Here are the things I learnt about travelling with a baby:
1. It was key to our happiness to have a suite instead of a regular hotel room. This allowed us to wash/prepare bottles easily and most importantly to have a room Joel could sleep in without us waking him up after he went to bed. We could turn off the lights in his room and continue to do stuff in the livingroom/kitchen part until we went to bed.
2. It is nice travelling with a stroller because it can be used to carry stuff, but it is a huge pain in the butt when it comes to stairs and such. We probably carried Joel up and down stairs in the stroller hundreds of times over the 4 days we were there. Subways were the worst.
3. It's hard because you are basically in public the entire time you are travelling so if your baby is EVER fussy, including in your own hotel room, it will be bothering other people. It felt good to be home where Joel can do what he pleases and I don't constantly have to be worrying about him bothering people.
4. It's probably twice as exhausting as travelling without a baby, but we were still able to do everything we probably would have done without him there. I was nervous about Cirque du Soleil, but it worked out great! So next time I were to plan a trip, if there was something I wasn't sure about but I wanted to do it, I would probably go for it. The worst that would have happened is that Joel would have been scared or been crying and we would have had to leave.
5. Joel was a pretty good age to travel with I think. His nighttimes were pretty good and duruing the daytime he was generally happy to just tag along with us and look around from his stroller. At his nap times we tried to be somewhere where we were walking and we would just recline the stroller so that he could nap. It worked out great!
6. It was nice to try to find at least one time per day where Joel could be a bit more involved. We went to a great park where he could crawl around and go on the strings, at the Biodome I was able to carry him and walk him around, etc.
Here are some videos for your viewing pleasure!!
We've been playing peekaboo with Joel a lot. On the drive there I was putting his puppy over his face and playing peekaboo. About a half hour later Joel started doing this!
Then the next day he did this:
The funny thing is that on the way home in the car he was trying to play this again by putting a toy up and down. So I guess he thinks that the game is that he lifts something up and I say where's Joel and then he puts it down and I say peekaboo. He doesn't understand the blocking his eye thing.
The Tam Tams
On the Horse Drawn Carraige
Joel making crazy faces at dinner
Montreal - Day 4
We didn't have too many plans for today. We had a walking tour of Downtown from our guidebook and Trev wanted to look for a new pair of shoes. The walking tour was kind of interesting. No major sites. We did see a mall with an indoor ice skating rink in it that was kind of neat!
Trev has been wanting (and badly needing) new shoes (specifically new New Balance shoes) for about a year now. But he hasn't been able to find any in Sudbury or Toronto. So we figured we'd try Montreal. On our walking tour there was a big mall. We figured we'd once again hit some shoe stores to see if any of them had New Balance. Often stores do have New Balance, but they have the athletic sort instead of the more casual sort. Anyways we walked into the mall and the very first store I saw was a New Balance store! What a coincidence! They had tons of shoes to pick from and so Trev finally has a new pair of shoes. To indicate how badly he needed new shoes, he wore the New Balance ones out of the store and the other ones went straight into the garbage.
Here are some other highlights from our walking tour:
This church is a one quarter version of St. Peters in Rome.
Some yummy ice cream (Trev got chocolate and some other chocolate and I got maple and caramel).
Joel got Baby Mum Mums
There is no doubt that John Lennon was a little bit nutty. Him and Yoko Ono were definitely eccentric (to put it lightly). But at least they were promoting a good message with their crazy antics!
This is a Yoko Ono art project that Trevor immediately recognized from watching the Beatles Anthology so many times. John Lennon was introduced to Yoko Ono at an art show she was putting on and this was one of the exhibits at that original art show. It is a tiny word YES on a white ceiling with a ladder to climb with a magnifying glass. I guess you have to be deeper than me to understand it.
Anyways, it was a very well done exhibit and we really enjoyed it!
Next on our jorney was a quick lunch and then we headed back to Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) to wander around where we were a bit rushed before Cirque du Soleil last time. I also wanted to check out a Christmas Store I found on the internet (surprise surprise...if there is one other theme to our travels besides Beatles, it is Christmas decorations. I have one from every trip we've done.). We were able to get a cute little ball personalized with Joel's name, plus another cute decoration (a daddy bear with a baby bear on his back snowshoeing). Yay! 
