Category Archives: Cote des Neiges

Saturday 8th October 2016 – AND SO AFTER ALL …

… of the shenanigans of last night, the Orleans Express bus from the Gaspé Peninsula turned up bang on time and we were all ready and waiting. It set off on time too, which was nice to know, and I settled down for the long drive to Montreal. Those hot cross buns that I had bought in Woodstock were really nice – I’ll tell you that.

For the first part of the journey I didn’t drop off to sleep at all. Probably far too wound up after the drive up from Florenceville. Instead, I curled up on my seat and carried on reading my book. At Sainte-Foy there were no toilets opened and the one on the bus was occupied so I curled up on my seat again and this time I managed to drift in and out of sleep all the way into Montreal.

At the bus station I had a really good half-hour power nap in the usual little hidey-hole. And then I was ready for anything. Unless you’ve tried it, you’ve no idea just how comfortable you can become when you ride astride the porcelain horse.

“Anything” was the bus station café. A huge cup of coffee and a couple of bagels were just the job for breakfast but I didn’t stay there for long. The internet connection was rubbish and I was keen to see how Rachel was doing (she finally arrived home at 04:30). And so I went to track down the 747 bus to the airport.

It doesn’t stop in the coach station any more. According to my friendly neighbourhood bus driver, they’ve upped the standing fees in the bus station and the STM – Societe de Transports de Montreal – is refusing to pay them. Instead, the bus leaves from down the road outside the Berri-UQAM metro station. There’s no ticket machine in the bus station either now, so you have to go to the machine at the metro station. I bought a 3-day ticket ($18:00) because it’s cheaper than two one-day passed (2x$10:00).And it was pouring down with rain outside. Whatever happened to the Indian Summer we had been having.

I found a comfy bench at the airport, with yet another flaky internet connection. Nevertheless, I was able to catch up with a few things there, despite being interrupted by a vocal local yokel who wanted to discuss Facebook with me. There’s a “Subway” in the airport too and so seeing as I was thirsty I went and had a giant sized root beer and I ordered a sandwich to take away. The Comfort Inn is rather out on a limb and there isn’t anything available to eat in the vicinity.

Having organised all of that, I phoned for my shuttle, and that brought me here to the hotel. It’s fully-booked and so there wasn’t a room available at that moment. Still, there’s a comfy chair, a good internet connection, a power point and a free coffee pot in the foyer. What else do you need when you are waiting for your room?

I didn’t have to wait long for my room, and the first thing that I did was to have a stinking hot shower and to wash my clothes – I’m running out. But it must have been Eskimos … "Inuit" – ed … who had this room before me. The heat was off but the fan was on blowing cold air around and it was about 10°C in here.I whacked the heating up and resolved not to move until the temperature reached 25°C.

I had my butty, chatted to Liz and one or two other people for a while, and spent the rest of the afternoon dozing in and out of sleep. it’s been a hard day so far.

Nevertheless, I made it out for the bus 202. I missed the first one so went back in. But I was out for the next – in fact just in time to step straight onto the bus as it was going past. As you might expect, I ended up at the Cote des Neiges, and here I had a terrible shock. It’s all been gentrified and many of the smaller businesses have been cleared away and replaced with trendy boutiques. It took me a while to track down an assiete falafel, but when I did, it was well worth it because it was one of the best that I have had in North America.

So that was me fixed.

On the way back, Rhys ‘phoned me up and we had a really good chat until the battery on my phone went dead. I spent the next hour or two having a huge melancholy nostalgia fit listening to music. Leaving Canada always makes me feel maudlin.

So now I’m off to bed. My last night in Canada and I’m inconsolable. If my health continues to deteriorate at the rate it seems to be deteriorating, I shan’t ever be back again.

That’s enough to make anyone feel maudlin, never mind me.

Monday 5th September 2016 – THEY SAY THAT A YEAR …

… is a period of 365 disappointments, and I’ve been having my fair share just recently. And another one ha reared its ugly head today. The night bus that I was planning to take tomorrow night – well, I can’t. Apparently there’s no room on it, and that’s that.

