Fredericton to Montreal - Travel Day - Day 23

We’d arrived late (missed it by that much) for check in at the University, so the first order of business was to find the actual registration desk and make sure they had all the appropriate information. We packed up the car and went into downtown for breakfast and coffee and a look around. Once again, we were struck by the fact that New Brunswick is the only truly bilingual province. It seemed as though almost everyone spoke both languages fluently and without any particular accent that gave away which was their first and which their second language.

 I, in turn, had fun being able to translate for Adam. It’s so rare that I know something that he doesn’t, I milked it for all it was worth!

 We had breakfast at Cora’s – a franchise breakfast/lunch place that exists mostly in Eastern Canada, as far as I know… Adam says there used to be one in Vancouver, but I’ve never seen it, and believe me, if I had, I would be there all the time! I had French toast made from, essentially, a sliced cinnamon bun, covered in a pile of fruit and with English cream on top. Adam had a “crepeomelet” – literally an omelette wrapped in a crepe and then covered in hollandaise. The Uberbreakfast, really!

After breakfast we wandered around a little bit, checking out the old garrison for a little history, the legislative buildings, and another lighthouse to add to our collection, but we were aware that we had a long drive to get to Montreal (about 8 hours) so we got back into the car and were on our way.

 The drive was pretty uneventful – we followed our new road rules: when in doubt, buy more ice, and always pick up some unsweetened iced tea when you can find it… I guess it might be getting married to an American, but I’m really developing a taste for unsweetened iced tea, and one of the companies that makes it is starting to bring in the unsweetened version in Canadian markets. It’s sort of the “official non-alcoholic beverage” of the trip (man, I should have brought them in as sponsors)!

 When we arrived in Montreal, we didn’t have too hard a time finding our hotel, although it (in fact, the whole block was made up of similar hotels) had seen much better days. It was fine, though, and after checking in we took a nice walk down the street to a student pub and had a drink, then back to the hotel to bed.