Note the change in outfit after a major poop blowout of massive proportions. Good thing we had this backup outfit with us!
Surprisingly enough, Joel did not seem all that frightened by the horse! 
The ridiculously delicous crepes! The top one is fruit and custard with a berry sauce. The bottom one is cheesecake filled crepes with strawberries, strawberry sauce and graham crackle crumble. Soooo good! 
I should mention at this point that Joel is more tired than he ever has been in his life. Today at lunch he almost fell asleep in his high chair (and that does not ever happen). He has been sleeping alright at night, but his naps in the srollers have been a bit shorter than usual. I guess day after day this has caught up with him. Oh and for some reason he's been waking up early too. Today we were out with him in the stroller for maybe 5 minutes after breakfast and he was already asleep.
Trev has been wanting (and badly needing) new shoes (specifically new New Balance shoes) for about a year now. But he hasn't been able to find any in Sudbury or Toronto. So we figured we'd try Montreal. On our walking tour there was a big mall. We figured we'd once again hit some shoe stores to see if any of them had New Balance. Often stores do have New Balance, but they have the athletic sort instead of the more casual sort. Anyways we walked into the mall and the very first store I saw was a New Balance store! What a coincidence! They had tons of shoes to pick from and so Trev finally has a new pair of shoes. To indicate how badly he needed new shoes, he wore the New Balance ones out of the store and the other ones went straight into the garbage.
Here are some other highlights from our walking tour:
This church is a one quarter version of St. Peters in Rome.
Some yummy ice cream (Trev got chocolate and some other chocolate and I got maple and caramel).
Joel got Baby Mum Mums There is a wonderful exhibit at the Musee des Beaux-Artes right now celebrating the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Bed in for Peace which took place in Montreal. Today happened to be 40 years to the day and so there was much fanfare at the exhibit. Live music and Radio Canada was there as well. We have tracked down many Beatles sites/walks/events in our travels. We have gone on a Beatles walking tour in London, visited Trident Sound Studios in London where the Beatles recorded Hey Jude, taken pictures at Abbey Road, done the Magical Mystery Tour in Liverpool, and more. So it's no surprise that we would do this!
There is no doubt that John Lennon was a little bit nutty. Him and Yoko Ono were definitely eccentric (to put it lightly). But at least they were promoting a good message with their crazy antics!
This is a Yoko Ono art project that Trevor immediately recognized from watching the Beatles Anthology so many times. John Lennon was introduced to Yoko Ono at an art show she was putting on and this was one of the exhibits at that original art show. It is a tiny word YES on a white ceiling with a ladder to climb with a magnifying glass. I guess you have to be deeper than me to understand it.
Anyways, it was a very well done exhibit and we really enjoyed it!
Next on our jorney was a quick lunch and then we headed back to Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) to wander around where we were a bit rushed before Cirque du Soleil last time. I also wanted to check out a Christmas Store I found on the internet (surprise surprise...if there is one other theme to our travels besides Beatles, it is Christmas decorations. I have one from every trip we've done.). We were able to get a cute little ball personalized with Joel's name, plus another cute decoration (a daddy bear with a baby bear on his back snowshoeing). Yay!
After we wandered around a bit, we decided to do a horsedrawn carraige tour of Old Montreal. Trev and I have seen horse drawn carraiges so many times around Europe, but we've never done one. So it was a treat (and a great way to rest our feet). Joel loved it and attracted a lot of attention from the people on the street as he screeched in glee as we were going by them!
Note the change in outfit after a major poop blowout of massive proportions. Good thing we had this backup outfit with us!
Surprisingly enough, Joel did not seem all that frightened by the horse!After the carraige ride, we decided to head back to the same restaurant that we went to a few days ago that Marie recommended. I had seen some awesome desserts on the menu before that we were too full to try and the atmosphere there was great. A bonus was that it is great for Joel too with lots of space for a high chair. We got a light dinner of French Onion soup to have room for crepes!
