2/24 - 2/25 More Montreal

I had great plans to get up early every morning and investigate things Lisa wasn't interested in. Unfortunately, I had so much caffeine last night that I stayed up till 3:30. I had a lot of fun writing, playing with pictures and making another pass through the tour guides. But then I slept until after 9. Couldn't even get my free muesli. We finally got moving about noon with well marked and edited tour maps in hand.

I was really interested in seeing the cathedrals. I'm not sure if the early inhabitants were extremely religious, or if this was just one more area for the French and English to compete. Our first stop was St. Patrick's Basilica, built in 1847, the English's (Irish, actually) best shot at the worship wars.

Saint Patrick's Basilica	St. Patrick's Nave.

They were just finishing communion and their noon service. We slipped into a pew and tried to be reverent instead of just in awe. (That is, we tried to keep our jaws from dropping to the floor.) It was huge. It was ornate. It was beautiful. Mostly it was an incredible tribute to Jesus and helped me to feel very close to him. Once the service was over and most of the worshippers were moving about, we circled the sanctuary and let our mouths gape. We dropped loonies in the collection boxes and pushed buttons to light "candles" and said prayers. (Ok, we're Methodist. We pray without props. This felt more like making a wish.) There were slots in the walls all around the stations of the cross to make donations for building restoration, the poor, etc. There were too many to feed, but we tried. I slipped a couple of snapshots, without flash, but felt very guilty. It was far too sacred to try to digitize it's soul. We did buy a book with all the photos I wanted to take. I'll scan some when we get home.

I felt so purified that I didn't want to leave, but so energized that I did. We strolled on toward the Basilique Notre-Dame. The weather had continued to deteriorate. It was pretty cool and the dampness in the air was starting to solidify into real rain. Perfect for our Puget Sound goretex.

Basilique Notre-Dame	Notre-Dame's Nave.
The Winner!

We entered Notre Dame to the flash of Nikons and cacaphony of the tourists of babel. We paid our admission fee and openly displayed our cameras. The French won, hands down. Awesome beyond words (but I'll try). From the statues of saints, God, Jesus, Mary, Angels, Abraham and Isaac, etc, etc, suspended in front of the illuminated sky blue curved walls, all behind the altars engraved with the Last Supper and other saints, to the huge organ pipes and choir loft in the balcony at the rear, every inch (I mean centimetre) is ornately carved, painted, engraved, inlaid, and/or gilded with ornate designs or French-looking Christs. Slightly muted tones on the hundreds of columns painted red, blue and gold, kept them somehow reverent instead of circus-like. Lisa was most interested in the carved pulpit rising in the center of the sanctuary. We theorized it's purpose, but in a Catholic church, God only knows.

A pulpit in the middle of the church? What's that about?

When we were saturated with awe, we tried to follow the signs to the gift shop to find better pictures than we were able to take (and maybe an explanation of the center pulpit). The signs led us in circles to dead ends. We finally found ourselves in the chapel. It was an entirely different period and style. Behind the altar was an almost surrealist mural-carving of various saints and scenes topped with an extremely French Jesus and an exquisite descending dove. I must have been very moved by it, because the photo was terribly blurred. Fortunately, the gift shop had a postcard by a more steady viewer. The stations of the cross in the chapel were small, unadorned, deeply carved (bas-relief?), intricate yet simple, pictures. They were all the more moving in their simplicity after the overpowering ornate sanctuary.

Bronze altarpiece in the Chapel	Altarpiece detail.

When we finally tore ourselves away, we decided to abandon the rest of the day's tour in favor of a Mexican Restaurant, Casa de Mateo, wedged into an ancient store front. The owner greeted us with a hearty "Buenos dias! Como estas?" At last. A language I can understand. This was fortunate, since English was the waitress's third language and a distant third at that. She appreciated our order of guacamole, seviche y cactus gratinado, but not nearly as much as we appreciated the food. Fue muy delicioso! Lisa wanted to compliment her beautiful voice as she sang along with the canciones. I came up with "Su voz es muy bonita" and she apparently understood and was flattered, and began singing louder.

A couple of goddesses.

It was getting close to time for Keith and Dee's train to arrive, so we meandered back toward the hotel. We zig-zagged around some places I recognized from the tour books and took damn near 48 megabytes of photos. Lisa went up to the room to rest a bit while I waited for the train. A few minutes before the train was due, they came strolling up the wrong way. Turns out they'd taken an earlier train and tried to call all day while we were gone. C'est la vie (y'all).

We took them up to our room and they were duly impressed. We had begun to get used to the opulence and it was good to see it again through fresh eyes. The room really was a wonderful anniversary present. We told them about the Marche Movenpick (food court) and we went down (found it first time!) and ate and laughed until we were all falling asleep at the table. We made plans for future visits before going our separate ways, us to Niagara Falls and them to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Keith's just trying to steal his hat back.

It was Lisa's turn to stay up late. We gathered and piled our crap and when I woke up briefly at 3am, everything was packed and Lisa was trying to wind down.