My Worst Holiday Experience Ever!

photo by pixabay

You sure you want to hear a horror story just before you leave on vacation? Okay then...

When my husband I were first married we loved travel and took every opportunity to do so. One beautiful Canadian fall, we decide on the spur of the moment to buy a rail pass and travel through the Provence of Quebec.

The idea being we would get on an off the train at random, when the mood moved us. No reservations, no firm plans. Just go for it.

First stop Quebec City. Had an absolutely marvellous time, stayed in a lovely bed and breakfast in the old city. Liked it so much we stayed a week. This is not so bad. Next stop, Montreal.

This had to be the worst experience of my entire life. We had been told that Montreal was not a friendly city and it lived up to it's reputation.

The taxi we hailed from the train station was surly and would not take us to any hostels or B&B's. Said they were all full. How about a hotel? Nope. All full. Okay, then take us to the tourist information centre. Perhaps they could help. He shrugged his shoulders and lit up what had to be has 8th cigarette since we got into the cab.

He took us to the centre. Bounced to a stop on the curb. Then squealed his tires as he left us and the bags at the curb.
Inside the reception was not much better.

The young woman behind the desk looked up from her magazine and gave us the once over. We asked about a recommendation for a room. She looked at us as if we were from Mars.

There were no rooms in the entire city due to some large event be held for the next three days. But she did have a list of places a few blocks from the city centre that may have a room. Did we mind a three Fleur-de-lis? Thinking that is like the Michelin star system we said we would go and look at it.

Found another not so surly taxi driver not far from the office. Oh, yes he knew the place and have us there in a jiffy. Through traffic, over some rail tracks and past dozens of factories and warehouses he takes us. This looks like an older industrial area. We are not comfortable. Where in the heck were we going?

We finally stopped in front of a shabby three story walk ups. He points to a door that has a very old worn sign that says a name of a hotel.

We tried the door. It’s locked. We rang the bell and waited. And waited. Finally the beat up door creaked open. Standing in the dimly lit hall was standing the ugliest woman I have ever seen.

Hair rollers hanging half rolled up in greasy gray hair tied up in some holey scarf that had seen better days. A half smoked cigarette was dangling from the corner of her almost toothless mouth. Then the pièce de résistance! A stained baggy T-shirt with one large breast dangling in the middle of her rather large frame. My eyes could take no more.

My husband asked if we could see the room. The woman waddled further down a hallway and said to follow. And follow those dirty yellow Big Bird slippers, we did.

The place smelled dank and musty. We walked through a hole in the wall into another building and continued to the end of the hallway. She stopped at the last door on the right. She indicted that my husband should open the door.

What a feast for sore eyes! Not! On the floor in the centre of the room was a yellow and brown stained mattress. No bedding. Only a lonely single light bulb handing from a wire over the center of the mattress. The window shade had yellowed with age and had a few tears letting in the view of trash bins in the alley behind the building. There was a dresser with one drawer missing standing on the other side of the bed. The room stunk of stale cheap cigar smoke.

Then my beloved husband just had to ask about the facilities. Oh, yes. There is a shared bathroom right next door at the end of the hall. We squeezed past Miss Universe to check it out.

I carefully peered behind my husband’s shoulder. Nothing could have prepared me for this! There was a small broken window over the toilet, to allow for fumes to escape, I presumed. The small toilet had no seat and obviously had not been cleaned in sometime. The shower was a broken lead pipe coming out of the wall at a very peculiar angle. The plumbing for the sink was there, but the sink was missing in action. The floor was spongy and I felt like I needed a shower. Some where clean. Please?

Our horror guide was asking for the price of the room up front. My husband gave the excuse that we wouldn’t be staying because of my allergies. Nice!

We made for a hasty exit all the while this woman was yelling at us in French. Thank goodness my husband had the fore site to have the taxi wait for us!

We explained the situation to the taxi driver and he said not to worry he knew of a place in the west end of Montreal. We drove about a half hour through a much newer industrial park and pulled up in front of rather clean looking motel with a Chinese Restaurant in the front. Across the highway was a Tim Horton's Donut Shop. Couldn’t be that bad, right.

Checked in and they gave us the room key. It was towards the back of the motel, so the highway noise wouldn’t bother us. Then we swung open the door. It hit us smack in the face. Cheap whiskey and cigar smoke permeated the room.
The bed spread was stained as well. Check the bathroom. Not too bad. Toilet looked reasonably clean. How about the shower? Pulled back the curtain and the mould jumped out to grab me! No shower tonight I guess.

By now it was getting late and we were tired and hungry. Timmy’s coffee ad chilli sounded about our speed right then.
We returned to the hotel and decided we would sleep in our clothes on top of the bed. Just not comfortable pulling back those sheets.

We fell asleep fairly quickly but were rudely awaken at about 3 am when we heard what sounded like a pig squealing. My farm boyish husband thought it sounded like a pig being slaughtered. I said no, it couldn’t be. We are in the middle of a large city. I didn’t think they would allow that sort of thing.

The squealing ended abruptly and we tried to get some more sleep. We had decided during the pig incident that we would leave for greener pastures in the morning.

We were awake bright and early. Before 6 am and headed out to Timmy’s for a healthy breakfast of coffee and a doughnut.

As we were passing the restaurant we noticed a hand printed sign in the window:

TODAY’S SPECIAL – SWEET AND SOUR PORK