I had a great time in Montreal with Jay. He took me to some interesting little neighborhoods, distinctively marked by the influx of 20-something hipsters in kefiyehs. One night we went to this bar called Saint Sulpice that had four distinctively different floors (though I only saw the first one and the bathroom of the second). We split a pitcher of beer on the accompanying outdoor terrace, surrounded by boisterous French-Canadians. A woman took a nasty spill on the stairs a few feet away from our table.
We hiked up to the top of the mountain sitting in the middle of the city. The view was incredible. All of Montreal stretched out below us and some German tourists. It just reinforced my opinion that Pittsburgh is sub-par.
I think Jay had some difficulty thinking of places to eat. He usually opts for Middle-Eastern food, which is off-limits for me. Peanut allergies just complicate things.
I'm throughly sick of traveling. I spent over 11 hours on a train up to Montreal on Monday, and close to nine hours on a bus yesterday.
The Radiohead Experience
Radiohead was absolutely phenomenal. The rest of the concert experience was not. The concert was held in a large field across the Saint-Lawrence from the rest of the city. We got there around 4:30, greeted by overcast skies. When they opened the gates, Jay and I ran as fast as we could through the mud towards the stage. We ended up pretty close, maybe 20 rows back. We then had to stand there for another two hours until the opening act, Grizzly Bear, began their set. Somewhere in those two hours, it began to rain. It was relatively light at first, evolving into a considerable rain shower. Unlike everyone else in the audience, Jay and I were totally unprepared for the weather: no umbrella, no rain gear. He found a large piece of plastic on the ground that I used to cover my head, though in retrospect it did little good. Torrents of water rolled off the raincoats surrounding me, indiscriminately flowing into my zipper-less purse. The contents of my bag are still a little soggy, though I gave each item a turn under one of those hot-air hand dryers in the bathroom of the Montreal bus station. My pants were relatively dry. The back of my tank-top was soaked; I had water running down my back. Jay seemed to be much worse off- everything he was wearing was wet. Needless to say, I was cranky.
Sometime after the rain had slowed up, Jay decided to leave to see if he could find us some food. Unfortunately, he forgot that he had left his wallet in my drenched purse. Returning empty-handed, he tried in vain to find me in the sea of 20,000 people. I watched Grizzly Bear perform, then got a text from Jay telling me to move backwards, where I eventually found him. Therefore, we were both much farther back than we had wanted; we couldn't see anything. There was an obnoxious frat-boy type behind us that kept singing along at the top of his lungs, off-key. He drowned out Thom Yorke. I'm grateful that apparently he didn't have In Rainbows because we were spared his renditions of the new songs.
The show itself was amazing. They had these long tubes suspended from the top of the stage that changed colors and patterns during the different songs. They were quite beautiful and complimented the music nicely. They played most of In Rainbows (I believe all of the first CD and "Bangers and Mash" off the second) and a selection of songs off all of their past albums except Pablo Honey. They also set off fireworks intermittently towards the end of the show from somewhere in the distance. It was the best live performance I've experienced, even though I couldn't see much.
After the show, the short journey to the Metro took about an hour of slogging through mud and puddles. 20,000 people were bottle-necked into the station; 20,000 people who had been standing for too many hours and just wanted to have a seat.
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