Lachine Canal and Atwater Market

Or "Lots of industry, lots of pumpkins."

I headed to Atwater Market, which lies on the Lachine Canal on a "Post-Orientation Saturday" event with the International Office. The group was small, but sweet - I met some lovely people, saw SO many pumpkins, forgot to buy an avocado and managed to come home with Vogue Paris. A crisp Autumn morning well spent. 

Kingston, Ontario for Thanksgiving

Going to the coach station introduced us to a new part of Montreal:

And the beautiful leaves proved a constant distraction en route:

Queen's University Campus:

This is Faye's street! We went to Kingston to visit her for the long Canadian Thanksgiving weekend.

Lakeside of Lake Ontario:

Watching the McGill Redmen play away against the Queen's Gaels. Another new sport to tick off my list. It was really good fun to watch, even if Helena and I were sat surrounded by home supporters (needless to say we were unpopular . . .)

The Wolfe Island ferry. Wolfe Island is a large, inhabited island in Lake Ontario from which you can get a subsequent ferry on to the U.S.! That's how close we were to the border! We rented bikes and cycled to a corn maze, and then took a scenic route back.

On Sunday morning we actually jumped off the pier into Lake Ontario, which was certainly a bracing start to the day. I haven't got any photos of that, but Helena filmed it all for us - so we won't be forgetting our freezing squeals any time soon!

Honestly one of the nicest weekends I have had in a very long while. Kingston was beautiful, and we were treated to such good weather. I loved Wolfe Island and we enjoyed some great food - burgers and French toast, anyone?

Le Marché Jean-Talon

To break up a weekend of essay writing yuckiness, my friend from my course and I went to one of the notoriously good markets in Montréal, Marché Jean-Talon, which is situated in the middle of Little Italy. Now this market was not what you expect of a market nowadays - this only sold fresh produce, and it did so in affordable abundance. Evelyne and I spent a good hour just wandering the various stalls, tasting free samples and analysing apples like true, erm, horticulturists.

We had a late brunch of crêpes, well technically galettes as they were made of buckwheat flour, and man they were tasty. I'd definitely recommend the stand if anyone local is reading this!

A whole stall dedicated to chou-fleur, my dream! I bought myself a 'bouquet' and may or may not have had my photo taken, spurred on by the stall owner, holding some (most) of the stall's produce . . .

Here's a little taste of suburban Montréal as it arrives into Autumn, the colours are gorgeous . . . and are only going to get better!

Two years

 

...always worth the wait.