I decided to take advantage of the long weekend and catch a bus up to Montreal. I can’t bike due to a knee injury and my friends Noa and Lea are living in Montreal, so it was the perfect excuse.

Noa has an amazingly located apartment, literally across the street from a super market, liquor store, year-round produce market, and canal with walking and biking trails. And it’s less than 5 minutes from a metro stop, which meant lots of easy public transit when we weren’t walking.

We tried a number of vegetarian restaurants, went dancing with her boyfriend and his friends (on multiple nights), hiked a mountain, went to a jazz festival, visited the botanical gardens, watched fireworks from atop a highway bridge, hung out at a drum circle, went to Shakespeare In The Park, *almost* saw sunrise, and somehow managed to sneak in some sleep in between.