yes, here's to my post-exams long weekend, of sunglasses and flimsy t-shirts and flowy dresses and sandals (and a touch of sunburn) and the first icecream of the season. summer is coming!
it's such a crossroad moment. the winter semester is over, the summer one has already begun. new schedule, new wardrobe entirely, new priorities. and because i was still sleep deprived and with a construction site in my house, but the weather was absolutely gorgeous (17 degrees thursday, 19 on friday, 22-23 on saturday and sunday. so sudden! it's always surprising!), what better to do than loiter around montreal. first of may is not a holiday here, but for me it was, and i can only show some pale images of how exciting it turned out.
the thing that gets to me: all the places i've been these 3-4 days, they're not even outside montreal! all of this is the city! i will just say briefly that i saw (more than in my other short intersections with the phenomenon) the advantages to having a car - not for the daily grind and the time consumed looking for parking (shudder), but for the stepping outside of the grid/downtown traffic/autoroutes. in balance - no, i'd still not get one unless absolutely necessary. but i'd carpool with anyone who goes and does fun stuff:).
so, to start: i wish i had pics from pointe-aux-trembles, the eastermost point of the island of montreal, but sadly i'd left my camera home (which always guarantees a picturesque day) and even my phone was dying at that point. so no pics. the destination was a quiet, not even very big park, by the river, called "le parc du bout de l'íle" - isn't that nice? i was despairing looking for leaves and flowers, but no actual leaves and flowers at that point - just the river and the grass and some almost-blooming willows and the sun.
i'm also going to put this map of the island of montreal here, just to prove that it looks like a dinosaur:
i don't have pictures of the top of mont-royal either, or of mile-end/outremont, because i've been there too many times already. but, looky here, somehow i realized i'd never made it to l 'oratoire st-joseph - and finally, here it is! yes, visiting the oratory is the most typically tourist thing to do, which is why i'm happy that i got it out of the way, so now i can choose to ignore it, recommend it as a connoiseur :) or just go back because i like to go back.
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| classic frontal view. this building is so huge. the nicest part is the terrace, with a vaaaaaast view of not-often-photographed parts of the city (take that, top of mont-royal!). or maybe the nicest part is the very-religiously-themed meditation walk/path on the little slope to the side |
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| it's full of statues, but also of labyrinth-like alleys with vegetation, and i think in the evening it must be great with all the illumination in place. |
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| i had forgotten how beautiful light can be at dusk, when dusk is at 7.30 p.m. instead of, like, 3. |
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| very charming little chapel dedicated to frere andre, the founder of the oratory, who is also very newly a saint, beatified by vatican and all!! includes his actual room on 2nd floor, and his bed was super-short and narrow! |
alright, moving on: the day i met the neighbourhood of NDG (notre dame de grace) (or, alternatively, "no-damn-good", as sonja would call it). there was a porch (music) festival going on, which i couldn't have missed for the world!
this is porchfest, the first edition!!!! long may it live:
http://www.porchfestndg.com/schedule--mapcarte.html
because i had so much fun, i decided to put it in an extra post, so i'll have only a preview here:
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| 2 p.m, regent street, free hot dog stand |
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| after 4 p.m, connaught street, sitting on the grass and basking in the awesomeness of the whole thing |
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| yay new leaves. on saturday, may 2nd - they're already out by now! |
i could not graduate from concordia properly without a visit to the off-downtown campus of loyola, which i'd wanted to see since the fall, on the same principle of checking things off the list. loyola is at the western edge of NDG, and doesn't it sound very Jesuit to you? yes it does.
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| this statue in the interior yard, by way of compensation or something |
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| and another religious-purpose building that looks like an UFO. |
Lo, and finally, there's the lachine canal! one more place i'd wanted to check out for so long... the main thing that stopped me being that people usually go there to bike, i.e. my continuous guilt about not biking. anyway:
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| it's a good place |
somehow i just ran out of words.
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