Friday was the day we were going to go skating, no ifs, ands or buts. After breakfast, we caught the train to Parc Mont-Royal and then walked up the hill, over snow-and-ice covered footpaths through a winter wonderland to rival Narnia, before getting to Beaver Lake (Lac aux Castors), which was meant to have a big ice skating rink on the lake. The lake would have indeed been excellent to skate around (it’s huge and curved) but was closed and wouldn’t be open until Sunday. My skates would not be used once again.
We stopped in the cafe for a while, where I got the third degree from the woman behind the counter for not wanting to eat mayonnaise…or beef. Apparently she is so lucky because when she goes on holiday she can eat whatever she wants. I’m sure she wasn’t intending to be rude, but it came out that way.
After our little rest, we walked up the hill to the chateau, past a group of girls feeding squirrels (who were then surprised when the squirrels jumped on their legs begging for more food), and looking out over Montreal. We played on the free piano in the chateau, sat in the comfy chairs, and then walked back down the hill to the bus stop.
Next on the list was St Joseph’s Oratory. Two buses and a spot of lunch in a bookshop later we got to the oratory, climbed the hill, had a look in the chapel before going up to the basilica. It’s an impressive old style church on the outside with a domed roof, imposing over the people below. Inside the decor has been modernized, complete with stylized Christs and disciples, orange lighting and not what you’d expect in a church whose outside heralds back to older times. After a quick trip inside and out, we went back down the hill, Donna making snow angels in the snow banks, and then catching the bus and train back to the hotel.
I then found out my friend Sebastian was in town and planning to go out that night so we connected and made plans for the evening. Donna and I later went in search of food, settling on a place on Jacques-Cartier square which wasn’t that great but options were limited. Our hopes of getting hot maple cider from a stand in the square were dashed when, after dinner, we discovered it had shut for the door.
We then went back to the Old Port to go ice skating, arriving at the moment the zambone was wheeled out to clean the ice. The ticket booth also closed so we couldn’t buy tickets for the rink. We waited inside, watching ice hockey, until people were again allowed back on the ice. Donna hired skates, I put mine on and then we hit the ice. The ticket booth didn’t reopen so we skated for free.
There were a lot of people out on the ice, not surprising for a Friday night, and a lot of them were couples on dates. There were some excellent skaters out there, and some not so excellent ones, including a guy who was being helped off the ice when we were about to get on, his nose cut and bleeding from having face planted.
I found it a little hard to skate and definitely wasn’t as confident as I’ve been at other times. Donna did excellent though, the only thing slowing her down were her cold toes (we were on the port). We stayed for about 45 minutes and then opted to go home and wait for Sebastian to let us know when he’d be back.
We amused ourselves by watching TV. The movie, Moliere, was on. It’s in French, I’d seen it before with subtitles, but as this was a French channel, we were a little lost as my memory of exactly what happens was a little frayed. We got hungry again and went for kebabs down the road at 11pm. We were also getting tired and thought we’d give Sebastian until 12. He got in contact shortly after and we went to Sky and met him there.
The place was busy, the cloakcheck a heaving mass of disorganisation. We found Sebastian (or rather he found us) and were introduced to his friends. Had some cheap drinks, danced to some tunes, and then it was 3am and we were leaving. Very glad to have at least gone out once while on this trip away.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?