Today I'm continuing with my recap of Montreal. If you missed my first post, you can see it here.
On Monday morning we got up early to visit the University of Quebec at Montreal, better known as UQAM. We listened to some of their professors and staff members talk about doing business in Canada as well as just international studying in general. We also got to talk to some students about their experiences, so it ended up being pretty interesting.
After that, we got a tour of the Cirque du Soleil headquarters. It was SO cool! I had been to two Cirque shows previously and loved them both, so it was neat to see where the action all takes place. We got to see performers practicing, people working on costumes and props, as well as the studios where they can put on a full production for practice. They showed us around the entire place, and it was one of the coolest things ever. We pretty much got to see how they start with an idea for a show and then how they ultimately end up bringing it to production. It definitely gave me a deeper appreciation and respect for Cirque du Soleil as a company!
We then had a few hours of free time, so when everyone else decided to go back to the hotel and sleep, I went with a friend back to Old Montreal to do some more exploring. I was running on not a lot of sleep, but I didn't want to waste a few perfectly good hours in the afternoon since we didn't have a whole lot of time there to begin with.
Old Montreal felt very French to me, so my friend and I were basically just pretending we were spending the afternoon in Paris ;)
You know I had to check out the French bakeries in Montreal before we left, right? We went to this one called Maison Christian Faure, and I have to say that it was probably one of my favorite bakeries I have ever been to.
I mean, how adorable is this mural inside the shop?!
So many yummy macarons to try.....
I settled on the blackberry curd and chocolate macarons - both ended up being delicious!
When we were walking, we stumbled on an adorable French stationary store, and when I saw this pack of Paris pencils, I knew I had to get them. I'm obsessed!
We also stopped by another bakery I had seen online that was a cupcakery. We got our cupcakes to go, and I enjoyed mine a few days later.
I tried to Google translate what this says, and I think it's something along the lines of while waiting for spring, you can brighten your mood with a cupcake. I just love anything in French!
That night we had a group dinner at a Spanish restaurant called El Gitano. It ended up being really delicious. We had paella, which I had never tried before and ended up loving. It's a rice dish with different meats and seafood. I got chicken in mine, and it was so unbelievably moist.
We all went out again that night and had a lot of fun. That night I ended up actually getting 6 hours of sleep, which was the longest amount of sleep I got the entire trip - ha!
I'm going to stop there even though this post was kind of short because I'm afraid it's just going to be too long if I try to combine it with the rest of the trip. I'll be back soon for the last recap!
No comments:
Post a Comment