There is however another bus, but that leaves at 06:00 on Wednesday morning and so faute de mieux, I’m on that. But 06:00 in the morning – does that exist? We shall have to find out.

It also means that I shall have to stay another night in a hotel here, and for no good purpose too which is unfortunate. And “here”, as in the Comfort Inn on the Cote de Liesse, is clearly impossible as there is no way that I could be in the city centre in time for the bus.

However, wandering around in the vicinity of the coach station, I came across a street full of about 20 disreputable cat-houses, a mere 5 minutes stagger away from where I want to be and so tomorrow night I shall be installing myself in one of those.

God help the bed-bugs with me on the way!

Now I can’t remember how many times I left my bed last night. It might have been one, but on the other hand it might have been none. One thing that I do know was that we had the Sleep of the Dead.

I was in bed, as I said last night, by 21:15 and I remember nothing whatever until about 04:40. Totally painless it was.

And I didn’t feel up to doing much for the first hour and a half. I stretched out here on the sofa and took it easy with a glass of cold spruce beer and a coffee. No point in having a decent, comfy sofa if you don’t make full use of it.

Breakfast was from 06:30 and I was there very shortly afterwards (something like 06:31 actually) and here we had a minor panic. Bagels (and a toaster, coffee and orange juice) there were a-plenty. But where was the maple syrup? You can’t come to Canada and not have toasted bagels and maple syrup for breakfast. Anyway, eventually some was found and that was me all set up for the morning.

I had a companion too – a North African who told me that he was from Belgium. He was here on a tourist visa, so he said, but he was looking for work and asked me if I could help him. i gave him a few pointers, such as I know them, which isn’t very much, and then came back up here to attack some paperwork, of which there was more than enough. It didn’t help with me … err … closing my eyes for a little relaxation at some point during the proceedings.

But I can’t stay here for ever. Despite the fact that it’s Labour Day, there are things to do, places to go, people to see and all of that and so I need to sort myself out for the bus.

And I didn’t have long to wait either which was just as well because even though it was only 10:00 it was stifling hot already. The bus to the metro and the metro to the Berri-UQAM station and the coach station round the back. And this is where I had my disappointment.

But of course you know that we don’t have problems, we have solutions and so we set off to put our principles into practice.

This isn’t a photograph of of my selected cat-house by the way. This is a photo of a very tranquil little alleyway at the back of what used to be a boot and shoe factory, and it’s right in the centre of Montreal. It wasn’t what I was expecting to find in a place like this.

This isn’t a photo of my selected cat-house either.

If you are a regular reader of this rubbish you will recall that I’ve been posting the odd photo every now and again of houses in Montreal and the surroundings because some of the inner-city housing has a very special charm or beauty.

And these here in the rue Timothée just go to show what can be done with a little imagination – something that seems to be sadly lacking in Europe these days.

Having resolved the issues of the next stage of my journey, the next plan was to resolve the issues of my stomach. It was lunchtime.

The rue St Catherine is what is described as the city’s “Latin Quarter” – something that took me by surprise seeing as how all of the signs were written in French.

It was also Gay Pride day or something in the street apparently. There were loads of same-sex couples strolling hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm. I took my time over eating my Subway sandwich (without spilling it all over the floor this year) – I didn’t want to bugger off yet.

Last year, you may remember, they had street pianos dotted around all over the city so that anyone who fancied a quick tinkle on the ivories could go and have a play around.

They are doing the same thing this year too, and here is a pianist having a right old go on the joanna and he’s recruited a couple of vocalists to give him some accompaniment. I suppose that it’s all part of life’s rich pageant

There’s all kinds of stuff going on in the rue St Catherine and at a certain point there are four or five giant chessboards. People give their names to the organisers and they are called up to play when a previous game is finished.

Here in this game we had a dispute over the rules of “castling” and I learned something that I didn’t know before. And that’s always good news.

We had a few moment of excitement in the rue Sainte Catherine too. A woman, coming out of a building, saw another man, went over to him to say ‘Happy Birthday!” and grabbed him in the most enormous bear-hug that went on for hours.

