Bringing a Friend To Montreal for His First Time?

[Calgarian]

So after 4 days in Toronto / Mississauga and 3 days in Montreal, here are my takeaways.

Toronto is a very cool city, as long as you are actually in the city. Fuck the traffic, especially on the 400 highways lol. I ended up staying in a hotel right beside Maple Leaf Gardens and didn't realize it until I was across the street. Went to a nice little pub called "Hair of the Dog" probably the best poutine I had on my trip. Checked out the Well as well, great development, think we need something like that in Calgary. Found a little ramen spot on Queen West called Ramen Remix, thought that was pretty stellar, never had a scallop ramen before. Ended up in the Spadina night market after that, love finding things like that at random. Need to go back to Toronto and spend more time downtown exploring. Found Toronto to be pleasantly clean, and there weren't many sketchy people that I saw. There are always a few, but nothing compared to here. The size of this city is readily apparent, just feels massive and there are almost constant car horns (nothing like NYC though).

Montreal was fantastic, what a neat city. The Old city was better than expected, I'd looked on streetview a few times, but the in person experience was much better, definitely has a very Euro feel to it. Place Des Arts was very cool, lots of cutting edge architecture (very Saucier + Perrotte). I love the subway in Montreal too (thought the stations need an update, there's a strong 70's vibe in there), was a block from a station and it was super convenient. Much better experience than Ubers in Toronto. I checked out the old Forum too, didn't realize what is was until I went inside and saw all the memorabilia, crazy to accidentally find the original 6 building in both cities! Weather was kind of shitty which limited how much exploring I did, wanted to rent a bike and spend an afternoon exploring, but it didn't work out. I will definitely have to go back to Montreal and spend more time! I'm quite surprised how dirty and run down parts of the city are though, a friend sprained her ankle stepping in a pothole in a crosswalk and I think an uber driver might have cracked a wheel on another one. I've never seen a city with the streets in as bad of shape as Montreal, and I've spent a lot of time in Winnipeg! Another thing that struck me was the amount of garbage everywhere, I stayed close to Notre Dame and Atwater, and the underpass under the freeway looked like a garbage dump. I saw lots of homeless, but way less meth heads and fentanyl folded people than Calgary. Not sure why the drug crisis is so much worse in the west...

Joe Beef was worth it, we went all out and had a few rounds of oysters and a nice white wine paired with them. Then appies and a main with another paired bottle of red this time. Found a little pub nearby to catch the end of game 1, sadly Buffalo was on top and the locals weren't feeling too festive. Was a great (but very expensive!) end to the trip. Would have loved to have been caught up in a celebrations by Habs fans, but it was not meant to be.