(Translation
in English: “Let’s go to Montreal!”)
Celina Martin had
wanted to visit Montreal, Quebec for a very long time. The last time she’d recalled being anywhere
near Montreal was in 1967 when she and her family had visited Expo ’67. Then, she was only 15 years old. She and her family had camped in a tent just
outside the city and had gone to see the wondrous sights of Canada’s
celebration of her 100th birthday.
It was a grand occasion for all Canadians and a chance to show how proud
they all were of their great country. In
that regard, Celina was no different than any other native-born Canadian. She truly loved Canada and, in particular, Quebec,
which is known as “La Belle Province”.
Those residents of Canada who were not connected somehow to Quebec did
not seem, at the time, to appreciate the individuality and uniqueness of the
French-Canadian people and their culture.
French-Canadians in Quebec had a lot to offer Canada then, and still do
today. She, quite naturally, wanted to
re-discover her French-Canadian heritage.
But, the awful memory of her first visit when she was a young teenager
had continued to stay with her.
Whenever Celina
recalled their first visit to Montreal, she knew that it had not been anywhere
near the great experience that it should have been. Now that she was more mature and had the
means to travel wherever and whenever she desired, she wanted to re-visit
Montreal. Incredibly, it had been a
quarter of a century since she’d been there, though it had been only 12 years
since she’d visited Quebec City with three girlfriends on a wild weekend trip
to the Quebec Winter Carnival. At that
time, she was 27 years old. That trip
had been a real adventure, lots of fun and far too short. Celina reflected back on that fabulous
trip.
Celina and her
three girlfriends, Sylvie, Nancy and Sherrie, had gotten on a Greyhound bus
bound for Quebec City from Toronto. The
bus had left downtown Toronto with a full load at precisely 12:00 midnight on a
Friday night in February and had travelled all night until arriving at its
destination. No one on that bus slept on
the way there – they were all too busy telling jokes and stories and laughing
together. Upon their arrival in Quebec
City, everyone got off the bus at 8:00 am and proceeded to have a great time at
the Quebec Winter Carnival for that entire Saturday. Then, at Saturday midnight, they re-boarded
the bus to return to Toronto. By this
time, everyone was exhausted, not having slept for the last 24 hours. Though they, at first, laughed and joked
around with each other, they finally settled down to sleep a good portion of
the journey home. It was a trip to
remember. One of the girls had met a special
guy during their trip that she would date and later marry and stay married to
forever it seemed. In fact, they’d all
met someone of the opposite sex, but Celina was not looking for a commitment to
anyone then.
Previously, when
she was only 15, while most of the Martin family had gone off to visit the Expo
’67 fair grounds in Montreal (because, after all, that’s the reason they were
there), Celina suddenly came down with a mysterious illness that rendered her
too ill to enjoy the lovely pavilions and exhibits of Expo ’67. Thus, she chose to stay at the camp ground in
the family’s tent, resting, hoping that this sudden illness would somehow
disappear overnight. It didn’t
happen. The next day, she became even
more ill and her parents were finally forced to take her to see a French-Canadian
doctor. They found her one on the Expo
’67 fair grounds and he carefully examined her right ear for redness, inflammation,
pain and infection. As expected, she did
have the beginnings of a middle-ear infection developing, no doubt from the
many trips to the somewhat unsanitary public swimming pool close to home that
she and her two little sisters liked to frequent during the summer months. At the time, the family didn’t know how
serious her illness really was. Celina
appeared to be recovering soon after starting the medication given to her.
After a few days
of visiting Expo ’67, instead of going back home to Toronto, they continued on
their vacation out to New Brunswick to see the east coast of Canada for the
very first time. It was so beautiful to
view the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean at the Bay of Fundy and admire the
tall, narrow islands (“flower pots”) that dotted the ocean’s shores. Celina just loved it there; the whole family
loved it there. Canada’s east coast is
truly wonderful to experience. The camp
grounds were clean and well-kept and actually had indoor plumbing and showers located
in outdoor washroom cabins – far nicer than using outhouses.
For the first
two or three nights, Celina continued taking the medication that the doctor in
Montreal had prescribed her and she began to feel a little better. The pain and
inflammation subsided and everyone thought she was getting better. Then, the antibiotics were finished and,
mysteriously, she started to get ill again.
No one knew what was happening.
This had to be one hell of an infection if she wasn’t getting any better. There had to be a reason for its continuation. But, this time, there were no doctors immediately
available and she started spending an awful lot of time in the public washroom late
at night bent over the sink, trying to ease her piercingly painful ear
ache. She used hot water and ice
intermittently, knowing these things could ease swelling and pain. It wasn’t working – nothing was. She got worse and worse and feared that the
family vacation was going to be ruined.
Either she would end up in a hospital in nearby Moncton, New Brunswick,
or they would have to leave for home early.
