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may 5 - may 7, 2006
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My third year of college, I lived in a big red house with 14 girls, 9 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms (yeah, you read that correctly), 1 rat, and – depending on who you speak with – one slightly quirky ghost. I didn’t know these girls well when we moved in that summer, but within a few months they taught me what having true friends was like... true friends love you for your quirks and craziness, as well as for your strengths. And we actually relish (and perhaps feed off of) each others’ quirks and craziness.
Because of our big red house we were known as “The Red House Girls”. Everything was branded: our parties, our language, our ridiculous jokes. It carried over to our last year, when we moved into a swankier place which we dubbed “The Taj”. But we were still and always will be the Red House Girls, because no matter how much time has passed (fourteen years – gah!), or how many Red House Husbands are married in (eight), or how many Petite Reds are born (seven, with three more on the way), I know I can always pick up the phone and call a Red House Girl to catch up. We get together at least once a year for a Red House Reunion, where we giggle about times gone by or laugh at the most recent antics that never seem to diminish in style or panache regardless of our *ahem* maturity. It’s true our conversations have evolved from when we used to talk about the boys we’ve met. Now we talk about the Petite Reds, career development, and retirement plans. But the underlying fun is still the same. Red House Reunion 2006 - Montreal This year we decided to dust off our passports and meet up in Montreal, Canada. Alicia’s husband’s family is from Montreal so she’s been quite often, which is how she ended up being Julie The Red House Cruise Director for the weekend. What a packed weekend it was, too. I've written up the weekend for the Red House Girls, so here’s more than you ever cared to know about my girls, our various nicknames, and the wacky scrapes we get ourselves into. Friday, May 5 Alicia ("Nubby") and I were the first to arrive at our hotel on Friday morning, and were delighted to discover that our rooms in the very trendy Hotel Godin were ready for us. Nubby digs this because she "likes to have everything put away when she gets to a new town". Since I had nothing better to do, I put my stuff into drawers while I waited for her. She showed up with a surprise that she’d arranged for everyone - the clever girl had ordered some adorable t-shirts that read on the front “Viva La Maison Rouge”, and on the back, “Red House 06 Montreal”. “I know the language is off,” she said, referring to the mixture of Italian and French, “But I liked the international aspect. And “viva” works better with the phrase.” I laughed so hard when I saw them. They were perfect. For years in college we threatened to have baseball caps made with our Red House Symbol on them, but we never got around to it. Now over a decade later it’s finally in print. We had a number of hours before the rest of the Red Housers arrived and, since it was a beautiful Montreal day, she and wandered down la Rue St Catherine for window shopping and café au lait. I’ve never been to Montreal, so I was very intrigued to see this lovely part of Quebec. I work with French Canadians often in my job and – I have to be honest – I always assumed their demands to have everything translated into French was simply a reflection of an obstinate culture desperately grasping at a disappearing history. I was wrong (and, in hindsight, terribly close-minded); they really do speak French in Montreal and, though they’re more than willing to speak English when needed, French is their official and primary language. Quebecois is different from Parisian French – which is what I’m used to hearing – so I’ll chalk up my lack of understanding to accent changes. Yeah. That’s the ticket. Lunch a la Red House The Red House girls arrived around 12:30 or so, and Alicia had made lunch reservations for us at Café Vasco da Gama which is where we happily reunited. There are seven out of ten of us total for this reunion:
We had a great time catching up, eating, and drinking (well… those of us not knocked up, that is). At 4:00 we left to get to the Spa St James for our much-anticipated spa treatment where we indulged in facials, massages, and a mud wrap or two. We laughed when we all met in the reception area, because each of us emerged from our treatment rooms with a look of dazed relaxation. I certainly needed a little while to recover from my facial-induced nap. Quality. Spontaneous Walking Tour Some of the ladies taxied back to the hotel, but Jess, Elizabeth, Allison and I decided to return via our own mini walking tour, which Allison led from the pages of her Lonely Planet. We started off well – learning about buildings and key historical landmarks. Especially this one which we though very appropriate:
This caused quite a bit of razzing for Allison, whose Lonely Planet proved to be very lonely since it couldn’t tell us a damn thing. But then Wig (Elizabeth – I have a difficult time calling her by her real name) made up a story to make us happy… something about Queen Hossenfeffer who travel to Montreal to buy furs, and stayed in the building with an entourage of ladies-in-waiting and potentially a boy two or two. I like Wig’s story better than the one told by a passing tourist, who explained that the building was something-or-other that I can’t remember because Queen Hossenfeffer is ever more entertaining Dinner Dinner was at Buonna Notte, a cool restaurant close to our hotel. We met for drinks beforehand and that’s when Nubby gave us another surprise. Our token Red House Boy – Chip (aka “Baguette”) had come from Atlanta to spend the weekend with us. Baguette traveled with us to Miami in 2001 for Nubby’s bachelorette party – so he’s a lovely fixture in our Red House reunions.
