Tuesday, June 2, 2009

My Trip to Montréal

I don’t often have as much fun as I did this past weekend.

I had planned a weekend trip to Montréal to officially get my season pass to La Ronde and to use that pass. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to let some rain ruin my fun.

I left work at 2:30, and headed back to my place where I quickly packed up my things, took a shower, and hit the road. I made a pit stop in St Albert to pick up some cheese for everyone I was going to be seeing, and headed back to Casselman and filled up the tank with gas (I’ve been living in Ottawa for a year and have yet to fill my car up IN Ottawa – I wonder how long I can continue this). I had a brief Chrysler moment when another Cirrus pulled up behind me at the gas station, and when I crossed the road to stop at McDonald’s to use the washroom and grab some fries I ended up parking next to a Dodge Stratus.

Good omens abound when you see more than one Cirrus/Stratus/Breese in a 1 kilometre radius.

Unfortunately the wait in the McDonald’s washroom was horrible. It took ten minutes for me to just be able to pee. I bought a medium fry after I was finished emptying my screaming bladder, and then I was finally on my way to Montréal.

The drive was completely uneventful, and in fact there was less traffic this time than there was when I drove up in March to see Great Big Sea. I made it to Chantal’s, where she came out and parked my car in her itty-bitty overgrown driveway. We then proceeded to get ready, and then headed out.

Chantal introduced me to a pub called Hurley’s. It’s an Irish pub downtown, where the majority of the people seemed to be English-speaking customers. The band playing that night was Salty Dog, a Celtic/Newfoundland folk rock band. Apparently Celtic rock brings out the Newfies, for there was a table full of ‘em! And not just any Newfies. Newfies in the army! *sighs*

I knew they were army guys, but y’know… I’m certainly not going to go over there and try and weasel my way into any conversations. Not to mention I was with Chantal. We had a big supper together (I had steak, she had chicken) and both had half-pints of black velvet. After the supper, we stuck to coke, and clapping along and singing to the music Salty Dog was playing. We knew it all, of course.

During the break between sets, two of the band members came over and hung out with us. Awesomesauce!

They eventually went to talk to a few more people, and during that time two of the army guys decided to play fight or something across the room and almost fall into our table. My radar was up. This was no accident – the two of them had done this on purpose! So I smiled at them and said, “Having fun, are ya?” and they immediately sat down at our table and the cuter one started flirting with me! Yay for army boys (no, scratch that… army MEN!) flirting with Kogo! He bought me a drink, we talked for a bit, but the guys eventually left, dragging him with them. And I didn’t even manage to give him my phone number. Oh, poo! But it was fun, nonetheless, and I felt great having flirted with a soldier. Haven’t done that in a few months!

We made it home after midnight, and were both falling asleep before one. I awoke at 7:30 and got dressed and packed my things and folded blankets neatly, and read for a bit until Chantal awoke at 8:00. She got ready to go and we skipped out the door to find ourselves a big hearty breakfast. After breakfast, we stopped and bought a postcard which I sent off to an X-Files friend in New Zealand.

She then dropped me off at the Metro station, and I made my way down to wait for James who showed up at exactly 10:00am. Which means the subway system in Montreal is freaking fantastic. We hopped on the Metro and made our way to La Ronde! Mind you, we also had to grab a bus for a short 3 minute bus ride that takes you straight to the front gates.

We were at La Ronde by ten-thirty. James bought his season pass while there, and we headed over to the gates in the pouring rain to wait with what seemed like hundreds of teenagers. I felt quite old, really, I did.

At eleven, the gates were rolled up, and James and I made our way to the line where we would set up our season pass cards. I got to skip the line as I already filled out my information online and all I needed was my picture to be taken.

While waiting for James I got to watch three baby starlings waiting for their mother to return to the nest with food. They were noisy little brats, but they were so adorable to watch. The wait finally over, we turn to the park before us and find that the rain has stopped, it’s warmed up, and the water is drying up quickly. Hurrah!

We hit the pavement, and the first ride we go on is the Toboggan Nordique, which is a baby rollercoaster. And it sucked. Horribly. I don’t think we’ll ever go on that ride again.

While waiting in line for the Orbite, James embarrassed the hell out of me. A sign basically said not to touch other people while on the ride. James turned to me and said, “Lynne, this means you can’t molest any gingers on this ride.”

Thanks, James.

Funny how you didn’t notice the ginger wigger standing in front of us, eh James? Because guess what? He certainly heard you say that! He immediately turned around and caught himself a glimpse of me. I didn’t mention to James that this guy was a ginger (hat covered his hair) until we were finally out of earshot. And then James thought it was great. And he had plans for the day. Find the ginger wigger again.

The ginger wigger is an almost ginger. He most certainly was a ginger for most of his adolescent life, no doubt. But as he grew older his hair grew darker until it became almost a shade of brown. But upon removing his white wigger hat, you will notice that it is indeed a deep red. And this white wigger hat? It’s placed crookedly upon his wigger head in the wigger fashion of 10 years ago. He is wearing white wigger shoes and oddly enough a white belt which most probably came from Moore’s. He is wearing wigger jeans, and they seem oddly new. And his wigger shirt seems to have a wigger vest over it. Interesting. The ginger wigger is very intrigued by me. Because apparently I like to molest gingers – or so my fellow “ride warrior” says. This intrigues him very much. He might have a chance to be molested!

