Magicians, Music, Montreal

Today we took a Greyhound to Montreal, and had a look at the city. It's a very nice city. They have sort of a historic center (not really an 'old' center if you're applying European guidelines) and relatively few skyscrapers around it. And more importantly, the city officials and population are aware that the skyscrapers have to fit the city's other building, and although there have apparently been mistakes with building permits in the past, and some older houses and the city walls have been torn down, they're now hard at work at fixing and meliorating these things. If you go there, you'll see that they're good at that. The city has the right of mix of what we Europeans consider exotic in American cities and what we like in our older cities.

In short, it's a wonderful city, with an old harbor, and sightseeing tour buses that let you get off and back on later, allowing you to get both a guided tour of the entire city as well as being able to leisurely stroll through the streets for a closer look. You'll definitely want to spend a couple of days in the city (you can get back on the doubledecker buses for two days), but if you have only one, as we had, be sure to go into the old city in the evening. There's one square where we saw musicians, magicians, fakirs and fire-swallowers. It was a great experience, not counting the slight sunburn I got.

And the following day, I had my first PB&J Sandwich. Now, both peanut butter and jelly are readily available in Germany, but usually people who put them on their bread see it as an either/or thing. The combination of the two is barely known in Germany, and most people would probably make quite a disgusted face when hearing of this combination (or ask you whether you're pregnant...). But when Maya came into the kitchen to prepare her lunch for the next day at work, I seized the opportunity to try PB&J as well.

It doesn't really taste special in any way. It tastes just like peanut butter and jelly on a sandwich, but since they stay separate it works just fine. The jelly actually softens the salty taste of the peanut butter. It's not my favourite dish, but it'll certainly make its way onto my plate again when the opportunity arrives.