After a few drinks at this trendy restaurant we quickly discovered what a surreal environment we were in. The place turns into a nightclub after 11:30, and since our reservations were at 9:30 we got to watch the scene evolve. This is why it was surreal. The place was full of good-looking, single, STRAIGHT men. Like, every single table was full of them. Ours was one of maybe three tables of women. The rest of the place was bursting with gorgeous testosterone. After my third “trip to the bathroom”, in which I really wandered through the Baguette did a little reconnaissance mission and discovered that this place – with its gorgeous, well-dressed, young waitresses – is really an “upscale Hooters”. One of the waitstaff told him that they actually had to try out for the position. Still not sure what that means, but we didn’t exactly wait around to find out. Despite the gorgeous boys, we weren’t there for them - we were there for a RH Reunion. In fact, no one in the group is “single” so after the music cranked up and the club scene got going, we took that as our cue to go. The host was very unhappy to see us leaving, since there was clearly a shortage of women in the place, but we smiled and waved and made our way past the loooong line of men waiting outside the door. I have to wonder what their formula was. Aside from gorgeous waitresses, how exactly does one lure gobs of successful, good looking men in one place? The mind boggles. Saturday, May 6 Saturday was cold and rainy, rainy, rainy, but that didn’t stop us from heading out for a tour of Montreal. We stopped first at the Contemporary Art Museum, which unfortunately had only two exhibits open. One of which involved a number of films by Pascal Grandmaison that creepily reminded Allison of “The Ring” so we sped through those rooms pretty quickly. But at least we were dry.
Afterwards we went to the Basilica of Notre Dame which was absolutely lovely. Jess pointed out to me that it was designed after Saint Chapelle in Paris, whose stained glass windows I love.
Private Luncheon By this time we were cold, wet, and ready for lunch. We trudged our way through Old Montreal and landed at Cube Restaurant for a 1PM reservation. Because it’s in a hotel and this was hardly peak season, we had the entire restaurant to ourselves and proceeded to make ourselves right at home on the comfy, dry couches where we ordered drinks and lounged. When lunch was served we moved to the table to eat.
Then we moved back to the couches for a little longer until the rain let up for our Old Montreal Walking Tour. Wig led this one, reading from her guide book while the peanut gallery giggled and poked fun in the background. Everything gave us something to laugh at, like the word “Youville”, which for some reason was absolutely hysterical: 
Mount Royal Part of the group motivated to Mount Royal, which is Montreal’s “central park”, but Chip and Robin wanted to shop, and my roomie Allison and I opted to head back to the hotel. As she and I were stepping into the lobby she said, “Do you think we’re going to regret not going to Mount Royal?” And I said, “I’m kind of already regretting it.” We turned right around and hopped in a taxi. The driver dropped us off at a lovely overlook of the city so we snapped few pictures and turned around to find the driver had already left. *sniff* We couldn’t get another taxi, so we boarded a city bus that took us back into town where we could find a hotel-bound taxi.
Kentucky Derby Back at the hotel, the girls had congregated in Jess and Whitney’s room to watch the Kentucky Derby. Six of us huddled together on the two beds and arbitrarily chose our horses based on their names and/or stories. Robin looked up from her fashion magazine long enough to say, “I want the one in the pink blanket.” The pink blanket was actually Barbaro, who won the whole damn thing. Too bad she didn’t put money on it. Brother Derek was my pick since he was slated to be the Seabiscuit of 2006, and obviously that strategy worked well for me *snort*. * Note to self: never bet on horse races.*
Dinner at Rosalie Rosalie Restaurant is a lovely French bistro that was – much like the night before – populated by stunningly gorgeous waitresses who were actually quite nice. We stopped at the bar for drinks, where a gorgeous bartender with *ahem* impressive assets served us cocktails. Seriously. I couldn’t stop staring at her. They were practically perfect. Aside from the bartender’s breasts the food was delicious. We over-ordered a seafood appetizer special which was unfortunate because (a) it filled us up and we had no room for dinner, and (b) since it was the “special” we had no idea how much it cost until the bill arrived. We were shocked by the price. Per person, the appetizer was as much as the main course. * Another note to self: next time don’t be shy about asking the price before ordering * Eh. It was still delish. And while I’m on the subject of restaurants, each place we went for dinner and lunch was *more* than willing to split up the check between the eight of us. They actually offered to do it – as if they do this on a daily basis for all their customers. It was such a lovely thing not to have to worry how to split the bill among X people. They did it for us – and we were so happy what with all the no adding and multiplying. It hurts our pretty heads.
Sunday, May 7 My flight left at 11:50 on Sunday, so we had a little quality Red House time over breakfast at the hotel. I’m always so sad to leave the girls. It feels like, by the time we’ve slid back into our comfortable routines, the weekend is over and we have to go. But there’s always next year. We’ve made a list of all the places we want to go for future Red House Reunions which I’ve tried to capture:
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