Two full days in Montreal have gone quickly. Yesterday we had a lazy morning and getting up after a long bus trip was difficult, especially for me. We headed to downtown where we met Toni and we spent a couple of hours with her in Montreal`s Old City. We just wandered around and stopped for a lunch in a restaurant where we sat on a second floor terrace. The view from the terrace was great and we managed to order our meals just before the lunch time (and lower prices) ended. After the meal we visited a building where there was a piece of the Berlin Wall. After Toni left we visited a couple of shops before going back to our neighbourhood of Cote-Vertu where our host Stephane had prepared us a delicious Arabic meal.

Today has been full of physical activities. We climbed to a mountain (or maybe just a little hill) to see a great view of Montreal. The hill really reminded us of the one we visited in Budapest last year with Ari and Anton. Climbing was a bit more difficult though, as we somehow chose to climb up stairs in the middle of the woods instead of the proper roads next to us... But climbing was worth it and on the top we enjoyed some icecream and took some really cool photos that you might be able to see tomorrow or in the next few days.

After visiting the mountain we had something really special in our minds. We have been searching for Haitian restaurants in many, many cities but after looking up one on the Internet it seemed that Montreal was the place to get some good rice and fried plantains. We took a metro and found a nice little restaurant owned by a very friendly Haitian couple. They gave us some samples of the food before ordering and after that we got huge plates of rice n`beans, sauce, salad, chicken and fried plantain bananas. Food was great and definetely worth the money, but we still think Michelle`s stepmom in Stockholm makes it better. =)

The owner was a really friendly guy and we had a great conversation with him after the dinner, while we drank our Caribbean sodas. We discussed everything from football to current political situation in Haiti, and we asked also about the number of Haitians living in Montreal. In a blog text a couple of days earlier I wrote that there lives 30 000 Haitians in Montreal, but further research has proved even that number to be wrong. According to statistics there is 77 000 persons in Montreal who has been born in Haiti, but the total number is of course much higher because of people whose parents or grandparents have moved here. Some website talked about 100 000 Haitians living in Montreal and Ricky at the Haitian restaurant claimed that there lives 200 000 persons with a Haitian background in the city. So we are talking about numbers that instead of Tuusula equal with the population of Oulu or Lahti in Finland!

We have been exhausted after this day, but still one physical struggle was yet to come. Our host Stephane had promised to introduce us to the great Montreal delicacy called poutine. Poutine is a local fast food consisting of french fries with gravy and cheese. It was good but not anything special, but I think it would succeed in the Finnish barbeque stands!