Random Montreal Excursion

On Thursday a few weekends ago, Michelle randomly suggested that we go to Montreal for the weekend, since she had some days off and I had a car.  I was like "sure, why not."  Ryan Stots is living there now, so it'd be a great visit.  So we quickly got some stuff together, drove up after work, and got to Ryan's apartment around 10pm on Friday.  Driving through northern Vermont is beautiful btw.  The loft Ryan is renting is pretty great and it was awesome of him to let us stay with him.  Our first order of business was to go over to Ryan's favorite schwarma place: Boustan.  So delicious.  Probably the best I've ever had.  The local schwarma chain, Amir, doesn't even come CLOSE.  Which is why we were booing it at the end of the night.
After NOT ENOUGH schwarma, we headed over to Hurley's, which is my favorite bar in Montreal.  Two floors of great folksy bands.  The band that always plays there was there yet again on my third visit, and they are awesome.  We proceeded to have plenty of drinks (this weekend would not be cheap) and met an American, Morgan, who hung out with us most of the night.  We were singing along and Irish dancing: it was amazing.  We got them to play Wagon Wheel and we danced for literally hours: when I was completely out of sweat.

A night at Hurley's has never gone wrong

 When the bar finally closed at 3:30am, we took a cab to go to a poutine restaurant near Ryan's apartment.  But midway through the drive the cab driver decided to take us to a different one, claiming it was better.  Fair enough.  It was really good though.  We walked back to Ryan's, playing a little street piano on the way as the Sun rose behind us.  Ryan and I then played guitar and sang until well into the morning before finally going to sleep with the Sun already in the sky.
Saturday morning was a warm one.  The three of us attempted to see Old City and the BioDome.  We certainly saw a bit of Old City in the intensifying heat, but Michelle and I could not find our way over to the BioDome, so we gave up and walked back to Ryan's.

Jumping is the only way to travel in Montreal

 Ryan in the meantime was busy trying to procure a suit and shoes that would fit me.  Our mission for the evening was to crash a wedding.
At breakfast, Ryan told us a story of how he and a friend had done it before with great success, so now the seed was planted: it was a Saturday in July.  We were all in, pending me finding a suit somehow.  There was a Chateau that always hosts weddings, and Ryan located the attire that fit... it was on.
Our plan for the Montreal Wedding Crash Adventure was for Ryan and I to be the Thompson-Westra brothers and Michelle was to be Ryan's date.  We were originally from Montreal, but I had been living in Boston and lost my French speaking abilities (that is a thing now).  So after a wonderful, vivid, purple sunset at the top of Mont Royal, we drove over to the hotel and went to the hotel bar to calm our nerves.  After some waffling, we finally located a big enough wedding party and dove right in.  And danced: it went well.  Until somebody said an announcement in French and Ryan informed me that it was time for dessert, and us with no seats.  So we took a little hiatus back to the hotel bar for Limoncello, and came right back.  We danced, got some drinks from the open bar, ate some wedding cake, and of course signed the guestbook.  Ryan's entry was "Keep on Truckin' - KTW."  It was a great time.

Playing the part of boyfriend/girlfriend although we never actually got to use that backstory

"We were specifically invited to this wedding"

 The language barrier made things a bit difficult, but we pulled it off.  We left and tried to enter another wedding, but it was just finishing up and there were like 20 people left in the room: we were promptly escorted out.  Still a successful night.
We arrived back into the city in time for some famous corn beef at Schwartz's and then visited a bar near Ryan's apartment.  He was getting a little sleepy though, so we called it quits for the evening.
Sunday morning included a casual brunch with some of Montreal's famous bagels.  We had many intellectual debates pertaining to the Astron Song.  We then checked out Tam Tams - a drum/instrument drum circle gathering near Mont Royal.  We brought Ryan's guitar and went to town on it.  It was phenomenal.

I was playing "Wagon Wheel" nonstop FYI

 Unfortunately we had to head back to Boston in the late afternoon; I wish we could have stayed longer.  It was definitely an amazing weekend.