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Montreal Craft Brewery Tour

Montreal is a gorgeous city.  Head down to Old Montreal and you almost feel like you’ve touched down in Europe with the old buildings and cobblestone streets. Here, street performers are abundant and the Basilica at night is a sight not to be missed.

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Apart from the beautiful setting, Montreal is a foodie’s playground, with just about every type of food you can imagine found within her streets. Treats from around the world, as well as local classics like Montreal smoked meat, steamies and poutine.

While the food is good, the craft beer scene here is great and constantly growing.

Here’s just a sampling of what Montreal has to offer the beer lover.

Brutopia

1219 Crescent Street, Montreal

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Frosty Morning brew    

The unique layout of this place, with three bars spread across three floors, Brutopia is a great spot for the craft beer lover. They brew a bunch of their standard beers directly on site, including an IPA, Honey, Brown Ale, Blonde and a fruity Raspberry Blonde (which is my fave!).  Throughout the year, they also offer selections like a Chocolate Stout, Scotch and Cream Ales like Frosty Morning, plus many more. Brutopia imports other craft and micro-brewed beer, so their stock is always changing.  Aside from the beer, the neat thing about Brutopia is they have a viewing deck overlooking the stage, where they routinely host live music, open mic and trivia nights.

Dieu du Ciel

29 Laurier Avenue West, Montreal

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Dieu du Ciel is the perfect place to end your Montreal Brewery tour as they are open seven days a week until 3am. With a beer menu that is updated constantly (They rotate up to 17 different styles on tap), visiting beer drinkers often head straight here to see what’s new. Always packed with both locals and those just visiting, Dieu du Ciel is known as a contender for top beer spot in the city.  Whether you’re looking to warm up in the winter or cool down in the summer, this is the spot. Favourites, like the creamy Aphrodisiaque and the coffee-infused Péché Morte make a stop here worth it. Add their more experimental brews and a visit here is an essential and worthy one.

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 Chai Ale at Dieu du Ciel

L’amère À Boire

2049 Saint Denis Street, Montreal

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Trying a flight or two at L’amere a boire

L’amère À Boire specializes in classic English, German and Czech ales and lagers, from Hefeweizen to Czech-style pilsner.  They also have a great selection of tapas and seasonal menus to pair with their 22 house beers, including the German-inspired Montreal Hell Lager.  The bar itself has a sleek, café vibe to it, with a loft, backyard terrace and a small patio out front for the summer if you’re looking for a quick beer (or flight) along St. Denis.

Benelux Brewpub

245 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal

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 A perfect summer drink- Pamplemousse 

Benelux Brewpub has two locations offering a menu of a dozen or more craft beer at each spot. They switch up the selection available, moving between old favourites and new contenders. The focus is on Belgian and American styles, with interesting one-offs like Amalgame, a sour brown with cherries aged on oak for one year, or the refreshing summer Pamplemousse. There are plenty of options ranging between blondes, ales and stouts. When hunger hits, Benelux offers the $7 Eurodog and praise is unanimous that it’s a must-try.

Les 3 Brasseurs

1356 Saint Catherine Street West, Montreal

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            Blanche brew at 3 Brasseurs

Started in France and now with four locations in Montreal, Les 3 Brasseurs is more than just a restaurant and pub chain. They maintain a steady menu of beer crafted on site, including a White, Blonde, IPA, Amber and Brown. In addition, they offer a monthly brew and a seasonal brew, always keeping a new beer inspiration part of their brewing routine. There’s plenty to choose from in the way of food and they specially design menu options to be paired with certain beer.

Next time you’re in Montreal, be sure to cross at least a few of these breweries off your list!DSC_0031

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Disney ‘Wishes’

Clips from Walt Disney World’s magical ‘Wishes’ Fireworks display.  Always an impressive show!

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Collecting stamps

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I’d choose a passport full of stamps any day! 

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Plane Ticket Happiness

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One of the best things I spend my money on for sure!

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‘Around the World in 50 Years’

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As a travel addict, I’ve often dreamed about travelling to every country in the world, so when I came across Albert Podell’s book ‘Around the World in 50 Years‘ I was intrigued. Albert set a goal for himself to actually set foot in every official country around the world, which at the time of writing was 196, and then started checking them off.  Some were easy and enjoyable, others a bit more challenging, but then he got down to the ones that were war-torn, almost impossible to get visas for and just plain dangerous.  Yet fifty years after travelling to his first country, Canada, he touched down in the nearly impossible to reach Angola and finished his mission.

Talk about living life to the fullest. After reading this book, I feel as though I’ve hardly travelled. I thought I had some great travel stories (and I do have a few) but nothing compared to some of the harrowing tales of Albert’s years on the road.  He writes with humour and compassion about the adventures he’s had, filled with curiosity and drama.

He comments that he would have enjoyed the quest even more had some of the parts been not quite such a challenge, but in the end wouldn’t change it.

“At the end of the day, I was able to play the cards the world dealt me and survive to 196. Who else can say that?”

The issues he faced both getting into some countries and then safely getting around the has made me rethink (slightly) my quest to visit every single country, but what an accomplishment that would be!

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Be a storyteller

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To me, the best stories are those told about far away places or new discoveries.  Stories about finding new friends on the road or finding yourself somewhere you’d least expect. Stories about different cultures and interesting foods. Stories about the kindness of strangers and how you can communicate around the world with some charade moves and a smile. Stories that only come with getting out and exploring this amazing world.  
So get out there and and become not only a traveler but also a storyteller.