We run into him in line yet again – on The Vampire. I see him first, and immediately spit out, “Ah fuck,” to which James says, “What?” and I clam up. Unfortunately, this display of disappointment and resentment was proof enough that the ginger wigger (or gigger for short) was nearby. James sees him, he finally sees us and James begins to jump up and down pointing at me. The ginger wigger eyes me once more. I feel a cold chill down my spine, as I realize he is probably undressing me with his wigger eyes. We end up getting on the ride the same time as gigger and his friends. I am three rows back and directly behind gigger. We ride the ride, we have fun, and finally get off. Upon getting off, James magically turns to the left instead of exiting the ride. As I get off, he yells, “Lynne, over here!” and as I turn back, the ginger wigger is directly behind me! We make eye contact and I know precisely that he knows I like gingers. I shudder, because while I do like gingers, I detest wiggers.

We both seem to walk across the park in the same general direction, but I finally am able to steer James in a different direction. And for some time we are safe from the gigger. Until later, after getting off the Monster. As we walk away from the coaster, James looks back at the line waiting to get on and sees him. I run away before the gigger can spot me (while James is shouting and pointing me out).

For the rest of the day the gigger blessedly keeps his distance from us. We hit up the Goliath (the best rollercoaster in the park) about four times. We went on the Vampire twice, the Cobra once (it huuurts), the Monstre twice, the Boomerang, and yes, even the teacups. The teacups sound like dying whales.

We went on le Pitoune and Le Splash. If you want to be soaked to the bone, I suggest getting on Le Splash. Not only do you get a Le Splash, but people can pay 2 bucks to fire waterguns at you.

We rode the coasters up until closing then got on the bus to take us back to the subway station. The lines inside were huge, so we decided to wait for a bit at a very interesting park. The park had these water fountains that would sporadically burst out, and during the warmer months I think it will be a lot of fun to run through them. But in late May, it is still a bit too cold. Didn’t stop us from having fun, however. There was trance/dance/techno music being played a bit away, and we figure this place would be great to have a party. We danced through the fountains, took some silly pictures, and then finally got on the subway and had the fun of stopping at Chantal’s to get my stuff and then heading to James’ place where Sarah was waiting for us. We had an extremely late supper, and then I passed out on their recliner. We awoke the next day, went to Tim Hortons for breakfast, and then we all piled onto the subway. Sarah left us to head downtown while James and I continued on to our favourite pastime – hitting the rollercoasters.

Ginger Wigger was nowhere to be found that day. However, we did see one ginger getting on the Goliath was epically excited. And when I say epically excited, I’m serious. He was front row on the Goliath, and when he sat down and got settled in, he turned to his friends with this huge smile on his face and clapped his hands excitedly. Now, he would have been a gorgeous ginger, except he had a faux-hawk. That sort of ruined his look. But otherwise… very beautiful for a ginger.

On Sunday we recorded the Goliath twice. Once from midway down the train, and once from the front. I plan on making a video of it. We also recorded the monstre, and also a few other things. Around four o’clock it began to rain. While a lot of the rides began to close down, we still made our way to the Vampire, and managed to get on. Going on the Vampire in the rain may have been a bit extreme, but it was still worth it. By the end of that, we bought some Goliath sweaters, and headed in the direction of Le Dragon, one of the most lame coasters in the park.

While Le Dragon still remains to be one of our least favourites, it still is an indoor coaster. That being the reason we were heading toward it, we tramped through puddles and finally got into the very short line for Le Dragon. There was a reason the line was so short, despite it being one of the few rides that got you out of the rain. While the sound was working, the lights weren’t! So James and I went through the very short ride inside in the pitch black, listening to creepy music. We have determined that this ride is much better when you don’t get to see then dragons and creepy eyes blinking at you. We went on Le Dragon twice before we decided to go get some food.

We stopped at Rolopan and bought food wrapped in crepes. I had blueberry and custard while James decided to try a cheeseburger crepe. Mine was delicious, but I also got to try some of his. The cheeseburger crepe is amazing! We have determined that Rolopan will be our food of choice when we go to La Ronde in the following few months. Why spend ridiculous amounts of money on poutines and burgers when you can spend that same ridiculous amount of money on something you can’t get anywhere else? If I’m going to be frivolous with my earnings, the least I can do is be frivolous with rare things.

After finishing our crepes, we headed onto the Goliath again, twice in a row! There were no lines at all, so why not take advantage of the situation? After getting our Goliath fix, we headed off to play a few games and win a few toys. I ended up winning a stuffed elephant, a tiger Taz, and a bunch of flowers. James won a Batman for Sarah, a pink whale, and a penguin.

We bought some cotton candy for Sarah and headed back to the subway station, where we once again stopped in the park. Only this time, James decided to be evil and risk the poor pink whale’s life. I can only describe what happened next in a series of photos.

Ooh, a fountain!


Tehehe! Die, whale, die!


He looks so lonely and helpless!


Little whale refuses to be blown away by the water.


I am whale, hear me roar!


Right before I ran in to save him:


This is what happens when you run through a fountain to save a little pink whale.


Poor little guy is now in my hands after James traded it for one of my many flowers. All of my newly acquired stuffed animals are sitting on my recliner in my living room. After we had fun in the fountains, and I was soaked down my side, we made it back to Chantal’s where we got my car and I drove James home. And the rest is a very uneventful car ride home, although I did find someone like me who understands what cruise-control is, and we ended up driving all the way to Ottawa one behind the other. I enjoy smart drivers!

I shall now leave you with two videos I have made from the footage James got.