Okay, so Chocoholic and I just returned from a 6-day trip to a Sivinanda Yoga Ashram in Val-Morin, Quebec, with stops in Val-David, Saint-Lazare, and Montréal.
In the meantime, the crew got to work at Xoozland, and the new vinyl floors look fabulous! WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I’ll post pictures (or links to where they are) as soon as I have them available.
So about our trip…
We drove to the Sivinanda Yoga Ashram in Val-Morin, Quebec on Wednesday. That took most of the day, and we got there just in time for dinner. Later, we pitched our tent, and attended an interesting talk on Indian Astrology.
The next morning, I woke up with a sore neck, probably because of how I was sleeping in the tent. I was barely able to complete the morning yoga class, and was in severe pain for the rest of the day. I couldn’t go to the afternoon class, so instead, I spent an hour or so in the bathroom with an old sock and some hot water. That seemed to help, as did the sauna after dinner.
By Friday morning, my neck had loosened up enough that I could participate in the morning yoga class.
We checked out of the ashram after brunch, then went to go cycling (in the rain!) along the old rail trail from Val-Morin to Val-David. We went up the hill and down again along the access path, and got as far as the trail itself when POP! phssssssttt! I had a blow-out, and my rear tire went flat. So we had to walk back into Val-Morin, where we went to the funky cafe/used bookstore/health food store/bike rental place where we had parked the car. They sold me a new tube, and allowed me to use the repair space in the garage so I could fix my bike.
By then it was about three o’clock, and I’d had enough futzing in the rain for one day. We decided to drive to Val-David to see the 1001 Pots ceramics exhibition. It was quite amazing, and while there were many things we liked, we decided that we didn’t really have room for anything new yet.
We were going to stay the night with Chocoholic‘s friend in Saint-Lazare, about an hour outside of Montréal, so we hit the road again. The rain decided it wanted to come out and play again, so we drove down out of the Laurentians in the pouring rain. Crazy Quebec drivers, and bad weather… Talk about an adventure!
Dinner that night consisted of a “toastie” (grilled hot dog) and poutine at a greasy-spoon joint called La Belle Province. I’d never had the authentic poutine before. Yum!
On Saturday morning, we went to Finnegan’s Market in nearby Hudson. There were a couple of pieces of furniture we thought about buying. One was a great bench, with storage under the seat. The other was a narrow bookcase, which I wanted to use for Orson’s cage. In the end, we decided against either piece. We didn’t think we could fit the bench in my car, and I thought I could build the bookcase for less than the $160 they wanted. I did, however, buy a really nice tea caddy, something I’ve been trying to find for years.
Later, we drove to our hotel in Montréal so we could be closer to where we needed to be for a family brunch the next morning. Not that it did me any good, but we discovered that contestants for the Miss Hawaiian Tropic bikini pageant were staying there!
After we checked in, we drove downtown to meet my parents, younger brother and family for dinner at Homard Fou Restaurant in Old Montreal. I spent a full half hour driving around to find parking, only to end up a dozen blocks away… exactly where we stopped to look for directions when got off the highway!! GGGGRRRRRRRRRR!
On Sunday, we went to meet up with family again to celebrate my uncle’s 70th birthday. The party was held at the Dollar Cinema. This place is a great concept: EVERYTHING is $1! Tickets, drinks, candy, popcorn… $1.
After the party, we visited Chocoholic cousin and went downtown to St-Viateur Bagel. You really shouldn’t leave Montreal without getting some hot bagels, fresh out of the oven!
