Adventures with Angie!
My fabulous friend angie came for a visit Tuesday- Saturday . Here's a run down of our activities:

Tuesday night after Angie arrived and we dropped her stuff at my place, we headed around the corner to Else's pub for hard apple cider and lots of catching up on one another's lives.

Wednes. morning we caught the bus up and around the mountain over to Cote-de-Neiges where we visited the Oratoire St. Joseph and their funky exhibit on 250 Christmas crèshes from around the world. The funniest thing at the Oratoire were these little cards they were giving out- on one side there is a photo of the founder Brother Mareau, on the back is a hole under which there is a small piece of blue fabric, below the fabric is text that states "cloth which has touched the bones of Fr Moreau, Founder." I don't know much about catholicism, so any explanation of why little pieces of fabric that have touched bones are meaningful, and not completely creepy would be appreciated!
Wednesday afternoon we headed to Frip-Prix. The name of this store is a play on words of the french term from used clothing store, Friperie. We had overwhelming success! Each of us got at least 5 great items, including some almost new shirts, and a fabulously ugly bright green sweater.

Wednesday evening we went to Jean-Talon market, which is much smaller now and in a building with removable walls. We picked up some brussel sprouts and when we got home we roasted them with garlic, olive oil and oregano. Paired with some left over split pea soup and bread it make a comforting and delicious super.
Thursday afternoon we headed across town to Happy Tree Yoga Studio for a nice Hatha Flow class.
Thursday night we went out to eat at Du Pain de l'Inde . This restaurant is now in competition with Pushaps for my favorite Indian resto in montreal (and indian being my favorite cuisines, therefore my favorite restaurant in motnreal!). Pain de l'Inde (Bread of India) is a small and warm little restaurant. I was drawn to it in the first place because of the beautiful fabric hanging in the front windows. The menu is simple. Ang and I went with the Thali plates, which are a sampling of 3 dishes plus rice and a huge piece of naan bread. The owner is equally warm and friendly older indian man. he sat down near us to chat for a while and kept bringing us tea, and even gave us free dessert. We ended up staying in the restaurant for almost 3 hours, and not at all due to slow service. As we were leaving, the owner welcomed us to come back soon, promising to sit down a have a beer with us next time. Later Thursday night we walked over to Suite 88 Chocolatier . Suite 88 is in my neighborhood and i've passed it at least 20 times but never went inside until i heard it described on a website as "the Tiffany's of chocolate shops", yet still affordable. When you walk in, it feels like you're in a modern art exhibit of chocolate. The chocolates are arranged in zen-like formations on white plates under glass cabinets. And Oh! are they good. The sales lady gave us a delicious sample of a dark chocolate and honey truffle. We found a few gifts for friends including dark chocolate and cayanne bars, green tea and white chocolate truffles, and candied ginger covered in dark chocolate. I don't think i'll be able to pass Suite 88 without my mouth watering ever again.

Friday morning we slept in and then ventured around the plateau. We went to a local craft show on St-Joseph, and then headed over up to Fairmount. On Fairmount we went to my favorite bagel shop, cleverly named Fairmount Bagels. Its the first wood fired bagel shop in montreal. They've got a fabulous selection of bagels including spelt/buckwheat, rye, muesli, cinnamon raison, roasted garlic, blueberry, cumin, and of course their signature sesame.

Friday evening was the highlight of the week for both of us. We met up with some of my friends from work at went to Cabaret Mado . Mado deserves a blog entry all to herself, but to give you a quick idea. Mado Lamotte is the most famous drag queen in montreal, and probably all of canada. She has a club where she hosts a Cabaret Friday and Sat nights. At cabaret a number of queens perform dance numbers to different pop music. Mado hosts the whole thing telling jokes, stories and working the crowd. We had a great time, and were in awe of these women's costume and talent to dance in 5 inch heals. We got a table right in the front, and we even were the subject of one of Mado's jokes! so see Mado workin her magic, just look her up on you tube .

I'll conclude with my favorite photo from the week-

Thursday while walking around downtown we got the opportunity to take this pic. i'll leave an explanation up to your imaginations.

Thank you so much for coming to spend the week with my ang, i had a blast!!