J'Explore Montréal

Tuesday, August 18 to Saturday, August 22. Vacation and buying stuff for move-in all rolled together. The Hyatt was okay, except I kept sneezing and allergying (yes I verbed two nouns) because of the damn goose or duck or whatever bird feathers that the duvets and pillows were stuffed with. Ugh. And so my allergies weren't better until the end of the week just because I could get a good night's rest.

On exploring though:

Eaton Centre. Been there before, and we ate at the food court downstairs for lunch. Seriously, the food court has to be the biggest I've ever been in. And this time, I noticed the food selection has much more variety than back home; on top of the usual fast foods, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, there was also Middle Eastern, Indian, Thai and a bunch of others. The Middle Eastern food, especially. Oh, and there was this bubble tea shop, and not one of the employees there were Asian. I wonder if the bubble tea's good?

IKEA. Haha, we actually went to IKEA, because the stuff we needed to buy were mostly there. We took the metro (I love it even more, still) to the Du Collège station, then took the 202 Dawson bus there. Bus 175 is okay too. (You can tell this is also here for my future reference haha) IKEA was same old, same old.

Biodôme+Insectarium+Jardin Botanique. Again, I went with my family because they haven't seen it. OMG the capybara was sleeping, and in full view at the Biodôme... so cute! He was just so adorable!

Vieux-Port de Montréal. Easily one of my top favourite places in mtl. We first saw it at night, and even at 9:00pm, the nightlife and restaurants were vibrant with life. My mom said it was just like when she was in Europe. What I love most about it? The cobblestone streets. The old, European style buildings. The way the restaurants all have their windows open and patios spilling out onto the streets, and the tables with candles and umbrellas. It's the closest you can be to Europe- without being there.

Basilique Notre-Dame. So this time instead of going in with an admission fee of 4$ (under 18), or 5$ (over 18), we went to see "Et la lumière fut", this sound and light show. I had no idea what it was about. When we got in, the inside of the church was all blocked by oddly shaped white canvas screens with different coloured lights playing across it. They gave us all a headphone set, and we sat on the pews. This was at night, around 7:00pm. The show started, and what this was was a narrative, mixing fiction and history, about Montreal and this church. It played on the canvas screens, and near the end, they dropped by the screens, one by one and it was sudden and beautiful. If you haven't been to the Notre-Dame de mtl, this is the way to go about it. See this show. Because you miss out so much if you just wander in there and look at it, and this show gives you depth and meaning, and the way they unveiled the inside from the inside wowed even me, and I've already been inside it. Now, don't google the interier of the Notre-Dame! Visitez. And let there be light.