A couple of weeks ago, Husband and I decided to check out the Mondial de la Bière at Place Bonaventure. We were eager to sample some local microbrews and also get our fix of some of our US favorites. We went on Thursday evening and after waiting in line for about 30 minutes to get drink tickets, Husband decided to buy a bunch rather than have to brave the line again. His version is that he read somewhere that tastings would be between 2-5 tickets. I talked him down to 62 (plus the commemorative beer steins).
Good thing, since it turned out most tastings only cost 2 tickets.
Once inside, it was a strange scene. Picture a convention hall filled with beer booths. Something like this:
It was fun, lots of people of different ages (the drinking age here is 18) sampling lots of cool beers. Some people had brought their kids. It was kind of crowded but in a fun, friendly way.
We spent about an hour and a half there that Thursday before we wrapped it up when people started getting sloppy. We went home with 47 tickets.
Cut to Friday night. We decided to head over to Les FrancoFolies de Montréal, a huge French-language music festival at Place des Arts. We walked around the different free stages and listened to some of the performances. It was a beautiful evening and so many people were out. I noticed that the crowd was really interesting. I’m used to festivals that appeal to a specific demographic…the FrancoFolies had people of all ages. There were little kids racing around, teenagers singing along, older people sitting at tables or on the stairs watching the whole scene. It was really fun to walk around and people watch.
We also found the taco truck. Yes, the lone taco truck in Montreal. Montreal has some crazy law that prohibits street food, the truck can only sell at events or on private property. We’ve thought about stalking the truck because the tacos are really good.
After our tacos, we realized that we still had a stack of beer tickets burning a hole in our pockets. Off we went, back to the beer festival, only this time it was different. By the time we got there, it was close to 8:30 and much rowdier and more crowded than the night before - and really swampy from the heat and humidity.
Every few minutes someone would yell “Woo!” and then the whole exhibition hall would join in, with a deafening, collective “WOO!”At first I didn’t understand…I was looking for a television with the hockey game. Husband explained that it was mob mentality. “It’s like when a fire truck goes by Whiny Dog and all the other dogs in the neighborhood start to howl. Whiny gets this look like he doesn’t know why he’s howling but he just can’t help it. This is the same thing.”
We lasted about 30 minutes this time before I got worried it was going to devolve into Lord of the Flies. Off we went – with 30 tickets.
If you know me, you know where this is going. I hate waste…especially wasting something I’ve paid for. Guess where I went 2 days later? Yep, back to that godforsaken beer festival to try to use up the last tickets. Husband was off on business so I enlisted the help of our first friend here in Montreal. I insisted on going in the afternoon before the place started to feel like a football match. It was fun, but I’d had enough of beer, tickets, and lines and we never did drink away all the tickets.
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