Quebecwhaaa?: Miss Stacia Goes To Canada (Part Un)

Oh, Canada.

I booked my Summer '09 trip to Canada at the last minute, not knowing I would be hitting Montreal during the incomparable Jazz Fest until after my plane tickets were purchased, not expecting so many friends to offer up detailed itineraries that would run me frenzied around the city, not realizing the Canada Day Parade would literally march up to the front door of my hotel until I opened up my morning newspaper and walked outside for my daily oeufs.

The trip started of as somewhat of a clusterfuck affair when I realized my passport, which had expired on May 29, 2009, would be required to gain entry into and exit from our North American neighbor as of June 1, 2009. With fifteen days until my departure, Project Update Passport commenced. Against a background of white foam board velcroed over a wall of Mailboxes Etc. PO boxes, and under harsh flourescents used only to light corporate pack-and-ship institutions and the county morgue, a hyper-close mugshot was taken. In it, I resemble the cowardly lion on crack, thanks to a fourteen day stint of the most humid weather in New York history -- the ideal environment in which to prep for glamour shots that will stay with you for the next decade. But I guess it's better than the old photo, originally taken for a fake ID and swiped from my high school desk drawer by a mother with a nose for sniffing out rebellion, to be used on my actual passport. ("You saved me a trip!" she would say when she unearthed it.)

The last ten years, when the customs officers flipped open my little book and scanned their eyes from the passport, to me, to the passport, it was clear I was the kind of girl who wore makeup to the pool in her teenage years.


Would you let hair this big into your country?

Once that ugly deed was done, I crossed my fingers and launched my packet of materials into a bureaucratic hole of empty promises and extended processing times. But thanks to frequent and aggressive stalking of the passport processing hotline, and enough superstitious restraint to drive my airline ticket prices up another two hundred dollars, my passport arrived, five days after I sent it away. Once that puppy was in my hands I allowed myself to lift my cautionary ban on travel research and made some actual plans for how to spend my days using my nifty Montreal and Quebec City "For Smarties" guide.


Duct tape is the new graphic design.

From its conception, my Canada trip was a solo adventure, two nights in Quebec City followed by five in Montreal. I wanted to follow my every impulse without negotiation. If I wanted to sleep in and do nothing or, conversely, wake up at 6am to climb to the top of a 700 foot mountain, I didn't want to worry about how a travel companion would feel about it. If I wanted Italian food, I didn't want to be convinced to eat Chinese. I wanted some time to read and write and reflect and just be with myself in uncomplicated peace.

Or maybe I was just looking for an excuse to do more of this:






Who, me?

An onslaught of digital narcissism was inevitable, but it's hard to capture yourself in a meaningful way on film on a solo vacation. There are only so many ways you can vary a shot when working at arm's length. A lovely young woman did offer to take a picture of me at the Kondiaronk Belvedere (at the pinnacle of Parc Mont-Royal) after watching me struggle, arm outstretched, neck strained like a frightened peacock, trying to get both my upper quadrant and the entire Montreal skyline in the shot, using a device positioned two feet from my face. But though I let her wield my camera to capture the moment, I still like all the shots I took of myself better. They just capture the true spirit of my trip, and the intimacy I had with...well...myself. Also, in my experience, the close framing of the self portrait helps minimize the jewfro, which was at its peak in the humid Canadian summer air.

The Food:

Of course, food was a big deal to me on this trip. Before I left I knew dining and looking for places to dine would consume about 60-80 percent of my time. My perpetual hunger (and talent for seeking out food even when full) did not disappoint.

My first dining destination, which I hit about ten minutes after laying my bags down in a Quebec City hotel, was a rustic cafe called The Hobbit, which is the place nerds go when the concierge relays five suggestions, and one of them holds a Tolkien reference. Patrick, The Hobbit's scruffy and adorable afternoon waiter had just enough broken English to complement my rusty French (which I was testing in conversation for the first time in a decade), and after a few minutes of culinary contemplation I finally asked him the typical annoying patron question: "What's the best thing on the menu?" He told me he really liked the deerburger, and looked genuinely surprised when I said, "Done!" Operation Meatsploration had officially begun.


Tastes like children's tears.

The deerburger sparked a desire in me to try as many types of game as I possibly could, which by the end of the trip included venison, pheasant and bison (the clear favorite). Though the deerburger was pretty delicious, mostly I wanted to dig into my adorable waiter, who would later sit down and share a beer with me, exchange music recommendations, and tell me the wild story about how he can't visit the states, because his charge for possession of marijuana few years ago doesn't permit him to leave the country for another EIGHT YEARS. Say no to drugs, adorable Canadians. Do it for your...little Canadian.

