More Montreal
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sun 22 Jul 2007 05:03
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45:30.351N 73:38.006W
Well - what a time we had in Montreal! The
hospitality we received from Real (pronounced Ray Ale - sorry Real, I don't know
how to type an 'e' with the proper accent mark) and Sylvie was
unequalled.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the
story...my family and I met Real waaay back in 1979 when his uncle Pierre asked
my brother Bill (they worked together at the time) if my family would be willing
to host Real (who was then 15, or was it 16?) at our house for two weeks in the
summer so Real could improve on his English. Well, we did and he
did. After Real's two weeks at our house, I spent two weeks at Real's
house. I was hopeless with the French language (and still am), but had an
excellent time with Real and his family. The next summer Real
came back again for two weeks. Many years later, when Real and his wife
Sylvie had three boys of their own, Real called my parents and asked if I would
be willing to do a similar summer exchange program with my children.
Hmmmmm......I have no children. However, my sister Suzanne and her husband
Bob have three kids and at the time, their oldest was the perfect age for an
exchange. And so the story goes. Real and Sylvie, Suzanne and Bob
have exchanged kids over the years and a strong friendship has resulted.
To make a long story short.....Suzanne and Bob were willing to come with us
through the seven St. Lawrence locks, and when we reached Montreal, Real and
Sylvie were willing to play tour guides (and interpreters) for all of us
and then drive Suzanne and Bob back to their car in Odgensburg.
So, the planning was good and the trip went as expected, but what wasn't
expected was the incredible flexibility (we arrived in Montreal earlier
than planned - remember that thing about throwing out your calendar?) overall
helpfulness and fantastic hospitality we experienced from Real and his
family during our stay.
The weather on the day we arrived in Montreal
(Wednesday, 7/18) was beautiful. After that it did nothing but rain until
we left on Saturday. Apparently Real and Sylvie have this effect on the
weather when meeting or vacationing with English speaking people. So, on
Wednesday we viewed the city of Montreal from the highest point on land, had an
excellent dinner at Real and Sylvie's house and topped it all off with a
fireworks display like we'd never seen before. For one month in Montreal,
there is a fireworks display every Wednesday and Saturday night. Each
display is sponsored by a country. The fireworks we saw were
sponsored by Canada (very appropriate, we thought). Just to give you a
feel for the quality of the fireworks... we saw what we thought should be the
finale about 10 times before we actually saw the finale (which was far better
than the faux finales we saw before).
On Thursday (7/19), we slogged through the rain
(I'm making it sound worse than it was) in Old Montreal and China
Town, toured the Notre Dame church (gorgeous), saw the Olympic Stadium up close
(Real says some Montreal folks call it 'the toilet'. If you look closely
at the picture I posted on my first Montreal entry, it does look a little
toiletish) and had dinner at an excellent Indian restaurant.
Friday we slogged through the rain to the 'Body
World' exhibit at the Centre Des Sciences. Well. If you aren't familiar
with this exhibit (there are four of them touring the world simultaneously) I'll
try my best to explain. The purpose of the exhibit is to educate the lay
person on human anatomy and the effects of various diseases on the body.
This is done by displaying cadavers (yup, dead people) that have been
preserved using a highly complicated method called 'plastination' . This
is done such that all the tissue (muscle, fat, organs, brain, nervous
system, etc.) can be seen in incredible clarity. For example, one cadaver
(yup, dead person) called in the exhibit, "Exploded Man", was exactly that,
exploded. His organs and muscle tissue and nerves etc. were all
individually preserved, attached to strings and hung in such a way that they
were in the proper position relative to body placement, but could be viewed from
almost any angle (and I mean pieces and parts of his entire body).
So, at first this and the rest of the exhibit was fascinating.
Then, as the exhibit went on and on, and you started to think more about
the fact that these were actual dead people and parts of dead people, the nausea
started to settle in. We finished walking through the exhibit, went
outside, took a big breath of fresh air, then went back to the boat to eat
dinner. I was wishing I had planned a vegetarian meal, but we had boneless
chicken breasts instead. Real said he was glad it wasn't chicken with the
bones, tendons, etc. still in.
Needless to say, we had a great time, and below are
two pictures Bob took after we finished our post-cadaver viewing dinner.
The first, without Bob, is our attempt to say the French word for cheese,
'fromage'. Obviously it doesn't have the same flattering effect for
picture taking as saying 'cheese' does. The second picture includes the
photographer and as you can see, Wilson joined us for both
pictures.
It is now Sunday, and we are anchored just past
Trois-Rivieres. We plan to arrive in Quebec City Wednesday (7/25).
More to come in another posting about our trip post Montreal.
Anne |