I was so impressed that I went over to her and told her that if that was the reaction, then I would like to say that it was my birthday too. However, I didn’t have the same treatment – not at all!

I told you that it was not my lucky day, didn’t I?

But by mid-afternoon the heat was thoroughly overwhelming and the only protection is flight. I flew to the Metro and took the train out to Verdun and the La Salle metro station.

Just down the road is the Parc Arthur Therrien, whoever he is when he’s at home, if he ever is, and that was my destination. It was great to see the centre of Montreal from this kind of distance rather than being stuck in the middle of it in this heat.

Over there in the distance at the back of Mount Royal is the Oratory of Saint Joseph which is on the Cote-des-Neiges. You may remember that we visited the Oratory in … errr … 2013 wasn’t it?

But not today, I’m going to enjoy the sun and have a good time, watching all of the people enjoying themselves – and I say “all of the people” because there are hordes here and everyone is having fun – even all of the kids who are splashing around in the swimming pool and the ponds.

As for me though, I headed off into the shade and found myself the first real view of the St Lawrence river for this year. The motorway bridge away in the distance (downstream, fortunately) rather detracts from the scenery, but never mind.

And so, having found a nice shady spot out of the 32°C temperature, I closed my eyes for … errr … 45 minutes and it was totally painless, I’ll tell you that! It did me the world of good too!

Having hunted down the gentleman’s rest room (and had I not needed it I would probably still be asleep there now) I went for a walk along the edge of the river, watching the fishermen, the canoeists and the jet-skiers.

And also admiring the properties on the river front and how I would love to live in an apartment in a building like one of those.

And you can tell by the sky ust what kind of weather we are having today. It’s magnificent.

And so I headed back into the city and changed trains for the Jean Drapeau station on the Ile Sainte Helene in the middle of the river at the other end of the city. That ought to be nice and cool with the breeze coming in off the river as the evening draws on.

But that wasn’t to be either. The island was closed off as there was an “event” taking place there – some kind of music concert that was clearly not my type, so I headed back to town. Just round the corner from the Sherbrooke metro station, seeing as I was in that end of the city, is a little Lebanese restaurant that does an assiette falafel at a very democratic price. That was tea organised.

I headed back here afterwards, part of the way in company with a woman from the North East of England who had lived here for 8 years and couldn’t stand the heat.

And forget your white-knuckle rides in amusement parks. Take the 202 bus from DuCollege Metro Station back to here with the lady driver that I had, and you’ll have the time of your life. I ended up back here, shaken but not stirred, at 20:45 and by 21:15 I was showered and in bed, well on my way to the Land of Nod.

Sunday 16th August 2015 – PLEASANT COMPANY EXPECTED

If you thought that last night’s two drivers were unusually friendly and helpful, then the encounters today have topped all of that off in spades, I’ll tell you that.

I was up at the crack of dawn this morning (lucky dawn!) and after a good shower I set to work. First thing to do was to try to remember my nocturnal ramblings. I was in van somewhere in England (yes, England, not the UK) and I was on a photography expedition going somewhere but every time that I tried to take a photograph my camera fell apart and thos kept on happening with monotonous regularity. There was one place that I particularly remembered – a tiny village in a low valley where the road took a sharp right-hand bend right by the village green where there was a telephone box.

But anyway, enough of that for now.

The breakfast room at the hotel was crowded and we ran out of coffee and jam – and I remembered to make something of a little note about this – but while I was looking for the breakfast attendant I came across a second breakfast room which had apparently been missed by everyone else because it was quite empty.

With it being Sunday, the buses didn’t start running until late so it gave me an opportunity to have a good session on the computer and catch up on a few things. I had a good look out of the window too, and I do have to say that the view from here is one of the best that I can hope to have.

It’s not as noisy as you might think with the new generation of jets, and it’s a shame that the big KLM jumbo jet takes off in the dark.

And then it was off to the town.

First stop was to buy some water where the girl at the cash desk gave a big sigh as I was counting out the cash. What a way to start the day, so I gave her a little “piece of advice”, as they say in the Police Farce.

