Montréal sous la pluie

So this morning I woke up, got out, and got rained on. I was determined to go sightseeing today though so first I stopped off at McGill college. My host from Yarker, Ontario was a photographer and had an exhibition going on outside the college. He took old photos of Montreal, that were at least 100 years old, then recreated the exact location, angle, time of year, and lighting conditions and took a new photo. The photos are arranged side by side so the viewers can see exactly how each location has changed since the original photo was taken. It's pretty cool.





Still getting rained on, I headed into the subway and took it to a station nearer to the old city. I then walked around the old city and the Port taking pictures the whole way and just getting rained on non-stop.

The thing about raincoats, is they don't really do much below the waist. So from my knees down to my toes I was drenched. My sneakers were waterlogged by the time I made it to the port.

Oh well. After walking around the port and decided against paying the entree fee for the Museum of Natural History, I stopped for a snack at a crêperie and had an apple, cheese, and maple syrup crêpe. It was delicious.

By the time I finished my crêpe and decided to head back to the subway, it was still raining. I knew I was near chinatown but I didn't feel like looking for it. Turns out I found it anyway so I walked through for a couple blocks still making my way to the station. As I walked past a dim sum place I almost regretted having a crêpe for a snack. Almost. That was a damn good crêpe.

Thoroughly soaked to the bone, I decided I better head to the tourism information center to ask what there was to do inside (preferably for free). When I got out of the subway it had stopped raining and as I made my way to the building, the sun even came out. Well, forget the tourism desk! I'm going to climb Mt. Royal and get some great panoramic views of the city! I check the time and see I have 2.5 hours. I remember my last mountain climb that was only supposed to take a few hours and ended up taking all day and half the night and decided maybe I better just check out those two islands east of the city that make up one big park. I walk around most of the first island and get a lot of good pictures.

Check out the photostream to see the rest of them.
It's now 4:30 and I make my way to the second island and it looks like I just walked onto a race track.

Rather than figure out exactly how to get to the parts I want to see, I just turn back because it's 4:50 and at 5 I'm meeting my host Cindy for a motorcycle ride.

We ride, eat dinner, come back into town. Now I'm "blogging". Ugh. Anyway, I'm dead tired and I have to pack up all my stuff. Tomorrow I leave Montreal for Quebec city. 2 days is not enough in Montreal. You need at least 3. It strikes me as kind of odd that I've never been here before. Montreal is closer to where I grew up than RIT, where I went to school. It's also closer to RIT than where I grew up. It's a great city, has the feel of a foreign country, and is just a few hours away. I should come here more often when I get back and have a job...if.

Oh, and ALDO shoes will make your brain into a disco!