The ridiculously delicous crepes! The top one is fruit and custard with a berry sauce. The bottom one is cheesecake filled crepes with strawberries, strawberry sauce and graham crackle crumble. Soooo good!Okay remember two days ago when I posted that we visited a square with artists doing caricatures and portraits. Well earlier in the day we were watching a guy do a portrait of a woman and it was excellent. I was thinking about getting one done of Joel, but I wasn't sure how much they were. Well after dinner we walked out onto the square. We had about half an hour until a show we were going to. The guy I had seen earlier was gone, but there was another guy there. He asked me if I wanted a picture of Joel. I asked him how much. He went from $65 to $25 and I finally agreed. I thought it would be really cute to have a portrait of him!
I should mention at this point that Joel is more tired than he ever has been in his life. Today at lunch he almost fell asleep in his high chair (and that does not ever happen). He has been sleeping alright at night, but his naps in the srollers have been a bit shorter than usual. I guess day after day this has caught up with him. Oh and for some reason he's been waking up early too. Today we were out with him in the stroller for maybe 5 minutes after breakfast and he was already asleep.So he's been a bit crankier than usual. Thankfully we've had his soother or he would have whined a whole lot. So getting him to look at the guy doing his portrait was quite a feat. Trev and I used every trick we had to keep him from screaming the whole time. It was a lot of effort.
So what did all that effort plus $25 get us?
This! Not only does it not look at all like Joel, but apparently when we were saying his name to make him look or smile, the guy thought we were saying Joy so he wrote Joy at the bottom! Oy Vay! Not a great ending to our trip. I personally think it looks a lot like Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. The guy even said sorry because he knew it didn't look like him. He said it's really hard to draw babies that young, especially because he has no hair. He told us to come back next year when he's older and he could do something better. Ummm...if it's so hard to draw bald babies, why did you ask me if I wanted a portrait of my bald baby? He still took the money though!
So not the most successful evening of our trip, but it was still fun. The day in total was great. I will be happy to get home though. I feel sort of bad for dragging Joel around with us the whole time. He's so tired and he was a real trooper to do so well. I'll try to write another post soon about what we learned travelling with a baby.
So what did all that effort plus $25 get us?
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This! Not only does it not look at all like Joel, but apparently when we were saying his name to make him look or smile, the guy thought we were saying Joy so he wrote Joy at the bottom! Oy Vay! Not a great ending to our trip. I personally think it looks a lot like Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter. The guy even said sorry because he knew it didn't look like him. He said it's really hard to draw babies that young, especially because he has no hair. He told us to come back next year when he's older and he could do something better. Ummm...if it's so hard to draw bald babies, why did you ask me if I wanted a portrait of my bald baby? He still took the money though! Last thing on the agenda was a 'Light and Sound' show at Notre Dame Basilica. I am not really too sure what I expected. I guess I thought they would light up different parts of the basilica and have music along with it. The website for it looked kind of cool. We had peaked in at the basilica before to see it and it's quite captivating.
http://www.terragalleria.com/images/canada/caqc10737.jpeg
http://www.terragalleria.com/images/canada/caqc10737.jpeg
So now Joel is cranky after we made him sit for 20 minutes to have his portrait done, and now we are here at this light show. It was 35 minutes long. The first 30 minutes were ridiculous! It was low-budget skits on a screen telling about the boring history of the cathedral. They should have just had a narrator, but instead it was actors portraying the architects, preists and nuns. I think I could have produced something better in my basement. Trev and I were cracking up throughout it. The last 5 minutes were cool though. They lifted the screen to show the amazing altar piece all lit up. Then they slowly lit up/revealed other neat features of the cathedral. Anyways by the end Joel was crying and we slipped out about a minute before it actually ended.
So not the most successful evening of our trip, but it was still fun. The day in total was great. I will be happy to get home though. I feel sort of bad for dragging Joel around with us the whole time. He's so tired and he was a real trooper to do so well. I'll try to write another post soon about what we learned travelling with a baby.
Anyways I'd better be going now. Trev is packing up our whole room without me right now. I should probably go help!