I went onwards to the Tourist Information office for a map (I’d left mine behind) and there I fell in with a woman who was on her was from Vancouver to Newfoundland. She was travelling via the Trans-Canada Highway and so we had a spritied discussion about going via the Trans-Labrador Highway and across from Blanc Sablon.

In the Place Jacques Cartier just around the corner we were treated to some street musicians.

In fact every Saturday and Sunday during July and August various little groups of musicians entertain the crowds, and these five people are from one of the many music academies around the city. I do have to say that while their selection of music was not my type, I quite enjoyed the atmosphere – which is one of the best reasons to be here.

I had a wander off down to the Quai de l’Horloge to sit in the sun, lap up the atmosphere, watch the river and (most importantly) to eat my butties as it was now my kind of lunchtime.

There was plenty going on on the river – lots of marine traffic and the like, but nothing over about 15 tonnes which for me, at any rate, was something of a disappointment. Where’s the 150,000 tonne tanker when you need it?

And, if the truth was known, I had a little doze in the sunshine too. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, and I find that the water is quite relaxing.

With nothing here worth photographing, I wandered off down to the Point by the clock tower to see what was in the docks and I was lucky in that the Algonova was there. She had been there for a while too, having come from Corner Brook in Newfoundland.

She might not look it, but she’s quite a modern ship, dating from as recently as 2007, and cost about $43,000,000, which is a lot of money to have sitting idle, tied up at the quayside.

So having mused on that for quite a while, I was all ready to move off when a couple of teenage girls squeezed in next to me. One of them was discreetly trying to look at my map so I let her have it.

We started off a conversation – ohhh yes, I can still chat up the females, even though, at my age, I can’t remember why- and of course, my plans to leave were completely abandoned.

Their parents joined in the chat too. They are from Winnipeg and visiting Montreal for a holiday. The chat quickly led to a much wider field and of course, Labrador came up in the chat. The Labrador Tourist Board ought to be paying me a commission.

Once everyone had cleared off, I went to have a look at my favourite building – the Gare Viger. They’ve knocked down a few more internal walls but that’s about all. Nothing much else is being done.

But here I had another one of those legendary encounters. Some woman van driver needed to do to an address in a street behind me, but it had all been cut off by roadworks and she wondered how she was going to get there. As soon asI openedmy mouth, she said “sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t local” – but as it happened, I did know the area where we were and I knew how to get to the address concerned.

And then she drove off with my rucksack and I had to run after her.

On the underground, I went to the Cartier metro station at Laval, to see the riviere des Praries. From the Pont Viau there were some lovely views with all kinds of things to see, including a car trying to drive up the cycle path.

There was a lot of maritime activity here too, including some water-skiing. And that I found quite astonishing. If the river has that much of a slope on it, how come Quebec Hydro hasn’t put a dam across it and fitted a few hydro turbos?

The end of the orange line at Montmorency is actually the big University campus at the back of Laval. Leaving the station, I went for a wander around but I didn’t stay too long. There wasn’t anything interesting (from my point of view) to see.

But there was a guy of my age pacing up and down outside.
"You look as if you are waiting for someone" I said
"Yes, my daughter" he replied
"Well, I’d forget about her and take someone else. I’ve seen a few girls that I wouldn’t mind taking home instead of my daughter."

Parking featured quite a lot on these pages at one time, and here’s a good example of street parking in North America.

Not so much of how the cars are parked but the size of the parking places. Anyone from Europe could park a lorry in spaces as big as this, never mind a compact car. It did remind me of the time that I reversed into a car parking space somewhere in the USA, watched by quite a crowd.

And someone asked me why I’d reversed in, to which I replied “because I can. I’m from Europe”.

There was an incident on the metro and traffic was “perturbed”. But eventually I arrived at Cote-des-Neiges and my plate of falafel, salad and chips. There was a football match on the TV, a Major League Soccer match. And I have to say that I wasn’t impressed. A couple of stars of European football having one last pay-day and a few local players, and it was all about Third or Fourth Division standard

In the Metro supermarket was a note – “due to Quebec Employment legislation, we are only allowed to employ a maximim of four people after 21:00, on Sundays and Public Holidays”. No-one in the supermarket thought that strange. But I can’t imagine any other Government, anywhere else in the western world, putting maximum limits on how many people are allowed to be employed in an enterprise in the middle of an employment crisis.

