For the second year in a row, we celebrated Noah’s birthday from Canada. Last year, we took a one-day fairy trip to Victoria, British Columbia. This year, we wrapped up our stay in Montreal with bagels, pizza, and a visit to a bug museum.
Noah and I were up somewhat early to make the 45-minute walk to the St-Viateur bagel shop, where he picked out a warm, plain bagel. We made a few other stops on our way back to the Airbnb including a jaunt inside Fairmount Bagel which is slightly less famous.
Our main Montreal activity for the day was a visit to the Insectarium, part of a museum campus in the city. Our visit was enjoyable and efficient, as we managed to enter ahead of a couple of big school groups to see the museum’s main exhibits. We snapped photos inside and out before jumping in the car to grab lunch at a well-rated pizza place just outside the city.
Emmie sported her new Montreal bagel shirt in front of one of many segments of colorful preserved insects.
Noah and Eilidh posed in a section of the museum designed to imitate a human-sized insect habitat.
The highlight may have been the expansive butterfly garden that was our final room in the museum.
Eilidh bought a snazzy ants watch at the museum’s gift shop.
On our way out of the country, we visited a Canadian Costco and made a final grocery store stop at Metro Plus. Once we’d crossed the border in Vermont, we stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s headquarters where we perused the flavor graveyard and purchased scoops of ice cream. The stop was fine but the selection of ice creams was more or less the same as the pint selection at Iowa grocery stores.
Our Vermont Airbnb was lovely, with plenty of privacy, a screened-in porch, and ample area in the loft for the kids to sleep. I snuck down to Waitsfield to pick up tacos to take back to the family. I couldn’t resist the chance to try a ‘creemee,’ which was their nomenclature for soft-serve ice cream!
Noah finished his birthday with a Quebec Maple Coke, purchased earlier in the day at Montreal’s Metro Plus grocery store.