Montreal - Day 3
Joel had a pretty good night last night. The glitch came this morning when he woke up at 6:10am and we could not get him to go back to sleep. That actually is not very common with Joel. He very rarely wakes up before 7:30am. But today was different! So we were still exhausted so I just stuck Joel between us and he played around a while. Soon enough though, his eyes got heavy and he snuggled right in there. And I got to take probably my favourite picture of all time!
Turns out it was just a short little nap and we were on the road this morning at the same time as usual. On the agenda for this morning was climbing Mount Royal. The guidbook said to take the metro to a certain stop and then walk to an intersection. What it failed to mention was that this intersection was up the biggest, steepest hill I have ever climbed in my life! By the time we got to the intersection for the start of the hike (which was to climb a mountain!) we were sweaty and exhausted already! It's really hard to tell from the picture, but this hill was monstrous!
Adventure number 2 of the hike: the book says that there are two ways to get up the mountain. Take the steep stairs. Or the gradual switchbacks which you can bike, take strollers, etc. Well we get to the start of the hike and they are doing construction and the switchbacks at the start are closed. We almost turned around at the first staircase (which would have been climbing the stupid hill for nothing) but the map indicated if we could just get up this giant staircase, we may be able to walk on the trails for the rest. So Trev managed to push the stroller up this giant hill beside the staircase (which then turned 90 degrees and went up more)!
The walk after that was great and Joel had a 2 hour nap while we were walking (which he really needed!).
Wonderful view at the top!
This is the moment we realized that Joel is terrified of this bird!
Olympic Stadium (right next to the Biodome) 
And the we metro'd back to our hotel. On the way though we got dinner at Frites Alor! We had to get poutine while we were in Quebec! Yum!
Turns out it was just a short little nap and we were on the road this morning at the same time as usual. On the agenda for this morning was climbing Mount Royal. The guidbook said to take the metro to a certain stop and then walk to an intersection. What it failed to mention was that this intersection was up the biggest, steepest hill I have ever climbed in my life! By the time we got to the intersection for the start of the hike (which was to climb a mountain!) we were sweaty and exhausted already! It's really hard to tell from the picture, but this hill was monstrous!
Adventure number 2 of the hike: the book says that there are two ways to get up the mountain. Take the steep stairs. Or the gradual switchbacks which you can bike, take strollers, etc. Well we get to the start of the hike and they are doing construction and the switchbacks at the start are closed. We almost turned around at the first staircase (which would have been climbing the stupid hill for nothing) but the map indicated if we could just get up this giant staircase, we may be able to walk on the trails for the rest. So Trev managed to push the stroller up this giant hill beside the staircase (which then turned 90 degrees and went up more)!
The walk after that was great and Joel had a 2 hour nap while we were walking (which he really needed!).
Wonderful view at the top!
After our hike was done, we ventured over to the BioDome. The Biodome had 4 different ecosystems. You walk through them and see all the animlas. Joel hated every second of the biodome. The second we walked in there, there was a sign that said that the bird below would walk around. Please don't touch him. But he is friendly. We were in there for 2 minutes and were trying to get a picture with this bird, when we realized that Joel was terrified of this silly bird. He started screaming and was clinging to me with all of his might. For the next hour, he clung to me, even when the bird was out of sight and pretty much cried whenever we tried to point at something. He was scared of beavers and fish and birds and monkeys and pretty much everything else in there. By the end, he calmed down a little bit and rode happily in the stroller again.
This is the moment we realized that Joel is terrified of this bird!
Olympic Stadium (right next to the Biodome)Last stop of the day was at the Botanical Gardens. Joel had a nice afternoon nap as Trev and I wandered around the different gardens. The Japenese garden was really nice and I enjoyed the lilac garden as well.
And the we metro'd back to our hotel. On the way though we got dinner at Frites Alor! We had to get poutine while we were in Quebec! Yum! 
Montreal - Day 2
Well Joel did really well last night! He woke up once at 12:20am and was easily settled without us having to pick him up. Trev and I were in bed at 9pm (and asleep about 2 seconds after our heads hit the pillows).
This morning we started the day in Old Montreal. It definitely has a European flavour to it. Unfortunately the walking tour we were doing was not Rick Steves so it wasn't the greatest, but we still had a wonderful walk. The weather was just beautiful!
