We made our way into
Montreal today around 10am and were welcomed with lots of traffic. Luckily we
are not on a time schedule, so moving slowly didn't bother us as much as it did
many others on the road going to work, school, or to who knows where. We were
entertained by some drivers who swerved in and out of lanes trying to find the
quickest route, but really having no luck and being stuck in the muck along
with the rest of us.
Once we got into the city we
found a parking spot in the Westmount area right near a bike path. So we popped
our bikes off the top of the car and peddled towards the city center. Our first
stop was to listen to a large group protesting union busters at McGill
University. The protesters sparked our interest so we joined in their march,
which led us to the Occupy Montreal Camp. The camp contained hundreds of tents
within Victoria Square, which is right downtown shadowed by the new stock-exchange tower. The camp even has a communal
kitchen set up and solar panels supplying electricity. It was interesting to
see how the business people working in the fancy tall buildings surrounding the square
interacted or didn't interact with the protesters. There were many business
people standing outside those skyscrapers having their quick cigarette breaks,
staring at the protesters, thinking who knows what. By the looks on their faces
it wasn't anything pleasant or supportive and one man walking by on his cellphone even muttered "Just some kids complaining about not having enough money" to whomever he was speaking to on the other end.
After our quick view into
what was going on with the protests we continued on our bike ride and checked
out a little more of the city. We had heard that there was an underground mall
spreading a total of 33km below the city. We were curious. The word 'mall'
scared us, but we had to see what an underground mall looked like. It actually
looked just like any other mall, but we could not believe its ability to just keep
going. After going around numerous corners to see that they just led to section
after section of this underground shopping center we decided we had seen enough
and got on our bikes again.
We then headed for the
riverfront. The paved streets soon turned to one-way cobblestone roads and the
buildings no longer had glass facades. It was like we all of a sudden stepped
back in time. We wandered around
the cobblestone streets enjoying the quaint scenery and lack of people. After
seeing Old Montreal we felt content with what we had seen in the city and
we were really cold so we biked back to the car. Morgan enjoyed racing a fellow
cyclist who didn’t actually know he was being raced against and which meant he
didn’t mind being beaten either (editor Morgan's note: he did know he was engaging in a Cat6 race and had to stand up for half a block in an attempt to stay in front of my legs)! After Morgan’s glorious success we were ready
to move on to Quebec...
