Day 2:

11:00 AM – The next morning, we walked over to the Mile-End neighborhood to see how it earned its reputation of being the hipsters hangout. A local attraction there is the Fairmount Bagel Bakery. In the words of a local shop-keeper in the area, a true Montreal moment is biting into a sesame bagel, served hot right from a brick oven at the Fairmount Bagel Bakery on a beautiful morning along with a good cup of coffee. Enticed by his description, ML and I decided to hunt down this place and see for ourselves how a Montreal bagel compared to its New York brethren. Upon getting there, I took the shopkeeper’s advice and ordered hot sesame bagel while ML ordered a cinnamon raisin. The bagels were noticeably skinnier and less doughy than your bagels at H&H. While I did enjoy the sesame bagel (though not as satisfying), ML’s cinnamon raisin bagel was hard as a rock and watching her face as she tried to bite it was priceless. She had half an intention of beating some sense into the shop-keeper’s head with her bagel.

12:00 PM – After the bagel debacle, we walked down Boulevard St. Laurent to St. Catherine Street. This is another great stretch of the city to walk through. You find shop after shop of local designer boutiques (much to ML’s delight its mostly women’s clothing) as well as, interestingly enough, a lot of Portugese restaurants and shops. Veer of St. Laurent a little and you’ll find a row of restaurants on Rue. Prince Arthur with sidewalk seating. Still hungry from the from the unsatisfying breakfast, we stopped into a Greek restaurant for a quick bite. While these restaurants are more for their location and scenery than the food, its worth grabbing a cup of coffee or a small bite and people watching.

2:00 PM – Montreal is a very bike friendly city and walking around you will find many bicyclists on the streets. The city even has a bicycle rental service much like the zip-car concept where you can pick up a bike from anywhere and drop it off anywhere else you’d like. This is geared more towards locals than tourists as renting these bikes on an hourly basis can quickly get expensive. Since the weather was holding up well, we walked back down to Old Montreal (following Blvd St. Laurent all the way) and rented bikes at a small bike shop on St. Laurent and Rue De La Commune. Being recommended a 20-mile bike trail along the St. Laurent River, we picked up our bikes and head down the trail which turned out to be a very pleasant bike ride through the old industrial parts of town, into Ile Saint Helene where you can catch a glimpse of the massive Biosphere and then into Ile Notre Dame. Once you cross the river back into the city, you can head over a very European style farmers market by the Lechine Canal and treat yourself to a cone of ice-cold gelato.

8:00 PM – Head back into Old Montreal for dinner at an excellent French restaurant within an auberge called Bonaparte. If you’re lucky, you can get a table by the window overlooking the cobblestone streets of this part of town and people-watch as the street lamps light up. I recommend trying the fois-gras and the tuna as they were excellent.

If you have time the next morning before your flight, checking out the underground city on St. Catherine street is worth a visit. Its block after block of inter-connected multi-level malls usually packed with locals and tourists that makes you forget for a second that we are in a global recession. A word of caution though, it’s very easy to lose your sense of direction and wallet in this labyrinth of retail stores.

I’m not an avid Bollywood movie watcher (you’ve seen one, you’ve seen 90% of them) but I saw this movie (Taare Zameen Par) and was very pleasantly surprised. Its one of the few good movies that doesn’t follow the cookie-cutter plots of most (boy meets girl, they fall in love, a family crises ensues that prevents the lovers from being together, climax, denoument, everyone lives happily ever after). Instead tackles the less frequented issue of kids with learning disabilities and how they are often neglected and ‘lost’ within India’s highly competitive and academically focused educational system.

The kid actor, Darsheel Safary, does an absolutely amazing job (although is in desperate need of some braces). Highly recommended viewing.