Another friendly, chatty bus driver on the way back and even though it was only 21.45 I crashed out yet again.

And what a nice day too. I’ve met loads of helpful, friendly people and had a few interesting chats with some very pleasant company.

Saturday 15th August 2015 – NIGHTMARE AT DORVAL

We had another “sleep of the dead” last night – this change of air must be doing me good. So after a shower I went off to see if my room rate included breakfast, but of course it didn’t. Whatever was I thinking of? Breakfast is another 11:00CHF. It’s a good job that I picked up those bread rolls last night.

On my way back to my room though, I couldn’t help but admire the view from the window right outside my door. I thought that I could hear aeroplanes close by.

So in a minute, I’m off back to the airport even though there is hours before my flight. I might find a power socket somewhere that I can plug into – there are none here of course.

The tram came pretty quickly (so quickly that I forgot to photograph it) and the journey was quite simple. And while I was travelling to the airport, I came to a conclusion. My really bad experience last night was caused by nothing more than my lack of preparation – and the hotel can take most of the blame for this (just for a change).

Had it been clear in the hotel’s publicity that there was no shuttle to the hotel (but trams 10 and 12, and bus 510 pass in front of the hotel and a 24-hour bus pass can be obtained … etc), that breakfast was 11CHF extra, and that a Swiss adapter was needed for the electricity, then I would have been prepared, and my stay there would have been quite acceptable, instead of the totally chaotic mess.

But to give you one idea of the hotel, the coffee machine in the hotel sold at 3:00CHF. The same machine installed by the same company selling coffee to a captive audience at the airport was selling at 2:50CHF.

Negotiating the maze that is the airport is by no means easy, and we had another pig-ignorant security guard who doesn’t understand the word "please". All these people who were kicked around and bullied at school when they were kids have really been able to wreak their revenge on society with the massive expansion of what is laughingly called "security". The place was totally packed with people too

But on thing will tell you all that you need to know about the mentality of the Swiss – the "security" screening decants you straight into a huge duty-free shop.

And the number of people wandering around the airport carrying "duty-free" carrier bags shows that this shameless selling technique really works. It would probably work even better at the other side of the security check-in too, especially if it were to sell tranquilisers to calm the nerves (and pickaxe handles to deal with the security staff).

I’m here watching them load up my plane. It’s an Airbus A330-300. And what’s more, I’ve even found a plug that will charge up my laptop.

In fact it didn’t take too much finding – rows and rows of empty seats all over the airport but just one row every now and again with hordes of people congregated around it

Boarding the plane was straightforward and, much to my surprise, the plane seemed to be almost new. Luxury wasn’t the word and the flight over to Montreal, although the longest that I’ve been on to date, was very comfortable. My meals were excellent too. The entertainment was not really my choice – I was even offered the chance to see The Great Escape
– however it wasn’t Christmas so I didn’t bother. Instead, I had Shaun the Sheep, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
.

One downside of the flight, nothing to do with the company of course, is that my neighbour’s idea of personal hygene was even less than my own.

With a window seat, the views outside were superb. With the airport being busy, I’ve never seen a queue like this of aeroplanes lined up in the queue waiting to take off. It was like the M25 at rush hour with all of them here.

The plane in front of us was something quite big and we had a wonderful view from right behind of it taking off. It’s probably the most impressive sight that I’ve ever seen, and there wasn’t much room between the tail of the plane and the ground. You can understand why so many tail strikes are recorded.

Having flown over a great big pile of tundra, we hit the St Lawrence River right at Sept Iles, and I recognised it immediately from the air.

The bay itself was easy to identify, with its seven island and a pile of big ships anchored there, but what gave the place away was the huge Alouette aluminium smelting works and the port facilities that I’d seen in 2012 on my trip up the coast.

