We’re presently in New York, where we’re staying for a couple of weeks. I’ve only a smidge left of Canada to document and we’re almost caught up. To it, then.
We took a ViaRail train between Quebec and Montreal, as we were now without conveyance. This was no hardship as they have enough leg space to sleep in and enough luggage space above the seats to house a family of four. The free Wi-Fi was also better and more reliable than at the hotels at either side of the journey. A piss-weak Canadian dollar also made beer cheaper than water on your average Pendolino trip.
What this picture needs is less space, more empty cans of special brew and a couple from Bolton having a domestic
We get there and already you notice the differences with Quebec: half the folk in the streets are speaking English for a start. It is both generally larger and specifically more diverse, the rather large Chinatown being an example. We popped in to this last for something to eat when we got there, as it was close and open much later than the rest of town.
We were sat down brusquely and given a pot of Chinese tea, some menus and a waiter’s pad and pen. We bemusedly ascertained, after a fashion, that we were to write down the item numbers from the menu and hand the pad back for processing. We promptly ordered far too much in the tradition of my people.
Fucksake
We grabbed some mystery confectionary from the vendors outside on the way back, because when you’re being a vile foreign glutton you should go hard or go home.
Sweet dumplings and Dragon’s beard candy. I don’t know either.
The town’s historic districts have a much more definite ‘touristy’ feel, but there is plenty to see, eat and do. Most restaurants are French-ish, but there is also a European pub-type configuration featuring fairly heavily too. They also have a Nelson’s Column, which we thought a bit amusingly unlikely. In fact, despite the occasional contemporary threat to blow it up, the local French of the time gave not one blue fuck about Napoleon or Revolutionary France and saw the Man’s moment at Trafalgar as "a triumph of virtue". So there you go.
“I see no ships…now that I’ve sunk them all…several thousand miles away…as you were”
The town also has no shortage of cathedrals. These aren’t buildings that serve any useful function for me, but I’ve enough catholic heritage to know a good one when I see one.
What we then saw was……wait a moment. Oh shit, they’re closing in.
“Soon”
What we also made sure to visit was the local “Biodome”, a zoo-ish facility where they have emulated five distinct eco-systems of the Americas: Tropical rainforest, Laurentian Maple Forest, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador Coast and Sub-Antarctic Islands. The climate and plant life is as accurate as they can get it, so it’s pretty interesting. You do spend half your time trying to spot the damn sloths, mind
This one doesn’t count
This lynx is thinking over its life choices and drawing upsetting conclusions
This penguin is racked with existential doubt
This toucan stands vigilant against enemies, within and without
Comrade Beaver hates the stench of sedition and fifth column, and he smells it everywhere.
The same complex also houses a Planetarium, which we had booked tickets for later in the day. To kill time, we went and watched Jurassic World at a local multiplex. We watched it in French, as this was the only option open to us. I don’t think we missed much in the way of dialogue: I ascertained that the boss lady realised that she should stay at home and have babies (and demonstrated that heels are always appropriate) and that those children should’ve been eaten. Being in French may well have added a modicum of sophistication to the proceedings.
I was worried that the planetarium production would be another dumbed-down travesty, like you’ll find if you ever go Madame Tussauds in London. That particular show is of such blistering stupidity that I came out of it having had several years of schooling erased from my brain, whereupon I promptly attempted to eat my shoes.
Fortunately this show was of some actual merit (voiced by Neil deGrasse Tyson, no less) and explained some of the phenomena by which we understand observable space, black matter et al included. Fun. The other show was of a more traditional “local expert points at stars on the ceiling” variety, which I’ve always enjoyed but then immediately forgotten all constellations beyond Orion’s Belt on exiting. We’re going to the other hemisphere later in the trip anyway, where all the stars are wrong.
Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: Heute habe ich gelernt, das Wort "Planetarium" wird dieselbe in Deutsch gesprochen. Nebenbei: Gehen SIe niemals das Planetarium bei Madame Tussauds. Es ist furchtbar und macht man doof. Waffenfähiges dumm.