We stopped for lunch at a place that my friend Marie recommended. It was a perfect spot! A huge courtyard on a beautiful day! There was a live band playing. They had a high chair for Joel and he wasn't in anyone's way. Trev ordered the duck crepes and I had a chicken and broccoli crepe. Yummy!
After lunch we explored Jaques Cartier Square. It was a lively square with statue people, caricature and portrait artists, horse drawn carraiges, etc. I wanted to get Joel's portrait done, but we didn't have time. People seemed to be much more out and about today than yesterday. Probably because yesterday we weren't in as touristy an area.
After lunch, we went on a boat tour at the Old Port. It was one hour long. It was a nice break to get off of our feet. By the time we were done this boat tour though it was 2:30pm and Joel had only slept for 40 minutes. The second he got into his stroller he was fast asleep!
After lunch we headed off to see the Tam Tams. On the way though, we ran into a large parade/demonstration. It may have been seperatists? We weren't too sure. They sure were loud though!
The Tam Tams is a gathering of people who meet every Sunday to play drums and guitars and dance in a park. There were hundreds (thousands?) of people. Very hippy like. I would have liked to have stayed longer, but it was getting late and we needed to get back so we wouldn't be late for Cirque du Soleil. There apparently is also a medieval battle re-enactment that happens near the Tam Tams too, but although we saw a few people walking around with swords and sheilds, we never found the battle.
And last but not least was Cirque du Soleil - Ovo. I was nervous as to how Joel would do during the show, but he was fantastic! We were able to keep him quiet with his soother, toys and some baby Mum Mum cookies. He watched part of the show and spent the rest of the time playing with my hat, his toys, etc. The show was great as usual (althogh Trev and I agreed that the acts weren't quite as death-defying as the previous Cirque shows we've seen). But we'd still recommend to see the show if you get the chance! I think it's coming to Toronto in Spetember.
This morning we started the day in Old Montreal. It definitely has a European flavour to it. Unfortunately the walking tour we were doing was not Rick Steves so it wasn't the greatest, but we still had a wonderful walk. The weather was just beautiful!
We stopped for lunch at a place that my friend Marie recommended. It was a perfect spot! A huge courtyard on a beautiful day! There was a live band playing. They had a high chair for Joel and he wasn't in anyone's way. Trev ordered the duck crepes and I had a chicken and broccoli crepe. Yummy!
After lunch we explored Jaques Cartier Square. It was a lively square with statue people, caricature and portrait artists, horse drawn carraiges, etc. I wanted to get Joel's portrait done, but we didn't have time. People seemed to be much more out and about today than yesterday. Probably because yesterday we weren't in as touristy an area.
After lunch, we went on a boat tour at the Old Port. It was one hour long. It was a nice break to get off of our feet. By the time we were done this boat tour though it was 2:30pm and Joel had only slept for 40 minutes. The second he got into his stroller he was fast asleep!
After lunch we headed off to see the Tam Tams. On the way though, we ran into a large parade/demonstration. It may have been seperatists? We weren't too sure. They sure were loud though!
The Tam Tams is a gathering of people who meet every Sunday to play drums and guitars and dance in a park. There were hundreds (thousands?) of people. Very hippy like. I would have liked to have stayed longer, but it was getting late and we needed to get back so we wouldn't be late for Cirque du Soleil. There apparently is also a medieval battle re-enactment that happens near the Tam Tams too, but although we saw a few people walking around with swords and sheilds, we never found the battle.
And last but not least was Cirque du Soleil - Ovo. I was nervous as to how Joel would do during the show, but he was fantastic! We were able to keep him quiet with his soother, toys and some baby Mum Mum cookies. He watched part of the show and spent the rest of the time playing with my hat, his toys, etc. The show was great as usual (althogh Trev and I agreed that the acts weren't quite as death-defying as the previous Cirque shows we've seen). But we'd still recommend to see the show if you get the chance! I think it's coming to Toronto in Spetember. That's it for today. Off to do our 'chores' before bed (pack for tomorrow, work out budget, etc).
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