Sonya's Blog - Day 60 - The Theatre District and McGill University

Sonya’s Blog - Day 60 - August 21st - The Theatre District and McGill University

We had a shorter day in Montreal today because we are going over to family friends of Blake’s family for supper tonight so we need to make sure we are on the first train out of Montreal tonight. The trains run up until around 1 and then have a break and the first trains start heading back after 3 PM.

We did not have a firm plan today, but did get up and on the 8:50 train this morning. We headed up Rene-Levesque as that took us right to the theatre district. There was a festival going on, but none of the stalls were open yet. It was still a little chilly out as it had rained last night and the breeze was still up. We headed into a mall and found a Montreal Boulangerie that had some yummy looking pastries and such. We stopped for a hot drink and a snack and tried to figure out some bookings for Newfoundland and Cape Breton. We managed to get the ferry booked for Newfoundland. We wanted to travel to Port aux Basques first, travel through some of Newfoundland and then head to St. John’s, spend some time there and then take the ferry out of Argentia back to North Sydney. However, the schedule changes during our timeline in Newfoundland and the ferry from Argentia goes from traveling 3 days per week to only once a week. So now we are going in the reverse order, Argentia first, St. John’s and then traveling through Newfoundland and taking the ferry back from Port aux Basques. We were going to tour around Cape Breton after we returned from Newfoundland, but now we are doing that first so that our schedule lines up. We are taking the ferry to Argentia on Sept. 16th and arriving on the 17th and then our return trip is on the 24th. With that taken care of we continued on our exploration. We were hoping the festival would be started up, but it wasn’t yet and we didn’t want to wait around anymore so we walked towards McGill University to check it out.

We saw this interesting sculpture on the way to McGill, here is the picture:

It was called The Illumination and at the front the people are looking excitedly towards something. As you go around the piece the crowd cannot see as well and the behaviour starts to deteriote and some are fighting and quarelling. Then at the back there is murder and death and it is to symbolize the nature of man and crowds or something.

We then found McGill University and had a little walk around. The buildings were beautiful, but unfortunately, the grounds were not in very good shape and obviously not kept up well. It looked a little shabby. We walked around for a bit and then we headed out to find somewhere to eat lunch. We found a cute little cafe and ordered lunch and since they had decent wifi we did some more research for Nova Scotia and Cape Breton as we have to get our bookings in order for that area as we are heading there soon.

After our lunch we were a bit tired of wandering around so we thought that we would head back to the Bell Centre. We wanted to get tickets for Marvel Universe Live for the 11 AM show tomorrow. We had looked online and they still had tickets available, but we wanted to buy them at the box office because we were catching the train there and then we wouldn’t have to mess around online buying them. Isaac also wanted to buy a couple of things at the Montreal Canadiens store. By the time we made it back to the Bell Centre we had an hour till our train was due to leave which gave us lots of time. We got some tickets for Marvel Universe Live first. The best seats were $160 per ticket, but we chose the $50 tickets. They were good seats, they just were on the side instead of directly in front of the stage. We were only about 8 rows back from the stage so we were happy, because the $40 tickets were on the next level up in the nosebleeds. We then headed over to the Montreal Canadiens store and looked at all the gear. Isaac finally chose a t-shirt, Natasha a hat and Blake got a new travel mug because he broke his last week. We then looked at the train schedule and realized that the first train to Candiac left 20 minutes later than we thought, which was a huge bummer. There was supposed to be a Starbucks a block away so we headed over to find that, but couldn’t. We decided it must be underground, but didn’t know how to get down there from where we were. We headed back to the train station and our train was there so we just got on board and waited till it left. This later train put us behind schedule as we were supposed to head to Betty and Bob’s for supper that night, but there was really nothing we could do as it was the first train that left for the afternoon runs.

We got back to the RV, grabbled Kizmet and then headed out to find Betty and Bob’s place. They were on the other side of Montreal in St. Lazare, so it was about a 40 minute trip Luckily there is a ring road, the 30, that could take us there and we could skip the Montreal traffic. We called them as soon as we were on the road, but it was all good that we were going to be late. We made good time on the road and made it to Betty and Bob’s in no time. Betty and Bob are friends of Jeff and Cathy’s, Betty and Cathy have known each other since they were 7 years old. They have a lovely place on some beautiful land with a stream running across the back of the property, which Kizmet loved. Isaac took Kizmet out back and she started going crazy running around like crazy and then Isaac called up that he had lost her. We opened the front door and she was there being as good as can be. Isaac loved Betty and Bob because they were such good listeners to all of his stories, which as everybody who knows Isaac are neverending. Betty had made a lovely supper and it was all very tasty and good, Natasha loved the roasted potatoes and the little squares that were for dessert. Isaac and Bob got into a discussion about electricity and such after supper and Bob showed Isaac how to use a multi-meter and what it was for.

We had a lovely visit and it was so nice of them to welcome us to their home and feed us. It was quite late when we got back to the RV so we headed straight to bed.

Sonya