Now. When you travel to Canada, you have to eat poutine. It's the law. When you leave the country, customs officers hook you up to lie detector machines and ask you if you've tried their "national delicacy," and if you haven't, they plug your nose and shovel in the french fries, drenched in gravy, and plunked with chunks of cheese curd. Then they make you tell them you like their calorie-laden concoction more than good ol' American diner disco fries. (UNTRUE.) I've seen all this go down, and it's not pretty. Which is why you should probably just try poutine at your leisure.


First Poutine, also known as, the coma.

Unfortunately between my first and second dances with poutine I didn't learn that this dish is only to be consumed when you're on the verge of starvation. Or when you're really, really hammered. In other words, poutine ain't no 3pm snack. When consumed in full, in the middle of the afternoon, on an empty stomach, it could lead to crazy, dangerous consequences. You could be eating poutine one minute, the next thing you know, you're in a full out coma:


The Allfather Poutine

One minute you're devouring Second Poutine, and the next, you wake up in a movie theater showing "The Proposal."


Did Ryan Reynolds put you up to this?

Other trance-inducing foods I consumed along the way included bacon pizza:

Also known as Meat-za.

A salty, smoked meat sammich from Schwartz's, the Canadian Katz's:

Also known as a Meatwich.

And the most AweXome brunch ever, which included just about anything I would ever want to start my morning with on one plate, including fluffy scrambled eggs, gigantic sticks of fresh, sharp cheddar, and the flakiest croissant that's ever touched this pastry lover's lips, stuffed with soft goat cheese, and of course, du jambon. (That's meat, kids.)

Also known as Meatfast.

But of all the places I ate, the Best/Corniest Menu/Restaurant Environment Award went to a place in the Mont Royal district of Quebec, called Cora (Chez Cora). A chain that serves breakfast all day, Cora is basically what you'd get if Friendly's opened in the Amish country.


The snozzberries taste like snozzberries.

With an emphasis on crepes, waffles and fresh fruit sides, Cora offered up some IHOP-inspired combination breakfasts, one of which kept me full one day from 10am-4pm. I was in love with their bright sunny menu, featuring their massive breakfast specials among scrawled pictures of huge suns.


I would like the fruit castle, please.

Cora's menu photographer is really big on tightly cropped mid-shots. Cora herself is really big on Halloween eggings.


"Let's get Mr. Wilson's house!"

All of the above were reasons I was immediately forced to go on the No Poutine Diet upon my return to the States. Yet, in spite of my personal boycott of decadent drunk foodstuffs, I brought you all back a Canadian culinary souvenir, which opened in New York the week after my fry-free regiment began. You'll have to let me know how the curdstuffs taste and whether or not I'm right about the superiority of the disco fries. Just don't express your opinion at the border. Those Canadians are serious about their poutine. They'll have Dan Akyroyd on your ass so fast, your head will spin.


The 'Tainment:
Things I did, (many of which I didn't initially intend to do) in Canada:

A long spell of wet East coast weather was still lingering by the time I got to Canada, and the sky happened to open up on a Monday in Montreal when many of the indoor attractions (like museums) are closed. Stuck downtown, contemplating the options immediately available to me, my first thought was, "Fuck the Leave-Your-TV-on-DVD-Obsessions-Behind plan, I should have brought The Wire with me." This was immediately followed by regret at not buying this book earlier in the day at Mortimer Snodgrass in Vieux Montreal:


Because most of us need the encouragement.

Luckily, around the corner from the closed galleries in the Belgo Building on rue Sainte-Catherine was a movie theater. Sadly, it was only playing "Transformers" (all I needed was to read this review to know I didn't need to go in for the sequel) "Star Trek" (which I saw twice on mother's day weekend, once with my nerdaliscious mama) and "The Proposal." It just so happens, while dining at the Hobbit, I read a review of "Le Proposal" in a French language paper that filled me in on the movie's major plot points. Basically, Sandra Bullock's character is a high-powered publishing executive who is about to get deported to her native Canada ("Oui! oui!" exulted the paper) if the sappy Ryan Reynolds (who is Canadian in real life!) won't marry her.  Wet and stranded, in the middle of the afternoon, somehow I convinced myself that seeing "The Proposal" in Canada was akin to my seeing "MILK" in San Francisco. "It's relevant to the location! Historical/cultural research!" But after two hours of watching Sandra Bullock ape Meryl Streep aping Anna Wintour, and Ryan Reynolds sulking around like a limp french fry, all I'd learned was that Coach is still working, and that none of the magic of Canada was contained within the theater of an American rom com.

