I recently had a conversation with a work colleague about the vagaries of business travel and we both agreed that it was always preferable to book one's own travel, no matter how difficult it is. In retrospect I wish I’d made more of an effort on our own behalf rather than turning the whole thing over to E-Bookers to get a cheap deal. If I had, we might not have been getting up at 3am, after barely three hours sleep, to catch a 06:30 plane to Montreal!
That said, once we were up it was all fairly smooth getting through it – albeit we didn’t know the flight was operated by Air Canada until we got to the United Airlines’ check-in desk… The flight was on time and we emerged into Montreal at about 8am after minimal formalities (quite a breath of fresh-air after the arrival at Dulles!)
The taxi drove us through a lovely sunny, clear morning to our hotel, the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, which is a large, well appointed location in downtown Montreal. Fortunately despite our early arrival, they had a room available for us to check-in to. They are smaller than the rooms at Hotel Rouge, but contain the same basics of hotel life.
We are here to attend GALA, the four-yearly international festival of GLBT choruses. Apparently there are about 5,700 delegates registered this year from 164 choruses. Montreal is in for a surprise! After settling into the hotel, we headed along the road to the registration for the festival and got our delegate badges (which in the context I can’t resist calling ‘Shag-Tags’ as they display your name prominently) along with a bagful of a goodies about the festival itself.
After a nap we had lunch in the hotel – which felt so civilised after the rough-and-ready feel of the diners in Washington! – before going out to explore Montreal’s centre. This in its turn was a wonderful surprise. After the monumental architecture and rather sterile atmosphere in Washington, Montreal is delightfully laid-back. There were several street fairs on, lots of people browsing around the shops. It felt a much more human place. One curious thing is that they have an entire warren underground. In the downtown area, most of the buildings interconnect through their basements. This sounds a bit strange but makes perfect sense because, while Montreal is very pleasant at the moment (currently a sunny 29 degrees) in the winter it gets bitterly cold. So cold, in fact, that when Charlie (our MD) and Martin Brophy were over here in January to check out locations there was a general public warning in effect not to go outside for more than fifteen minutes at a time in order to avoid frostbite! I can imagine that these underground malls and passages are packed in the winter as streetlife becomes 'warrenlife.'
We wandered around the city for the entire afternoon before congregating with the rest of the Chorus ready for the opening ceremony at the Place des Arts. Just like the Olympics, the opening ceremony is a combination of entertainment and self-congratulation which goes on too long.
A group of us went on for a meal (yet another steakhouse/diner) afterwards which was pleasant. Several groups of members of other choruses were there too and the locals all looked on with bemusement as we chatted and ate. Brett met a couple of guys he used to sing with in Austin. After it all, we got cajoled into an impromptu performance of ‘Stand By Your Man’. I was the only second tenor in the group but I believe I put on a creditable performance (when I could actually pitch my part!)
And so it was onto a bar for a party. Someone had recommended ‘Campus’ and it was easy to see why when we got there. It was a large bar with twenty or thirty very buff young men who seemed to rotate between doing stripteases on stage and wandering through the bar offering private shows to the clientele. They were all very easy on the eye, so we enjoyed our beers, enjoyed the show and chatted with the lovely Alexander who wanted to offer his ‘services’ to the Chorus members.
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