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Tales of a Travel Addict- The Trailer!

This week, I had some fun playing around with iMovie and made my youtube channel a trailer.

Check out Tales of a Travel Addict- The Trailer!

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Living on One Dollar a Day

What would you do if you only had one dollar a day to live on?  If you didn’t know where your next paycheque was coming from?  If you had to choose between sending your children to school or feeding them?

For many of us, this seems like an impossible notion, but for 1.1 billion people around the world, living on ONE dollar is a daily reality.

I just watched the documentary Living on One Dollar, where four American friends head to a rural village in Guatemala for two months to experience what it’s like to live on one dollar a day.  Each morning, they would draw a number from 0-9 out of a hat. This number represented how much money they had to spend that day. Somedays, it was 0, other days they were lucky and could buy bananas along with their rice and beans.  They took out a loan for $125, which had to be paid back bi-weekly in increments of $6.50 or so. With this, they rented a one room house where they slept on the concrete floor. They also planted radishes so they’d have some income once their crop grew.  During this time, they interviewed some of the 300 locals living in Pena Blanca, Guatemala. Their stories are both inspiring and heartbreaking, but regardless of how little they have, they are all willing to open up their homes and lives to their neighbours and these four Americans.

I’ve traveled to places very similar to Pena Blanca where extreme poverty surrounds you and I’ve always been incredibly touched by the generosity I’ve been shown by complete strangers, who have invited me in for a meal, even though they really couldn’t afford it.

Over the years, I’ve often found myself broke and struggling to pay rent and buy groceries, but I always know I have another paycheque coming or I have family, friends and options available to me when I get really stuck.  Those times are stressful enough and I only have to take care of myself. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to have a family to support, be making a dollar a day and not even knowing when my next day of work will be.

Listening to these guys talk about their experience and watching the interviews they did with the locals really puts things back in perspective.

As one of them said,

“It’s not due to laziness that someone is poor. It’s not due to a lack of ambition or lack of intelligence, it’s because they lack things that we take advantage of everyday.”

We don’t realize the daily things we take for granted – education, clean water, food in our belly and a roof over our head. These are things we just expect to have. But watching this documentary reminded me it could just as easily have been me in that situation and still could be.

To learn more about the film, the project and to get involved visit  http://livingonone.org/livingonone/film/ or watch the documentary on Netflix

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Practically FREE Prague!

One day, it would be nice to have an unlimited budget to travel with, to not have to worry about counting dollars, pounds, euros, shillings and so on. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet. More than once in my life (four times to be exact) I have decided to buy a plane ticket instead of paying rent and come home from a wonderful adventure homeless, seeking temporary refuge on a friend’s couch, in my car or at my parents’ house.

This time, however, I opted to attempt to keep my apartment. I found myself in Prague for four days with approximately $50 to spend after paying for my hostel.

So after having a great (and cheap) time exploring the city, here’s my (practically) FREE guide to Prague!

  1. While the city has a good Metro system that’s reasonably cheap, there’s really not much need to use it (with the exception of arriving with your luggage) as almost all of the main sights are an easy walking distance from each other. Plus, you get your exercise and have the opportunity to find hidden gems along the way!
  1. New Europe Tours offers a free walking tour leaving from the Starbucks across from the Astronomical clock at 10:45 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily. This company offers tours in several cities across Europe and the guides work on a tip basis. So if you like the tour and learn about the city you are currently in (which I can almost guarantee you will as all the guides I’ve had have been both funny and informative) then you tip them what you feel it was worth at the end of the three-hour tour.
  1. While on the road, eating out becomes a daily expense. While traditional pubs and restaurants are great to experience the local cuisine for a meal or two, the cost of eating out can add up quickly, especially if you’re in one of the touristy areas. Supermarkets are another great way to try local foods for a fraction of the price. Grabbing a fresh bun, some deli meat, fruit and a drink can cost as little as a dollar, depending on where you are. Then you have the freedom of finding a nice green park or your favourite spot from the day to have a picnic!
  2. Prague is a great city to wander around and many of the city’s must-see sights are free. Stroll along the Charles Bridge, making sure to stop and check out the many statues along the way. Wander through the Castle grounds – you can’t go in the buildings without paying an entrance fee, but just walking through the courtyards and around the perimeter give   you a great sense of the buildings. The gardens outside are also a perfect place to stop for a supermarket picnic! Old Town square hosts the Astronomical clock, Old Town Hall, Tyn Church, the statue of Jan Hus, Kinský Palace, Stone   Bell House and more. After a long day of discovering Prague on foot, Old Town Square is a great place to indulge in a   street beer for a couple Czech Koruna and watch the sunset as horse-drawn carriages roll by.
  1. Prague has some beautiful hotels, but is also home to a number of hostels with beds as low as $7 a night. These may not be the fanciest places in town, but if you’re coming to beautiful Prague to sit in a hotel room, you are really missing out!

Best of all, the memories and photos you’ll take with you when you leave are FREE. So get out there and explore fairytale Prague, without worrying about overstepping your budget!

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Spring in High Park

Sometimes being a tourist in your own city can be a great mini-escape.  This is definitely true for me each spring when the Japanese Cherry Blossoms bloom in High Park.  While you will be sharing the beauty with thousands of others, it’s definitely worth the trip.

These beautiful blossoms only last for about a week, so pack a picnic or bring your favourite book and a camera and head to Toronto’s High Park!

To get to High Park, take the Bloor-Danforth subway line (Line 2) to High Park station, exit, walk across Bloor Street and into the park.

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