“Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test!”

             Sunday was an interesting day. We had wanted to go to Church this morning but we couldn’t find the hours for the churches that were nearby and the ones we could find hours for were way too far away. So instead we decided to go find breakfast….McDo (that’s right, we went to a cheap American restaurant because we didn’t want to run around in the rain to find Canadian cuisine – which I’m not even sure what that would be…). It was pretty cool though because I did our whole order in French accurately so that was rewarding. Then we rode the metro (my first time in a subway) and went to the pier so we could ride a duckboat!!!! (really named amphibus but I like duck boat better). 

It was awesome!  We went through the older part of the city and saw this hotel that each floor has a different architecture because it was built one level at a time and wanted to be unique. 

We also saw a safe that is completely outside the bank in what looks like a floating square. It has levels of protection, including massive water pressure that would throw you backwards if you tried to break the exterior.  

Then went into the water to get better views of the city. One of the most intriguing parts was this abandoned grain silo along the water’s edge of the city. There used to be a whole lot of them (enough that there was no view of the water) until they tore them all down except this one as a reminder of their heritage. It was quite hideous and I’m glad there’s only one of them left because the view of the Saint Laurent River is quite pretty. Our tour guide told us that there’s a phone number you can call which will link you to a speaker so you can say something inside the silo. It will reverberate along the many curves inside the silo and the echo of your voice will come back to you in a melody (called a silophone – haha sooo witty). Pretty cool! Oh, and on the other side of the silo is a large piece of land they rent out for movies, most notably it is Sparta from 300. Who knew Sparta was in Montreal?

There was also a world art exhibition-turned-apartments on the other shore that our tour guide described as "legos". They were supposed to be pyramids, but they couldn't finish the top 1/4 because it was too heavy for the lower structures to support.

This is the view of the city from the water

     

       After we finished our duck tour, we went to go see some churches. We went to St. Jacques Basilica. It was a very nice church with very gorgeous pictures and stained glass. It also had a replica of the Shroud.

Then we went to Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, modeled after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. I forgot the name of the structure, but it had the same altar thing as in St. Peter’s, which was cool because I’d learned about it in ARCH 1010 and today I got to see a model of it in person. 

That church was amazing and had many secret places. There were many arches with paintings of famous Saints of Montreal inside them and statues of the 12 apostles on the side of the arch that was towards the center of the church. There were also a couple areas that held beautiful sculptures, one of Jesus on the Cross and one of a Saint above his tomb. Right after I finished walking around the whole church, mass started so I got to hear part of a church service in French. It was pretty cool but sometimes the Priest spoke too fast so I didn’t catch most of it. 

One of the famous Saints of Montreal in action

A Station of the Cross in high relief

We left because we were really hungry and needed to go home. So when we found the metro station, it had an ice rink in the middle of it! I must admit, it’s too bad VB doesn’t have more of them, it would be pretty fun to go ice skating more often.

            I think I like Montreal overall. I especially like the older part of the city because of the beautiful architecture and distinctness of the buildings (there is one that each floor has different architecture for it’s façade). The newer downtown part of Montreal just looked more like any other city (except that everything is in French). So much of this new modern stuff is so cookie cutter anymore that the cities lose their character. Maybe that’s why I like the older parts of cities in general. It did kind of remind me of Boston, but a bit more welcoming (although that might be skewed because of my knowledge of French). I am certainly looking forward to going to some museums and learning more about Montreal’s history since it has so much of it hidden in it’s many layers.