La Belle Ville, partie deux

On Sunday morning, we woke up a lot earlier than I wanted to. Our friend Nick came to pick us up, and the entire gang went out for breakfast in Laval. I'd say Ell and I look remarkably good, considering the previous nights' activities! Nick is hiding behind me, and continuously hid from my camera throughout the day.

During breakfast, we formulated our plan for the rest of the day, trying to fit in as many things that we wanted to do as we could.

After breakfast, we all headed out to Old Montreal, for a little bit of European charm. Ell and I very much enjoyed a fantastic, high-end book store called Librissime. It was absolutely beautiful. (Totally made me think of my friend Rae, I think he'd really like it).  It was full of first editions, limited editions, and several other books in the $50,000 range.  Absolutely lovely.

Of comparable beauty was the Papeterie Casse-Noisette. No doubt, even in another language, leave it to me to find a paper store. I ended up buying an agenda, with a faux leather cover in robin's egg blue. It's all in French, and it's a July - August, so it's already half over... but it was $5, and so pretty, I couldn't resist. I also bought a little notebook made by the company "Claire Fontaine" ... Hawksley Workman lovers will know exactly why I bought that book! (Amy, Danielle - I'm looking at you, kids!)

Afterwards, we parted ways. Nick dropped Ell and I off on Ste-Catherine Street, for a shopping adventure. Oddly enough, it was pretty much all the same shops that we have in Toronto, especially on Yonge St.. I was hoping for some local stores, but nope. I ended up buying a jacket, bra and book about Cinderella at Urban Outfitters. Go figure. We met up with Alex, at the Centre Eaton (The Toronto similarities are killing me!)... dropped off our bags at the hotel, and went out again.

We went to the Cafe Republique for coffee (and discovered that Celine Dion was in town that night... I guess we looked like we were on our way to the concert) ... and then we went to La Belle Province, so that I could indulge in some poutine (I was very upset about having to eat by myself, so Ell shared with me). I ordered all in French (or at least I tried!), and the guy told me that "c'est fait avec amour!" (he made it for me with love) ... very sweet. It was definitely the best poutine I've ever had. Quebecers definitely do it right (let's hope so, since they invented it...). We then got Alex something to eat at one of her favourite places.

After we were all nourished, we made our way over to St-Laurent, to a very cool place called the GoGo Lounge.  It was this super cool mod club - a throwback to the late 1960s, and we actually got to sit in hands!  (see the pictures, it'll make sense).  The drink menu was presented to us on a record - there were at least 25 or so delicious sounding martini's.  I settled on a Mr. Freeze (which perfectly matched my sweater).  Alex had an Orange Crush, which also matched her top.  Very amusing.  The music in there was an awesome retro mix that I constantly felt like singing along with.

Okay, that's it for now... More pics at my flickr... and the last of the updates hopefully to follow tomorrow.

I am very behind in my blog reading, and I promise to get to all of your blogs from the last week and a half by the end of this weekend :) Love you guys!