#MavericksInCanada Blog: Post #4
by Billy Hoffmann
Hello again from Montreal! This is #11
Billy Hoffmann here to share a little bit about what the team has been up to on our trip to Canada.
Today was our fourth day here and the first day that we have not had a game, meaning we were free to roam the city and truly experience Montréal and its beauty. The day started like all of our other days with continental breakfast at our hotel. After that, most of the guys returned to our rooms to go back to sleep before our team meeting at Noon. We talked about our plans for the day and after a few minutes decided to take the Metro, or subway, and head to Old Port Montreal for the day to see the sights.
After getting there, we spilt into two groups and went off to find a place to eat. One group chose Five Guys, while the rest of us decided to go to Brasseurs. Quite a few guys ordered Poutine -- a Canadian classic -- myself being one of them, and for the most part I think we all enjoyed it. Overall lunch was a success, even though it took our waitress multiple times of asking to bring out certain foods, and if it weren't for
Ugo Tritz translating for us, we probably would not have gotten half of what we ordered!
After lunch we met up with the other group and continued to walk around trying to find little things that our family and friends might like from different stores. One store owner realized we were from the States, which could not have been more obvious considering our captain,
Cole Nelson, was walking around with a GoPro strapped to his chest all day!
Once we were done shopping, a few guys wanted to continue walking around while a few of us wanted to really cover some ground and rent bikes for the day. I can't say this enough...it was the best $5 I've ever spent in my life! Riding around on bikes allowed us to see far more of the city than would have been possible walking and allowed us to have fun while doing it. Stevie, Connor, Fred, Ugo, Ed, Cole and I had probably our best day yet on this trip. Once we got our bikes the options were endless, and we started our journey around Montréal by visiting the docks.
After a quick timeout to replace a bike whose tire got destroyed, we were back in action! The bikes had a 30-minute limit and had to be exchanged for a different bike before the time ran out. So after downloading the app that told us were the closest rack was, we pretty much just let that guide us around the city. This was fun but at times was a little hectic with us riding around a city we did not know, trying to read road signs that we did not understand. For the most part we had no problem, but there were few incidents with us riding down a street only to figure out halfway that it was a one-way…and they we were NOT heading in the right direction.
The first few stops were close calls, but once we got the swing of things, exchanging bikes and riding around became easy. To be honest, I don't exactly know where we went, but I know from tired legs and a helpful app that we rode anywhere from eight to 10 miles around Montréal.
I think my favorite part of the whole experience was that while everyone knew we were tourists from the States, the people seemed to love us! Every person we passed, like a finely-tuned machine, we would yell out a nice "Bonjour" in our most Ugo-like accent, and with a smile on their faces they would wave and reply "Bonjour!" At one stoplight, we even made an older woman laugh out loud with her friend as she listened to our conversations; she proceed to tell us, "You know, you guys really are a riot! Enjoy your stay in Montreal!." We replied with a laugh and maybe our loudest "Bonjour!"
After rushing frantically back to the hotel for a meeting that we thought we had at 6 p.m. but turned out to be much later, we all headed back to our rooms to relax a little bit before eating dinner. To end an amazing day in Montreal we all hung out in each other's rooms, playing Uno and sharing stories about things we experienced throughout our day.
All in all, I think the whole team had an amazing day full of memories and laughs that we won't forget anytime soon. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to read and follow our trip up North. If you want to hear anymore details from the trip, please feel free to ask, as there is too much information to fit into such a short blog post!
Au revoir, Mav fans!
Check out previous entries from the #MavericksInCanada blog below:
#1 -- Bonjour, Montreal! (June 26, Stevie Siy)
#2 -- A Visit to Saint-Hubert (June 27, Diego Gutierrez)
#3 -- Exploring Canadian Culture and Cuisine (June 28, Matt Smith)
For more from the Mavericks' training tour of Canada, follow Omaha Men's Soccer on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