I’d wanted to see them from inside, but failing that, a view from the air is good enough.

Another thing that I have mentioned in the past are the huge LaFarge quarries on the outskirts of the city. They are not very easy to photograph from outside, as I had discovered once when I had driven past them, due to all kinds of fencing, lack of parking and so on.

However, here we were this afternoon, flying right over the top and here I was, sitting by a window seat. This was far too good an opportunity to miss, wasn’t it?

But don’t get me started on the ariport and Immigration, will you? Every day, during the mid-afternoon, about 20 long-haul jets arrive at Pierre Trudeau Airport, Montreal. If they are all full, that’s about 6,000 passengers (plus however many come in from other destinations).

The Canadian Government’s response is to have just FOUR (and for a short while, just THREE) immigration officers on duty.

My ‘plane was about 8th in, and I had a wait of 2.5 hours. I feel really sorry for the people who came in near the end and who were stacked up on the balcony because the immigration hall was full. Nowhere to sit, no water to drink, not possible to visit the bathroom. I could go on and on … "not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t" – ed.

Luckily I had some good music to keep me company, and that always calms me down. But finding, once through Immigration, that all of our suitcases had been taken off the carousels and dumped on the floor (and no-one knew where they were), and discovering that I’d left my cap on the ‘plane too, and I was off again, wasn’t I?.

Luckily the hotel bus was already there so I had to take my leave of my delightful companion with whom I’d been spending a little time just recently since I encountered her in the queue and we drove the half-mile to my hotel down at the end of the runway.

Having checked in, next task was to hit the city, and there’s a bus stop right outside the hotel. The bus 202 took me from here down to the Metro at DuCollege, and the metro took me to Snowdon where I made a stunning discovery – an Indian restaurant. From Calcutta, they are, but it was the nicest Indian meal that I had had outside Stoke on Trent. Beautiful, it was.

Bad news, though, is that my little ice-cream place on the Cote-des Neiges has closed down. A tragedy! So I had to make do with some mandarins from the outdoor office.

Getting back from the town is not quite so easy – I have to go miles to find an overpass across the Cote-de-Liesse, but I came across some nefarious, nocturnal dealings here. There’s a whole pile of school buses, all from Nova Scotia and all on temporary licence plates, parked down the road. The drivers are, apparently, staying in my motel.

It seems that they are all time-expired (you can only use school buses for a limited number of years) and are being traded in for new ones, to be driven back to Halifax.

And back here, 22:00 (04:00 in real time), I just crashed out. And that was that.

PS- my phone number seems to be working, much to my surprise. It’s the same three figures as the last 4 years, but then 740-6186. If you don’t have the first three numbers, send me a message.

Thursday 28th August 2014 – HERE I AM …

… hurtling along on the TGV at 300kph on my way to the airport.

It was basically a good plan to stay in Lille. 10 minutes or so from the TGV station along a downhill slope, an alarm call that would have awoken the dead, a decent and copious self-service breakfast and then a pleasant stroll through the morning … errr … rain.

The train was on time too and finding a trolley at the top of the lift meant that I had one of the most relaxing arrivals ever at an airport.

It wasn’t to last, though. First thing that I encountered was a soldier on patrol, armed with a machine gun.

We all laughed at the Eastern European countries in the 1960s and 1970s with their soldiers patrolling the streets with their weapons at the ready. How Krushchev and Honecker would be laughing up their sleeves if they were ever to see this here on the streets in the West.

Not only that, can you imagine what carnage might happen to innocent bystanders if 600 rounds per minute were ever sprayed at a fleeing suspect? Something like this, I image, only much much worse.

Not only that, we had an unattended bag (did someone forget their wife?). This caused the terminal to be evacuated. I can’t think why – everyone knows that most suicide bombers these days go up with their luggage. “This is a Public Service Announcement – Abdul the Suicide Bomber Has Just Gone Off On Holiday”.

Anyway, it frightens everyone and ratchets the terror up another few notches so that the next wave of restrictions on personal liberties can come into force without any opposition.

