plan and began to rain after just 2 points. At that moment I was thinking I’m not about to get great value for money here, $17 a point. I suppose you couldn’t get a refund because you’d paid to see tennis, which I had just seen, I was just imaging I was going to see at least 1 game completed. Thankfully, the rain cleared and left us with a hot and humid day. Agassi comfortably took care of Thomas Johansson, as Johansson did the right thing in losing to the crowd favourite. In fact the biggest cheer Johansson got was when he left the court in defeat, as if the crowd was thanking him for losing to Agassi. For me, it was a reminder of why beer was sold at the tennis and why I’d never seen a single match at the Australian Open. Tennis: a game where even the balls get so bored that they lose interest and have to be replaced every 7 games, no doubt happier to spend the rest of their lives in backyard cricket games.
After the Agassi match we headed back to the hotel to tidy ourselves up for the night with Melissa and Manon. We met them both at the movie theatre, where we were to watch the movie “Red eye” with our complimentary tickets we received the night before. It was during the movie I was stuck with a dilemma; a battle for my affections between Manon and my stomach. As I hadn’t had anything to eat since the hot dog at the tennis, I was starving and keen to get my popcorn into my belly. At the same time, this was a scary movie and Manon constantly looked to me for comfort. In a tight fought contest, my stomach won. Who would’ve thought it, the way to a man’s heart truly is through his stomach. I always thought it was through a part of the body just under the stomach, but having been put in the situation to test the hypothesis I can say it is the stomach.
After my poor performance at the movie, we went to the Hard Rock Café and had a pitcher of sangria. All the while I was thinking how are we going to get these ladies to the hotel, before Brad just came out and asked them, appealing to their sense of thrift by saying we had drinks at our room. They must have been on a tight budget as they agreed, so we took care of the bill and headed to the hotel.
It must have looked real suspicious when we had the bottle of Jack Daniels and red wine ready, but it would have seemed as suspicious as a bloke with tattoos dressed in a prison uniform being chased by 5 cops when Brad spilt the red wine on Melissa’s pants while trying to open the bottle. I knew it was unintentional, but Brad was left sitting there with the bottle in his hand like a smoking gun after accidentally shooting someone in the leg (although I think he would have been less apologetic if he had shot someone in the leg). Thankfully, his genuine sorriness was accepted and the party was not killed, much like it would have been if someone had been accidentally shot in the leg.
We talked a lot over drinks, with them describing Brad’s touchy feely manner as a “Big Teddy Bear”, while I was the shy one. Truth was the fact Manon kept banging on about marriage and a fear of dying alone really was beginning to turn me off. I dig chicks that are confident in whom they are, so this was really starting to kill the mood for me. So in the complete opposite to the situation I had anticipated, instead of me trying to get her drunk to loosen her inhibitions, I was now trying to get myself drunk. Thankfully, my old mate JD did enough to drown out the sounds of my conscious mind and soon “Mr Winky” was making all of my decisions for me.
I’ll leave what happened in that room with the 4 people that were present, but the fact that the chicks stayed until 1:30am after initially saying they were going to leave at 11pm was a fair indication we were doing something right. What was most memorable about the night was Manon’s mantra for the night “Oh Peter, it’s so good. It’s like a drug, I don’t want to stop”, a phrase that would amuse Brad and I for the rest of the tour. As for me, it confirmed that foreign women do not abbreviate my name in the moments of passion, as she was the 2nd woman with English as a 2nd language that I’d improved international relations with who constantly called me “Peter”. Viva Montreal.
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