mission accomplished

Yesterday I did a big trek to the ends of the earth and bought a winter coat!
I decided to go to a Manteaux Manteaux store in St. Michel. I went to Chinatown to get grocery money and noticed that in the Palais de Congres there was a climate change conference going on. Ironically, the street just behind it was packed full of cars either picking up or dropping off the conference attendees. I really enjoy going to Chinatown because it is nice to see grandparents with their grandkids, something one does not see in other places very often.
I went to the library to get a French songbook for Dan and a William Gibson fiction for me, then I stopped at the tea shop to get some green and maté tea. After that it was off to Jean-Talon, to take the blue line to St. Michel. Fabre metro station is funky! I thought I would walk since the store did not appear to be a long way from the St. Michel metro, although I think it was about 20-25 minutes. I passed some interesting stores along the way. There was one that had a sign which said just “Sinbad” and appeared to be stacked to the roof with electronics of some sort. There were restaurants, cafés and depanneurs and sported signs like “Halal Pizza” and “Cartes de souhaite - anglais, français, italien”. Really, there is no place in the world like Montreal!
I had a hard time finding the store at first and went to get December metro passes at a nearby Pharmaprix, then backtracked and found it. What a disappointment. The website said it had jackets from this and last year’s collection in a “large format” and I took that to mean a large store with lots of selection. Instead what it meant was “plus size jackets crammed into a super-tiny store in a mall”. I looked at a few jackets anyway, and they were really thin and cheap, not to mention 2-3 times my size. So that was over. I had noticed a Harvey’s across the street and decided it was time for my annual burger. We used to eat at Harvey’s once in a while when I was a kid becase my Mom liked how we could choose the burger toppings. She always said they didn’t give her enough pickles and would get me to ask for pickles and then I would give them to her for her burger. But the Interac machine was not working and I needed my cash for groceries, so I didn’t go.
I noticed a large store nearby called l’Aubainerie but it was also a total bust. There was a Winners beside that and I did find two nice jackets, but the problem was that one that did fit me was a fluorescent pink and black tweed and the other one I liked was too big. I remembered that I saw a Le Chateau Entrepot on the way, so I thought I would try it. There is one by my work, but it’s not very nice to shop at since there is a big, dusty, poorly-lit warehouse-like room in the back that is packed full of clothes. I was pleasantly surprised in that this one was well lit, well organized, and laid out like a regular clothing store. I looked at every jacket and found some super-long ones that were taller than me. I tried a nice grey one that had mega-shoulderpads and decided against it since it made me look like I had a permanent shoulder problem. I tried a black one, but then I saw the purple tweed one and settled on that one right away. I had seen an almost identical coat at Jacob earlier this winter but it was over $300. This one was less than half the price!
The journey was not over yet, though. I still had to get groceries. I had two bags now - my shopping bag with books and tea, and the bag from Le Chateau. I headed over to Jean-Talon, bought coffee at Café Crème, sausages at William J Walter and a big can of olive oil at the olive store at Jean-Talon (that sells weirdly super-sexy hair dye in the back corner with names like teinture de matin de Fatima with cartoony harem girls sporting their newly dyed hair). I bought some vegetables and fruit in the indoor market (I’m happy to say there are still some for sale even during the winter!). By this point I had 5 bags and tried to sling the can of olive oil over my shoulder like a purse and it kind of worked but kept falling off. I was glad to get home!








