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Southward Bound
Entry 26 of 37 | show all | print this entry |
Tonight we hop on the plane for New York, leaving Canada after only 5 or 6 days.
Before I get back to what we've been doing, I'll add some info that I've been forgetting in the last few posts.
Firstly, my mobile isn't working at the moment, as it isn't compatible with the system here in North America. It probably won't be operational in Japan either, so you won't be able to send me a message until Hong Kong.
Also, I was offered a spot in my first preference course of Urban and Regional Planning at Curtin University (Perth), which I have accepted although I'm deferring until next year.
I left you at the internet cafe at the end of the last post. From here we had a quick rest up in the hotel room before descending underground away from the wind chill to walk via the underground city to the Metro stop. I'ld like to mention now Charles and my non-appreciation of the design of the tourist tickets here. They're large, fluro orange bits of card with "TOURISTIQUE" written in large letters, making you an obvious and easy stand-out target on the system. The days of validity are also selected by scratching them out like a scratchie, meaning it's easy to accidently scratch out bits of other days due to wear and tear. Charles in particular loathes the entire Metro system. It's a rubber tire system like select Paris lines, with trains being 3x 3 car sets operating at 6-10 minute intervals. It's all pretty dingy, dirty, old and not properly maintained, with little pride being evident. The lack of much electronic ticketting is also a bit slack when they have controlled ticket entry areas.
Anyway, getting back to what we were doing, we got off the Metro to go to dinner at the foodcourt of the Eaton shopping center (in Downtown). After this we headed up to the top storey of the complex to catch the movie Blade: Trinity at the cinema here, taking advantage of Canada's cheap movie prices.
As the winter weather (in particular the windchill) kept the city cold and the snow from melting, many of the things we were planning to do in Montreal became unavailable. Closures of attractions at winter time also contributed to the fact that less things were available to us. For example the Olympic Stadium was closed and we also couldn't go up Mont Real (big mountain over the city) because of the weather. This has resulted in a more indoors holiday, at the same time us trying to avoid the dirt of the city. Montreal certainly isn't as charming and cool as Halifax - I'll be returning there.
Yesterday we headed down to Old Montreal and the old port ("Vieux Port") on foot. It was interesting to note there was a railway still running along the shore, which was still in use, like Fremantle. As soon as we were there we were already freezing from the wind, so we had only a short time to take in the surroundings before heading into the Montreal Science Center. This place was filled with school groups and appeared to be very child centered, offering less for people of our age. As a result we only bought tickets for an IMAX film. We saw Forces of Nature in the center's IMAX theatre, the only english screening of the film for the day.
The movie was an enjoyable experience, although we didn't learn anything new. I enjoyed it more than Charles because of my geology interest. It covered earthquakes, volcanoes and twisters. Unfortunately the digital projector used for the preshow ads remained on during the film, so we could see a black square in the middle of the screen.
Lunch was had back in the underground city, before doing some shopping for some presents for ourselves.
Charles now seized the oppourtunity, leading us to the Famous Players Paramount cinema in the center of town. This is a multiplex with IMAX (showing Polar Express 3D), where we went to see Assault on Precinct 13. This was change of pace for movies we've seen of late, though quite exciting all the same. I can see why it's MA at home and 18+ in Canada, except for Quebec where they have their own ratings system. Here it's only 13+! The cinema had good sound, with a powerful base which made this nice and exciting.
This led to some more shopping before dinner, after which we slowly returned to the hotel on our last full day here in Montreal.
Today we visited the museum of Canadian history.
Out of time,
Thanks,
Tom Pacy
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