Mon becomes Monique

So today was my first day in Montreal... I must say, traveling for work feels a little odd and I actually felt like the whole day was a little surreal. I couldn't sleep last night after a little drama with Jake and a Facebook relationship (who knew that writing on someone's wall was public information??) and got up this morning on minimal sleep.

Up at 5, out of the house at 6, leaving Toronto on a jet plane by 7, in Montreal by 8. Unfortunately the nice flow of the morning (including a nice nap on the plane) was ruined by our crazy mofo of a cab driver who literally almost killed us 5 times in 20 minutes. I am on the more aggressive side of driving, but DAMN - I didn't even look as we were driving and instead focused on Trish so that I wouldn't see the truck almost smash us or people giving our cabbie, and indirectly us, some crazy French insulting gesticulation.

I spent all day with no internet, in my cubicle with all the information one could want about segmentation and trying to finish off work from Toronto. I was on no food til 2pm (which is rare for me), after which a huge meal of pad thai polished me off for the rest of the day. The group of guys working on the project with Trish and I are a very interesting assortment of people - I was fascinated with just "people watching" our group dynamics - really fun.

Anyway, as I am writing this I am sitting in my Hilton bathrobe in my exec suite after taking a bath in my huuuuge bathroom, eating a chocolate covered strawberry for dessert and choosing which side of my king sized bed to sleep on. Hard knock life? Perhaps not. I have to say, I could really get used to this... although I have a funny feeling that I only got this sweet room becuase my dad booked it with his sweet, sweet exec card which I don't own. But we'll see if I can work my magic tomorrow and try and book this room for the rest of my 2 months here.

Between work and sitting in my yummy white bathrobe, Trish and I went for dinner at Otto, the restaurant in the W hotel. We had the best meal - basically split an appetizer, entree, dessert and bottle of wine - delicious! We then took a wine-y walk down Sainte Catherine and watched the jazz festival from the sidelines and then stopped at PharmaPrix (which is Shoppers Drug Mart in disguise. We had the best talk and laughs, and then headed back to our hotels to get to bed... but I couldn't help appreciating my second last night in my sweet hotel room (which is really my first night).

God bless Montreal!! and Hilton Hotels!!