Montreal est bon!

The latest stop on our trip took us to Montreal after an overnight stay in Toronto.

For the record, we didn't actually get to the city centre of Toronto but stayed at a hotel near the airport. The planes went over the hotel (just) all night and we had to get up early to catch our flight. The Toronto airport has a curved roof so that the snow doesn't stay on it during the long winter months.

And so on to Montreal. When we arrived at the airport one of the first things I noticed was that the English words were put after the French words on the signs. Everybody speaks French to you first before they change if they realise you don't speak French. Canada has two languages - English and French - and Montreal is very French while Toronto and the west of the country is English.

Daddy picked up a car at the airport and we quickly discovered Montreal has a traffic problem - there's too much of it! We took forever to get into the city and to our friends' place. (Daddy's note: Mama's map reading still needs work).

Our friends have a small house near a park in the centre of Montreal with two cats. I slept on the floor. (Daddy's note: on a mattress!)

We walked around the old Montreal town which still has cobblestones and buildings dating back 350 years. Mama and I went on a tour of an old Catholic church. We went up the tower and had a good view of the city. We also saw lots of stain glass windows and went down into the crypt which worried me because it's very close to Holloween. At the top of the tower there were some stone angels which also creeped me out because of the weeping angels from Dr Who.

Later in the afternoon, Mama and Daddy walked up Mt Royal. They took a long time while I waited with out friends.

At night we took a quick trip into the shopping district downtown and managed to keep Mama from spending money. Victory!

It was 10C for our second day and we went out to Olympic Park. Montreal hosted the Olympics in 1976. One of the old sports venues has been turned into a biodome. It has four areas - forest, rain forest, arctic and ocean - and lots of plants and animals from the various areas. The arctic zone was the best because that's where the penguins were living. All the penguins were tagged and that allowed me to identify one of the bigger ones that I called "Reddy".

We also went to the insectorium at the botanical gardens just across the road from the Olympic venues. I don't like insects and it creeped me out a lot. Spiders aren't insects but there were plenty on display - yuk! Also in the botanical gardens was the Chinese garden which was brought stone by stone from China as a gift to Montreal.

MILKSHAKES
When we had dinner near the Toronto airport at a place called Perkins, Daddy had a milkshake that he rated five out of seven. He says though that too many milkshakes in the US/Canada are made with chocolate ice cream rather than vanilla and then chocolate flavouring. (Daddy's note: Hey, if we are out to find the best then this detail matters!

In Montreal, we dropped into a corner coffee shop just near our friends place and I had an excellent hot chocolate while Daddy ordered a milkshake. I tasted it and was very impressed. I would give it five out of seven because with New York still to come I need to think there's better still to come.

Thanks for readying.

Mac