Went into Montreal today and did our touristy thing again, but first I have to tell you about the ride into the province of Quebec. Just west of Ottawa you will start to see a few bi-lingual signs, usually road signs, in English and French. Then as you drive around Ottawa you will see that more and more things have both languages written and spoken. In fact when you converse with someone they will say, "Bonjour, Hi," just to see how you will replay and that is the language they will use. What we didn't know is that just across the river is the community of Gatineau which is in Quebec and that is why they speak both languages. Anyway, just before you cross the province border from Ontario to Quebec, on the Trans Canada you will see a welcome sign welcoming you to Quebec. The difference? It is only in French! So from that moment on I have had to try and rely on my bad high school French to get by. Thank God most of the people speak English also. But the funny thing is, now I don't feel like I ever need to go to France anymore - I've already been there!
The first thing we did this morning was take another Grey Line Tour around the city. It was a great 3 hour tour and we got to see some things that we had on our "want to see" list. We even stopped at some of them so we could visit and take pictures. Plus we got to see things that we "thought" we wanted to see, but after going by and taking a look, changed our minds. One case in point was the Olympic stadium used in the 1976 Summer games. It is a very weird looking structure, but because of all the architecheral problems and flaws it isn't used anymore except for the swimming pools. A billion dollar building sits rotting.
One stop we made that I wanted to see was the Notre Dame Basilica. It is a gorgeous church. I have been in many, but this had to be the most beautiful. The original church was constructed in 1672 and then reconstruction began in 1823 because the original was too small. All the wood is rosewood inside and gold inlay on the altar. The organ has 4 keyboards, 99 stops and 7000 pipes. The wedding chapel is dominated by a bronze sculpture which consists of 32 bronze panels cast in England and the organ has 25 stops and 1648 pipes. It is a very impressive and beautiful building.
Next we picked up the car and drove around "Old Montreal" for a while. You can tell by the pictures that they still keep the cobblestone streets and small alleys are used for the artists to sell their wares. Unfortunately most of the shops are souvenir sellers. You see one, you've seen all the rest. Still, the town was great to walk through.
Then we had to wait for a couple of hours before we were to go to dinner at a dinner "theatre". It was in an old 1700's restaurant and they put on a show in both languages. The ambiance was great even though the dinner was so-so. As we were leaving an older gentleman who was sitting with a group in front of us stopped us outside and wanted to know where we were from. I didn't think this would ever happen to us, but when we said we were from New Mexico he wanted to know how we said, "Good to meet you." So Karl and I look at each other and say, "Good to meet you." He shook his head and said, "Not in English, but in your language." We tried to get him to understand that we are part of the US and we speak English. We finally left him, but I think he still thought we should have spoken Spanish. Oh well, like they say, one of our 50 is missing. Que sera, sera.
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