We’ve often heard it said that “why didn’t the people in Germany – or in the USSR – or in France in World War II – rise up against their oppressors?” Well, where’s the uprising in the West?

After that, we were treated to the disagreeable spectacle of a girl about 8 years of age being given a pat-down search. I shall refrain from passing any kind of comment whatever about what might be going through the minds of the people who apply for this kind of job. You can think of your own.

At the check-in, I asked for an aisle seat. “Take this for now” said the girl at check-in, and ask at the reception area.

At the reception area, I was told “you need to chat to the people who welcome you on board the plane”.

And at the boarding of the plane, I was told, as indeed you might have expected, “you should have asked at the check-in”. Yes, another nasty letter on the way to Air Canada. You don’t even get this miserable treatment with a bucket shop airline like Air Transat and Ryanair.

Still, the flight was a new Dreamliner 787 and even hemmed in a row of 4 people, I’ve had much worse. A good selection of films (I watched The Desolation of Smaug [2013] and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and there would have been a few others that I would have been happy to see as well.

The vegan meal was excellent too and so I don’t have any complaints on that score either, but they could have been a little more generous with the coffee.

I’m staying again at the Quality Inn on the Cote de Liesse in Dorval, just down the road from tha airport. I stayed here last year and so I can pinch that photo.

It’s a nice hotel, not too far from the airport, and the service buses pass by on their way to the Metro, so it suits me fine. Especially as a 3-day pass on the public transport costs just $18:00.

So last night I went for a walk. Nowhere particular – I just caught the bus and then the Metro to a random station and then walked back some of the way. I didn’t see anything in particular, except this car, to prove that I’m in North America.

I’m not talking about the car itself – you can see them everywhere – but I’m talking about the body rot. When did you last see a car like that? In Europe, I welded a few up like that in the 80s but nothing since.

Anyway, after that, I went to the Cote des Neiges for my assiette falafel and my frozen sorbet next door, and back home.

And just for a change, I got off the bus at the correct bus stop.

-1

Wednesday 28th August 2013 – AND THERE I AM

Totally whacked as usual because I’ve been on my feet for over 12 hours – and I mean “on my feet” too because I’ve walked all over Montreal today.

But the day started as it meant to go on – I had to leave the hotel three tiumes before I got anywhere – firstly I forgot my book and secondly I forgot the memory card for the computer. I missed the bus too but the driver of the bus 100 showed me where another metro station ” De La Savane” is, and so now that gives me more options. But the world is getting frightfully small. He’s from Morocco and spent 27 years living in, of all places, Brussels where he drove for the STIB on the 71 route – the one that we take for Marianne’s. And he gave me all kinds of tips about applying for a job on the Montreal public transport.

First stop was right across town (I’m glad I got this 3-day public transport ticket) to the arrêt “Viau” for the Olympic Stadium (it’s bizarre that the metro stations are named after nearby streets and not at all by the local attractions).

A magnificent pile (but that’s enough about me) but it’s blighted with rust and is slowly creeping into a bit of decay which is a shame. It was controversial enough when it was built and its end might be controversial if they don’t get a move on. But I’ve seen loads of concreting in Montreal that is crumbling away quite rapidly. Must be the minerals in the water.

From here in the scorching sweltering heat (and occasional thunderstorms at midday) I went down to the water. Absolutely beautiful, especially on a day like this. I had to keep stopping every half hour or so to stick my cap under some cold water to cool me down.

Loads of ships to see down here in the docks of course, but you can’t put all of your photos on the blog, can you, Eric? You’ll all have to wait for the definitive web pages. But I can tell you this – looking at the river front down by the old town and old port you cans ee just how much money there was here. The edifices are magnificent.

IN the evening I went out to the south shore of the St Lawrence just to say that I was there and on the way back stopped off at the metro station on the island where the Formula One racetrack is. As it got dark the lights of the city came onon eby one until we had a magnificent spectacle such as this.

From here off to the Cote des Neiges where I treated myself to a falafel abd chips and then back on two metros and a bus. And I stepped off at the wrong bus stop which meant that I had a 30-minute walk back to the hotel.