Celina did not relish ruining everyone’s vacation, but something had to
be done. Finally, her father, in his desperation,
decided that the family should pack up all of their camping equipment, clothes
and food and drive non-stop all the way back to Toronto. This trip, unlike the one going east, was not
going to be at all pleasant. Celina was
in great pain and discomfort the whole way home.
Both her father
and mother took turns driving the car and it was very hard on the entire family
since the trip from New Brunswick was going to take at least 12 hours. There would be only a couple of stops for gas
and food-on-the-go. When they finally
got home, her mother immediately took Celina to their family doctor and he gave
her a second strong regimen of antibiotics, as expected, but he also administered
some very powerful ear drops into her right ear that would eventually cure the
damage done to the inside of her ear from the infection. This medication took quite a while to work,
mainly because it took forever for the ear drops to make their way down the now-extremely-narrow
canal into her very swollen middle-ear.
She was completely miserable for the next month while she was healing,
but she did get better finally. The
thing that she felt worst about was that, if it hadn’t been for her illness,
her family would have had a great time, both in Montreal and in New Brunswick. Her illness had created a very unpleasant memory
that would stay with her a long, long time.
This time
though, in 2011, she knew her trip to Montreal would be very different. She had been asked by a teacher colleague of
hers at their high school to accompany him and 8 teenagers to a conference. It was a “Model UN” conference for high
school students in which they would carefully research and then discuss and
debate current international issues. The
students who could put up the best arguments and counter-arguments on the
various issues discussed were eligible to win an award. The conference was to last 4 days, including
the trip in and out of Montreal. Celina
experienced just a moment’s hesitation before deciding to go with them, but then
she quickly realized that this was a golden opportunity to make some brand new
memories about Montreal. She told her
colleague, Jack, that she would be delighted to go with them. Upon reflection, she became excited about
taking a trip now that she had already decided she needed to take at some point. It was an opportunity to be in the city of Montreal for the first
time, eat some of the special foods found there, and see “Old Montreal”, the
part of the city that was a few hundred years old and historically important.
Though she did
have her students’ report card marks to prepare and finalize for submission on
the following Monday, she was very happy to be a female chaperon to the half
dozen girls on the trip, two of whom would share Celina’s room. She decided that her marks would get done on
time, one way or another. Their hotel, the
Delta Centre-Ville, was in the city’s centre.
It was a very nice, deluxe hotel and the rooms they were booked into,
though small, were comfortable with nice beds.
They had left Scarborough, Ontario via the "Megabus", Coach
Canada's daily bus service, at 8:30 am for Montreal, a 6-hour trip. It was relatively comfortable on the trip
there and besides, Celina found a seat mate with whom she could carry on an
adult conversation, which helped pass the time.
The trip to Montreal, thus, went by fairly quickly. There were no scheduled rest stops along the
way; those were reserved mainly for the night runs (on the way back) when the
driver had to be replaced by a relief driver and snacks and drinks could be
bought by the passengers.
Once they
finally got to the Montreal bus station (Station Centrale) in the downtown area,
they still had to make their way to the hotel by subway (metro). The metro is designed similarly to the one in
Paris, France. It is extremely easy to
navigate because all the subway lines are coloured on the map of the system,
which would tell travellers where they were currently located and how they
could get to the station they wanted.
The final destination station’s name was used to identify each subway
line. Celina liked this system so much
that she resolved that when she came to Montreal again, she would spend a good
deal of her time on the metro, trying to find her own way around. It would be an adventure that she would
cherish. She was a very good reader of
French; if she had any weakness, it was because she didn’t use conversational French
in Toronto. In Montreal, however, there
were plenty of opportunities for using French conversationally; she loved that
part of it and it reminded her of her wonderful trip to Paris in the early
1990s when she was a young adult and starting to travel without her family.
The time she
spent in Montreal with Jack and the 8 students for whom they were responsible
was truly memorable. They had dinner at
Reuben’s Restaurant the first night where they ate famous Montreal smoked meat
sandwiches. The food was delicious! Celina felt at home in Montreal where she
could speak French daily as much as she wanted.
The second night, they ate dinner at a small restaurant in Old Montreal
called Papillon (meaning “Butterfly” in English). There, they could order anything they
wanted. Celina always wanted to order
something she didn’t ordinarily eat while at home because, after all, that’s
what vacations are all about, aren’t they?
So, she decided to order beef bourguignon because it reminded her of
France and French cooking. Later that
night, they all walked back to their hotel along the narrow, cobble-stoned
streets of Old Montreal looking into the windows of the many small shops and
art galleries along the way. A good time
was had by all.
Two days later,
after they had returned to Toronto and were back at school again, Celina
thanked Jack profusely for this marvellous opportunity to see the sights of
Montreal, sample the wonderful foods there, and, most of all, to speak her
native Quebecois French. This particular
trip would most definitely replace the one that had haunted her for so long
when she was only 15 and give her some wonderful memories to carry with her
from now on.
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