Our Vacation Show & Tell

I've posted my photos from our week in Montréal (with one day in Québec City) in the slideshow at the bottom of the page. I whittled it down from over 175 to a mere 121, so it should only take you a couple of hours to look at...

It's clear from the photos I took that our three main foci of the week were: 1) Music; 2) Children; and 3) Food. The usual three for us! Foci 1 & 2 are captured best in this short video that I took one evening at the Francofolies, a week-long festival of French music in Montréal that we frequented:



We were really impressed all week at how many young families there are in Montréal, and how family-friendly the city is. It's one of our favorite things about the place now.

We also went twice to "Upstairs," a jazz bar located down a few stairs from the rue McKay in downtown Montréal. This video is from the first night we went; the second night had an older, more experienced quartet, but these young guys were fun, too:



And then on Sunday, before we left town, we trekked up to Parc du Mont-Royal to check out the Tam Tam, an informal drumming jam session that happens every Sunday afternoon. It's been going on since the late 1970s and has turned into a kind of hippie market and picnic fest:



On our way home we stopped in Burlington, VT, for dinner because I've long wanted to see the city—a small northern city on the shore of Lake Champlain, right up my alley—and I was right: it's a great place! And we just happened to show up the weekend of their Feast of Fools, a street fair with artists and performers, etc. We love that stuff! What a great way to end a great week. And another fabulous noodle bar to boot! What more could a person ask for?