So much for my early night;

And did I tell you about my dream? I and someone else were reading a car magazine and the readers’ letters. One was about a type of Belgian microcar that was sold in India and used to bring home the shopping. Another letter was about a struggling Yahoo launching a caravan in the USA. Someone wrote to say that this was not as extraordinary as the editor suggested because no European caravan manufacturer ever sold in North America (and I know, by the way, for a fact that this isn’t true having seen several Sprites over here) and so they have never registered any designs, so all that Yahoo has done is to simply pinch a European design and market it

THen we went out into the large park, with long grass and the like and it was teeming with people. A deer appeared and everyone was saying “look, a deer” you could clearly hear all of their voices and it mingled with another herd of deer that was being stalked by a wild boar and a lion (it was really a tiger). Then the wild boar attacked … the lion, knocked it down and in front of the crowds took a huge bite out of its flank. Everyone gasped, I turned my face away, but the lion picked itself up and staggered off.

Yes, I’ve settled in all right, haven’t I?

-5

Tuesday 27th August 2013 – WELL, HERE WE ARE

And here is the rusty steed that brought me here. It’s not, as you might think, an Airbus A330 despite its looks – it is in fact a BE2c that was shot down by the Baron von Richthofen in 1917 on the Western Front and hastily reassembled by Air Transat the day before the flight.

Called The White Bird, it was piloted by those well-known Transatlantic flyers Nungesser and Coli and before I could sit down, I had to move Charles LIndbergh’s sandwiches off my seat.

Strangely, it was the most stress-free flight I’ve ever been on and I’ve no idea why – usually I’m terribly wound up on a flight.

But only a company such as Air Transat would install a full-length mirror in the beichstuhl so that you could watch yourself riding the porcelain horse. I’ve no idea what musthave gone through their minds when they requested this as a specification. Something to do with the “Mile-High Club”? I did notice that the door was very discreetly placed.

At the airport, again, a very unstressfull passage into the country and then outside where, surprise surprise, my shuttle bus was waiting (it’s a good idea to send them an e-mail) and down to the hotel – the Quality Hotel (although they didn’t say what kind of quality) – where I’m now safely installed.

This isn’t a hotel shuttle bus – it’s a Montreal service bus, the 202 to be precise, and here it is outside the Ducollege Underground Station. There’s a bus stop right outside the hotel and that was where I leapt aboard it to take me to the Underground.

Seeing how I’ve not booked a car for a few days, I’m on the buses (and the Underground) for a while. There’s loads of Montreal that I haven’t seen so I’m going to be doing some sightseeing, and by far the best way to get around is on the public transport, especially as a three-day ticket only costs about $18:00 and you can go everywhere with that.

I took the Underground to the Cote des Neiges station because one of the places that I had always wanted to visit was the huge Oratory of Saint Joseph on the side of Mount Royal. I’ve driven past it on dozens of occasions but never been in and it looks so impressive from a distance.

But not so from close up as it’s built of concrete blocks and even my bricklaying is better than whoever built this. It’s a site of pilgrimage and a true pilgrim will climb up all of the steps on his knees in order to seek forgiveness for his sins – and so why they have shuttle buses, escalators and lifts, given the current state of the Catholic Church, is totzlly beyond me. They’ve totally missed the point.

There was a supermarket around the corner so now that I’m stocked up with bagels, maple syrup and strawberry jam, I can have a good breakfast.

But whoever heard of a Canadian bar laitière, or Ice Cream parlour, running out of maple syrup-flavoured frozen vegan ice cream? Unbelievable!

-1

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality

Category Archives: Cote des Neiges

Saturday 8th October 2016 – AND SO AFTER ALL …

Monday 5th September 2016 – THEY SAY THAT A YEAR …

Sunday 16th August 2015 – PLEASANT COMPANY EXPECTED

Saturday 15th August 2015 – NIGHTMARE AT DORVAL

Thursday 28th August 2014 – HERE I AM …

Wednesday 28th August 2013 – AND THERE I AM

Tuesday 27th August 2013 – WELL, HERE WE ARE

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