Friday August 27, 1999

Day Fifteen: The first time in weeks (so it seems) we did not have to get up early to be somewhere at a specific time. We awoke by 8:00 anyway and decided to go down to the train station to have breakfast. We checked out the scene there and decided on coffee and scones at 'The Second Cup'(a Canadian coffee operation, similar to Starbucks) and fresh take-out sandwiches from the boulangerie for lunch. Back in our room, Mary was on e-mail doing follow-up work stuff so I went out to check out the underground city. I walked downstairs one level from the lobby of the hotel and entered into a surreal world. I had never seen anything like this: a large (and I do mean LARGE) underground shopping mall -- it went for blocks and blocks. I wandered over three city blocks and came to a Metro station (the McGill station on the Green Line). I went up topside and it was hot outside. I really did not know where I was while up on the surface, because I could not see any familiar landmarks. All the signs are in French and I only recognized a few words like Rue. Back down in the underground, in the air conditioning, I could navigate towards the Gare Centrale (French for Train Station), as every intersection has signs that lead you by places rather than by street names. 

I went back to the hotel and rescued Mary from work for a while (after all, this is supposed to be a vacation), and we went down to the underground again. I pointed out some of the places I'd seen and Mary stopped at a few stores to help out the Canadian economy. We went to the McGill Metro station and this time boarded a subway train toward the end of the line at Angrignon. We went through about ten stations, then got off at the next-to-last station and crossed over to the reverse direction. Since the 'trains' (these are rubber-tired subway cars) come every four minutes or so at that time of day, we did not have to wait very long for the return train. We switched lines at Lionel-Groulx to the Orange line and got off at Bonaventure. This stop was about three blocks on the other side of the Gare Centrale ( I now know how to say "train station" in French and German). We walked back through the basement of the CN building: they had signs showing the central dispatch control room, but since they were in French I did not understand what they said. Since it was after working hours on a Friday, we decided not to see if they had tours... maybe on our next trip up this way. We have both decided we will definitely have to come back to Montreal some time: there is so much to see and it is a great place to be able to just walk around as far or as little as you want and still feel as though you have experienced part of the city.

Back at the hotel, we decided to have dinner and go for a swim before packing our bags for tomorrow's train ride back to the USA. We had so enjoyed the hotel's restaurant last night that we went back again tonight. The seafood linguini with saffron cream sauce was to die for, and again the salad and dessert bar were super. The hotel swimming pool is indoors and was much too noisy, even at nine-thirty in the evening. We sat in the hot tub for a few minutes, swam a lap or two and left. We packed for tomorrow's rain ride before calling it a night.