I'm back from Montréal, and I thought I'd share a description of the rest of my trip (after the Botanical Gardens). I had a chance to catch up with sfllaw over some wonderful food at la Montée de Lait in his part of town. The city of Montréal should probably pay him for his public relations services, as he makes a convincing argument that it's a great place to live, and by extension that I should move there. :) For the past few days I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on my degree of geographical inertia and my career prospects. I can't say I've come to any conclusions—indeed, contemplating such big changes is unsettling to me, but I hope it'll lead to happiness in the long run.

Anyway, we walked around the city and eventually found the location of a party to celebrate the wedding earlier that day of a couple of sfllaw and his sweetheart Aleece's friends. The party was in an awesome loft space downtown. Arriving significantly earlier than the other guests, who were being shuttled over by bus from elsewhere in the city, we chatted with fellow partygoer Xavier, a nice guy who'd just gotten off his shift working at a Portuguese restaurant. Really, everyone I met in Montréal was nice and genuinely friendly. Once the party got going, I got dragged onto the dance floor a few times, but I had a hard time not feeling self-conscious and lonely.

On Sunday morning I met sfllaw, Aleece, dcoombs, diluvienne, and Paul from Toronto for dim sum, beginning a languorous day of dining that would take us to la Brûlerie St-Denis and of course to Camellia Sinensis. All that caffeine was not enough to keep everyone from needing a nap—it's too bad Montréal doesn't have a napping salon. :)

Dinner was quite the experience, as I joined dcoombs at O Noir, one of these "dark" restaurants you may have heard about where you eat in total darkness, served by blind waitstaff. I ordered a "surprise" main dish, just to heighten the excitement. :) At this restaurant, you order (and pay the bill afterwards) out in the lobby, which also houses a bank of lockers to stow your belongings so they don't get in the way in the dark dining room. My main dish turned out to be veal with smothered mushrooms, steamed potatoes, and asparagus. The menu choices and table settings—aside from the lack of table centerpiece—weren't different from what you'd expect in a normal restaurant. Wine in regular stemware, the routine complement of flatware, et cetera. Less difficult than I expected was identifying my food; more difficult than I expected was getting an appropriate amount onto my fork and getting it from there to my mouth. I resorted to eating with my fingers for the most part. If one is trying to simulate the experience of dining out as a blind person, this would certainly be cheating. I was going more for the sensory experiment, or at least that's what I'm telling myself to justify the gravy under my fingernails at the end of the meal. :) On a side note, I find that I enjoy conversing in the dark, which I suspect has to do with the loss of self-consciousness.

The next morning, I spend my last few hours in the city in the Quartier Latin, picking up some newly-arrived Yu Shan tea and enjoying a lemon-and-sugar crêpe on the terrace of La Brioche Lyonnaise.

My return flights were uneventful with the exception of the Canadian authorities' confiscation of my small embroidery scissors. The TSA allows scissors with blades shorter than four inches, and I'd unconsciously assumed that the U.S. would have the most restrictive list of prohibited items of any nation in this hemisphere, but it seems I'm wrong, as CATSA prohibits all scissors. Something to note for next time.

Enjoy pictures from my day at the Montréal Botanical Garden. Apologies for the many non-descriptive photo titles—I don't know many of the names for these flowers besides the tulips, orchids, and a couple others. I didn't realize beforehand that it's Great Gardening Weekend there, so some areas were very crowded, but there were advantages, too, like the Thés C.G. booth and the refreshment stand run by Société du Jardin de Chine de Montréal. In the Japanese pavilion, I got in on a tour of the tea garden, led by a member of the Montréal Urasenke community, of which, now that I google it, diluvienne is also a member? The same diluvienne whom I'll be meeting tomorrow morning? Qu'est-ce petit monde! (Apologies for the mangled French, too :) )