everybodybe.com photos

August 3rd, 2009

A day in the park.

So we had our second wind after a long day yesterday, but what a beautiful day. Time to walk. And walk we did, back down Ste-Catherine Street and on and on.

Once again I noticed how the three story buildings around us were very well kept and interesting to look at. The roadways were busy but not bad for traffic. I heard the sound of people speaking French all around us but in a way,  because I don’t understand, it was just words and nothing more than background noise;  I really hate listening to other people’s conversations, this was one way I didn’t really have to.

Montreal is a very busy city , however, having said that, it still nonetheless has it’s charm.  It’s hard for me to really understand what it was that made the city so exciting for me but it was there. Even in the most downtrodden areas of the city, which we visited later, I still felt very attuned to a city I had never been in before; language differences and all.

We walked down Saint Cath’s then turned down rue Berri and from there headed down to the Old Port – vieux Port.  Part of me realized I was probably in a “tourist high” but I so thoroughly enjoyed the walk along the old port that I wished I could go there every day for my breaks and just sit and enjoy life. Although I suspect a minus 20 temperature would change that idyllic vision, I would still think fondly of the summers yet to come in that.

The flower gardens were gorgeous and fresh. Someone spends one hell of a lot of money keeping this so beautiful so people will come back to see it again.  As an unusual sort of thing we saw a few Segway’s and people-propelled carriages (bicycle’s build for four?) and realized we were in a sort of Montreal version of Disney Land but it was summer and a Monday, so the tourista peeps were out in full force  everywhere we looked.

The old part of Montreal beckoned to us from the port even though we knew we would probably be seeing much more of it on the weekend to come. So we made a few jaunts along the small streets just to get a taste of it then I whined no, suggested, yeah, that’s it, that we go back to the port so I could pick up my first pair of “holiday” shoes. Yes, my feet hurt. Big time. Croc time.

Okay shoes in general, suck. I would walk barefoot if I thought I could get away with it and not step in some nasty city thing and hurt myself.  So I am constantly in search of the holy (horns and trumpets would play here) “perfect pair of shoes”. In fact the term “perfect pair of shoes”  is like faster than light travel; impossible at this particular moment. I digress.

We walked, and then walked some more, had lunch. Then we started to fade around 3 from either exercise or maybe the heat (I vote exercise).  Got sort of lost trying to find our way back (no there is no short cut through the CBC building grounds it is all an illusion from Google maps and perhaps to confuse someone like Rick Mercer).  So after extricating ourselves from the morass of CBC land the humidity and my intensely sore feet  wore us down (there was no way Brad was going to carry anything but my bad shoes back to the B&B).  As we dragged our sorry butts back up the hills to the B&B, we passed an IGA on the way, bought supper, some alcoholic beverages (for medicinal purposes) and finally relaxed back in our perfect room.

Eat, surf, sleep.