Day 36-39: Montreal for Thanksgiving Weekend

We arrived in Montreal at 9.00am after an 8 hour bus ride from Toronto (it left at 12:45am), I was utterly exhausted due to not sleeping on the bus and the change in Ottawa didn't particularly help matters. We recharged on the way to the hostel with chocolate waffles and coffee which improved morale. 

We walked past some amazing architecture including McGill University (below) which is one of the most prestigious universities in Canada. 

After we dropped our things off at the hostel and had a small second breakfast courtesy of the hostel we head toward the fine art museum. 

The fine art museum contained everyone from Picasso's and his cubism to impressionist artists like Renoir.

It also included works of Inuit art mostly sculptures but they were very interesting. 

 We then made for Montreal Old Town via Chinatown of course. 

The main square (Place d'Armes) in Old Town contained a few neoclassical buildings including the Notre-Dame Basilica and Saint-Sulpice Seminary. The monument above is that of Paul de Chomedey the founder of Montreal with the Bank of Montreal headquarters in the background. 

The photo above is the Aldred Building which resembles the Empire State Building, built for the same company it was completed the same year as it. 

We went down to the river where the port is located and had a look around there. 

The Old Town was full of character, everywhere I looked it reminded me more of Europe and with everyone speaking french here it helped. For lunch at Olive Et Gourmando, I had a fantastic panini with ham, cheese, apple and various herbs and spices, it tasted amazing possibly the best i'd ever had. 

We went to a friends friends house for pre-drinks with fresh mojito's and then got taken to an amazing electro-swing night (there are a couple of videos below demonstrating what electro-swing is if you aren't familiar). You can see us in the photo below, there was a live trumpet and all sorts of amusement with jugglers and the hula girl below. 

We woke up the next morning (not so fresh) but indulged in a complimentary breakfast and made our way up Mont Royale. The view was spectacular. 

The Mont Royale cross lights up with LED's at night and can be seen from the city. It was erected by the founder of Montreal in prayer to the Virgin Mary to end a devastating flood and has been renovated several times since. 

The best smoked meat sandwiches ever. 

We jumped on a bus out toward the Olympic Park as they were hosted here in 1976 in summer. It is located next to the Botanical Gardens where we had these photo's taken. 

The biodome and olympic stadium could be seen from the city so we had to get close ups. 

We went for a nice Italian dinner in the end and then onto an 80's club that didn't play any 80's music, it was fun though just because everyone came. 

I wanted to stick around in Hamilton for aslong as possible because I loved the city so I stuck around with one other friend and I dragged her through the whole of the Latin Quarter and part of Little Italy until we finally reached our destination the Fairmount bagel bakery - they make distinctive Montreal bagels and they were very tasty. 

Leaving Montreal was in quite a rush so we used the underground. Then watched MIB 3 on the way home in between working - it took around 11 hours to get back all the way home with waits for buses and walking back, by the end I was drained. 

Day 29: Blue Jays, CN Tower, and Nuit Blanche ending with a Bonfire Party

So we started the day with a trip up the CN Tower which stands at 553.33 metres and is the tallest  free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere. CN stands for Canadian National the railway company that originally built the tower. 

The views from the tower were amazing, I hadn't witnessed a city with so many skyscrapers before. We could just about see the baseball teams warming up from the top of the tower. 

Any Canadian tourist attraction isn't complete without a moose somewhere. 

We then went to the baseball game - the Toronto Blue Jays vs New York Yankees. The game started slow but there was a home run for Toronto after half an hour which made things exciting for a few minutes. It ended up 3-2 to the Blue Jays so very little happened, baseball is definitely a pastime and not as intense as most sports. 

I spent most of the time admiring the view and talking. We then went to the Eaton Centre (a huge shopping mall) and took a look around before leaving for dinner at Milestones. 

We then stuck around for Nuit Blanche (White Night) - it's a night time arts festival, Toronto turned into a buzzing de facto gallery with the streets littered with over 150 installations. We saw all sorts of things from dancefloors in the streets with correlating lights above to tents filled of smoke full of photocopiers (you were supposed to photocopy your face). I got approached by a stranger while at Nuit Blanche, who turned out to be a model scout, I then proceeded to laugh however I did take his business card (more on that later). 

This was in a theatre called Massey Hall - the first movement of Beethoven's famous sonata titled 'Quasi una Fantasia' which was converted to morse code and transmitted to the moon, reflected back and then played through the grand piano magically by itself. 

So I left Nuit Blanche earlier than I'd have liked to because we were throwing a bonfire party at my house. I came back home to find a huge bonfire alight and lots of guests. We had a great night with the fire department and the police crashing it relatively early (we played the dumb international student card to avoid the fines).