Last week, as most of you know, Mrs. Z and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary.

I wanted to do something special for us and thought of a nice quick trip to Montreal. 

A few things-

You can get to Montreal by plane from La Guardia in 1 hour and 15 minutes, and it is ok if you don't speak French.

The city has old world charm and new world zip.

We arrived on Monday afternoon and of course our Berries were on fire with customer needs. We took care of all of their needs, checked into the Hotel St. James and quickly realized we were on holiday.... 

The St.James is in the old part of Montreal and it has excellent customer service, large rooms and a beautiful design.

I must say that the concierge was over the top helpful, although, we knew every spot that we were going to hit, so it made it easy for them......

Our first lunch was at a tourist trap, did I say that, but yes it was. Plastic cheese and ham sculptures, the whole nine yards. I had one of the local beers, a serious Jambon and swiss cheese sandwich and Mrs. Z had a caesar salad. It was perfectly acceptable, but I have no need to return.

On a friends recommendation, we were told to try Graziellas. The restaurant had a down town New York feel and the food felt similar to NYC in the late 80's when food was about to "blow up" in NY.

We had a lovely time, CZ had a half bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and I had a couple of Italian beers.

Proof of alcohol consumption!

The food was perfectly fine, Zucchini stuffed blossoms, veal shank as well as gnocchi-

I know that we all work really hard and that the so called Money tree is not blooming with excess dollar bills, but take the time for you and your significant other ( if that is applicable) and travel.

 You can't use your excess cash when you are dead!