Our Sabbatical Life

On May 17, 2017, Montreal celebrated its 375th birthday with major festivities in Old Montreal, including fireworks, concerts, and a visit by Canada's popular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marking the founding of this beautiful city.  Then May 22 was "Patriot's Day" Holiday (Victoria's Day in most of the rest of Canada).  Filling the space between these two major events?  3 days of parading giants, what else? For a weekend, we all got to be kids!  Once I discovered--in my first week of French classes--that Montreal was to be visited by giant puppets from France's Royal de Luxe Theater , Will and I got to work carefully planning which day (Sunday, the final day) which portion (morning, just in case we miss it and need to resort to the final parade in the afternoon) and which location (the corner before Place des Artes where most of the crowd would be congregated) would prove optimal. When Sunday morning came, we piled into the Montreal metro along with h...

As much as we love French food, American-style brunch was one meal that we always thought we would miss should we eventually move there.  It might be the country of "French Toast" (or "Pain Perdu," literally "lost bread"), but French breakfasts didn't seem to get as creative and interesting--and, yes, over-the-top--as the brunches we enjoy just three doors down from our Chicago-suburb condo.  (We actually have a pretty special brunch place in our neighborhood, so that's not as outrageous a statement as it would seem to others.) Perhaps the abundance and variety of viennoiserie ( pain au chocolate, almond croissant , pain au raisin,  chausson de pommes, etc.) obviate the need for special breakfast items in France?  Well, in Montreal, it looks like you can have your cake and eat it too!  Or, it's more like: You can have your viennoiserie and eat a fabulous brunch too! Last Sunday and this morning, we went to two brunch places--yes, we w...

The French phrase raison d'etre usually refers to the reason for one's existence, reason for being--literally, "reason for to be."  Well, this weekend, Will and I have discovered our raison d'être  for our Montreal trip! It all started out with one of our long walks around our neighborhood in "Little Italy," an up-and-coming, gentrifying, young (and somewhat "hipper"-than-us) neighborhood of Montreal.  I was taking pictures of places we frequent for a future post on our neighborhood, and I had just snapped a picture of our favorite boulangerie , less than a quarter mile walk from our VRBO rental.  Sure, there are actually five or so bakeries all closer to our unit--literally, around the corner, across the street, etc.--but Automne Boulangerie has risen to the top of our list for their truly amazing baguette traditionelle . In any case, after I snapped a picture, I noticed that a sign on the window advertised something called "La ...