Day Four: La Belle Province

Today we arrived in Montreal. I’ve been wanting to come to Montreal for quite a few years so this is very exciting for me. Anyways, we had an early flight again this morning. We had to wake up at 6 am, not quite as bad as the 3 am wake up time when going to Toronto but still no fun. Only one thing of interest happened in the airport. I was sitting at our gate (Gate 120!) and there was a girl sitting in front of me and she was sleeping. She must have been around 12 years old. She’s calmly sleep and all of a sudden she wakes up and yells “MONTREAL!” I wish I had caught it on tape, it was hilarious.

The flight from Toronto to Montreal was great. Why was it great? It was great because it was short. It only took about 45 minutes to get to Montreal. As you can see, the external fuel tank of this plane was not covered in red tape. That made the flight much more enjoyable too

Alright, so now we’re in Montreal but fairly far from downtown Montreal. Of course we go to find a taxi, and we found one. Had we known what was awaiting us, we wouldn’t have chosen this particular taxi. From the airport to the Westin Hotel in downtown Montreal, our taxi driver changed lanes roughly 40-50 times and not once did he check his blind spot, look in his mirrors or even use his signal. I would have taken a picture of him changing lanes but I was too concerned with my safety to turn on the camera.

We arrived at the hotel at around 12 pm but our check in was scheduled for 3 pm so we had to kill some time. We went to the hotel restaurant (which was ridiculously overpriced) and then we headed out into historic part of the city which was right behind our hotel. We went down to the water which was really nice and then stopped at the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal. This place really impressed me. I’ve been to the Vatican, Saint Paul Cathedral and New Westminster Abbey and I must say that this place is up there with those three in terms of beauty. Perhaps it’s not the biggest, but a lot of great things are stuffed in it. Enough writing, here are pictures.

Yeah so then we went exploring a bit more in the historic part of the city which was great. Montreal is by far my favorite Canadian city, simple because it reminds me of Europe. I caught myself a few times yesterday asking if we were still in Canada. It’s just great.

More happened yesterday but I’m too tired right now to type it all up. Just ask me in person if it really interests you (which I doubt it does, but one can always dream…).

Ciao.