1159 days ago
Last week when volunteering, at a hotel welcome desk, I met this "character" I might say, as he is more than just a person or a man, or gentleman. Mr. K, like in the Process.
First of all, he's an amazing mixture of Catalan, French and Italian, speaking all these languages perfectly, plus English and some Portuguese, so our conversation was winding through their nuances and enchantments.
As he was very busy with the conference (on behalf of Catalunya - Spain), we decided to go out this Friday. I wanted to show him "my" Montrèal. Started with a Brazilian/Cajun (New Orleans style, from Acadian/Northern Québec immigrants that went down there) food fare: softshell crab, seafod gumbo, alligator and coconut sauce fish - the Bahia way they say. The restaurant is literally invaded by green plants. There are a couple of tacky alligators too hanging around, but all together there's a nice ambiance and the food is rather decent.
Went for coffee and dessert at Les deux Marie - a French coffee shop I love on St. Denis, then got to a well hidden jazz bar (underground) on the same street La Kemia. The jazz was just finishing around 11, so after some more chatting we ended up until 3am at Cafe Sarajevo, another favourite spot I haven't been to since July.
Usually they play gipsy music from Yugoslavia, quite commercial at times. I saw in the newspaper there was a L'Esprit d'Istanbul concert, and I'm quite nostalgic about Turkey. The concert was over, in theory, but the Turkish drummer wrapped around his hips one of those coin decorated dancing scarves and started whirling and shaking, with guys playing drums, guitar and accordeon. A surprising excellent performance.
I got home and straight to bed about 4.
Saturday we went for lunch and a bit of wandering in the same area I like: Mont Royal - St. Denis - Duluth. Santropol - a community fun, colourful, warm café, where they serve no alcohol, but nice coffees and fruitjuices and healthy organic food. Dessert was Portuguese, in one of the numerous bakeries of the kind in the area. All people serving were Portuguese, as well as the ones sitting next to us. Pastel de nata, an orange tart and a sweet potatoe mini-cake.
Then a visit to 10.000 Villages - a fair trade shop, with crafted products - mostly decoration, few clothing items from all over poor countries: Latin America, Africa, Asia. Lots of colours and textures - a real pleasure to look around and buy a few items.
We spent a quick hour at my place looking at pictures and telling more of my life stories.
Then I went for dinner with my Spanish speaking Montreal friends and he went for more jazz with a colleague and people he knows here.
I ended up in Cafe Sarajevo again, with a Norwegian friend - Petter and an Armenian Turkish - Loerna. This time the music was on - kind of pop/folk Turkish, still had fun.
Bottom line - I had a great time, so much smooth communication, he travelled all over the place and has some kind of extraordinary family, an excellent talker, enthusiastic and empathetic, I felt like I knew him since ever. And that we can go on talking forever A special kind of connection that doesn't happen every day. He's taking a plane today, hopefully we shall meet again on one of life's winding roads.
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