**By the way according to VOIR, the Quebecois French culture weekly that reviewed "Le Proposal," even the Canadians hated "Year One." And they love everybody/everything. These people have the friendliest reputation on the planet. Their independence day doesn't even celebrate separation from another nation, but rather marks the day a bunch of provinces got together and said, "We've been dating for this long, let's make this union official."  Not even gentle, diplomatic Canada thought caveman-style Jack Black was funny.

Other things I probably shouldn't have spent time on in Canada included stopping even for ten seconds to photograph this:


Canadians Are Just Like Us!

I also took pictures of the international versions of all the Harry Potter covers to send to my sister, who was about halfway through the series at the time and going through a phase of making jokes and citing references last relevant in 1999. ("Alohamora!")


Posters, Graffiti and Tattoos: The Trifecta

As someone who spends most of her life on the hunt for awesome street art in a city with the most annoying public postering laws EVA, it didn't take me long to to notice the abundance of gigposters plastered all over Montreal's super hip Plateau neighborhood. They were everywhere:



Take a cue from the Canucks, NYC.


I also stumbled upon some fun, bridgeside graffiti in Montreal, on my walk to breakfast in Mont Royal.




Even less legible in another language!


At first I thought this adorable little tattoo shop in Quebec City was called "Tatouage," but it turns out that's just how you say "tattoo parlor" en Francais.


Sign stolen from the yard of the Disney Haunted Mansion.

The name of this place was actually Monster Ink, and it was manned by a fellow named Bert. No, I didn't know the Quebecois were allowed to name their children Bert either. I also didn't know tattoo artists named Bert kept impressive collections of rare rock posters and an endless number of vinyl toys on display in their quaint little tattoo shops, solely for the purpose of entrapping American women who might happen upon their shop on solo vacations, and who are obsessed with exactly these things.  However, later reflecting upon my Brian Ewing, Lindsay Kuhn and Coop-inspired postergasm, I realized I probably have the same taste in art and cultural kitsch as ninety percent of tattoo artists in North America.


You seduced me, oh things I love.

As for how/why I left this little spot with a tiny star embedded in my wrist, again I blame the poutine. After consuming my first three thousand-calorie serving, I rolled into Tatouage, eyes in a glaze, and, in love with my lowbrow surroundings, had a mark that will forever be confused with a nightclub admission stamp or a sharpie doodle inked into my arm forever.



I will tell you now why you should not do this. The next time you see your Jewish parents, they will inevitably bring up The Holocaust. They will bring up the issue of your future cemetary plot, and how you will no longer be able to lie in eternal rest next to them, something you clearly should have been thinking about while you were on vacation. But worst of all, one night when you are visiting them on Long Island, forcing them to watch "The Hills," reality-ditz villian Kristin Cavailleri will, while sunning herself, look down at her feet and say, "I think I should add another star to my ankle," and you will have to be held down by your own parents from scraping your skin off with a steak knife.

Or maybe, months later, you'll just be glad you didn't eat poutine in Greenpoint in time to take advantage of 3 Kings' "Halloween Special." It's way harder to scrape a pumpkin off your lower leg than it is to laser off a 1/4 inch star.

BONUS! The Crafts:

The promise I made to myself regarding vacation purchases was that I wasn't allowed to buy anything in Canada that I could also find in the states. But living in New York, there isn't much I need or want that I can't find within a few square miles of my work and home. Crafted in a large underground studio in Vieux Montreal, Roland Dubuc's sleek, metal creations were literally the only thing that tempted me on the entire trip, and sadly they were too expensive for me to even consider. Dubuc, a truly visionary craftsman, creates each of his complex, geometric pieces of jewelry from one single sheet of carefully cut metal. Employing the main principles of origami (his models are all crafted first from paper), and an extensive background in sculpture, Dubuc cuts thin sheets of silver and gold from meticulously planned patterns, and literally folds and molds each piece into a winding, sculpted masterpiece.


Vive de l'architecture

There is no soldering of metal, whatsoever. Each piece is a work of great structural planning and impeccable execution. And Dubuc is adorably shy, impossibly sweet, and will give you a full tour of his studio if you simply ask.


Dubuc's table of paper models. The next logical step after learning the swan.

Feel free to peruse Dubuc's full line on his website, and pick out something nice for my birthday or Hanukkah, both of which just passed. That's right, you forgot to get me something. Make it up to me?

Continued in Quebeqwaaa? Miss Stacia Goes To Canada (Part Deux)...