Trees
Mont Beau
More trees 
Lounge
Fleur de Lis
My feet slightly toasting
Fire
bar in the chalet
View from the back of the chalet
Walking around the town
My bedroom - the beds are 5ft long!!
View from my window at dusk
From the bridge over the river in Lovers Park
Partially frozen river
Chalet Beaumont - my lodgings in Val-David
Empty
Restaurants in town
Outskirts of the town
Chapel - full of wood
Carving
Pulpit
Notre Dame's famous organ 
Ceiling of Notre Dame - didnt come out very well
Notre Dame
Notre Dame
Chapel in Notre Dame
The feeder
solemates
P-P-P-P-P-PICKup a........
...Penguin
St Lawrence area
St Lawrence area
Bright birds
Shy Porcupine
St Lawrence river zone 
Tropics area of biodome
Monkey
Cayman
Parrots
In the ruins of the old city (under the musuem)
More ruins
Part of the tropics area of the biodome
roof of the biodome
Its Tuesday the 30th of January and this is my latest report. I'm posting this from a hostel in Val-David in the Laurentides, Quebec. It's in a rural area full of small ski-ing towns. Val-David is very close to Mont Tremblant a popular skiing town. I decided to jump on the bus and explore the countryside a bit.
Sunday 28th - I bought a museum and metro pass and so i decided to visit some of the local museums to learn about Montreal. Montreal was founded in the 17th century and there are many museums each telling the story of Montreal's founding in various ways. The old city is between Mont Royal (where the city's name comes from) and the St Lawrence river. First off i visited the site used for the Olymics in the 70's. The velodome is now a biodome. It has basically been split up into four areas to recreate the environments around four areas of the world - forest, st lawrence river, artic and the dry praries. Each has walk ways around the area which is full of plants, animals and information plates. It's a pretty amazing place with birds flying over you, monkeys climbing up trees metres from where you are... There is little glass seperating you from the animals. The place absolutely stunk of fish though. Think that was something to do with the penguins!!! It was pretty strange walking through the different habitats having to take of jumpers/jackets as you go. My favourite animals were the brightly coloured birds busy hunting for food under the trees in the tropics section.
Next to the biodome is the main olympic arena. It has a really ugly looking upright next to it that is attached to the roof and is supposed to lift the roof off. It never actually worked and so they built a fixed roof but made it look like it would work. French engineering. Montrealers are still paying for the olympics, apparentely. Shocking. Walking back I found $20 on the floor - result.
I then made my way to the musuem of montreal. It tells the story of the city through multimedia exhibitions. On the bottom floor is a number of galleries with artifacts, sound booths, and stuff to touch and look at. They focus on the period between the city being founded and when the british took control. Upstairs are a number of rooms each kitted out with various objects from recent periods, e.g. 1920's, 1950, etc. You sit on a period chair/sofa from the period and watch a short film of montrealers discussing the period from their perspective and what it means to be from montreal. It was pretty interesting sitting in a period kitchen listening to people talk about what foods evoked Montreal to them. Glad i went it was really interesting.
On the top floor there was a temporary ehibition. The idea was that you went through various rooms of exhibits each providing evidence on a specific crime. You then have to make your mind up as to who was actually guilty. The crime concerns a fire that ran through montreal destroying around 40 houses of wealthy businessmen (who all lost a lot of merchandise). Because a maid spread a rumour that a slave had set the fire (on purpose) the authorities arrested the slave and found her guilty under the law of "common knowledge". She was hanged and then her body burnt and ashes spread to remove any trace of her exsistence. Now the evidence shown (records from the time, testimonies from the trial, backgrounds of those in the vacinity at the time etc) doesnt necessarily point to the slave having done it. Walking around the rooms there are sounds, artifacts to explore and open (with clues in them), lights etc and you could easily spend 2-3 hours in this temporay exhibition on its own!!
Monday 29th - Most of touristville Montreal seems to shut down on Mondays. I headed for the Old town to explore some of the architecture. I then moved onto the Famed Basillica Notre Dame. A pretty amazing church that is covered in stained glass, frescos, lights, and chapels. They hold a light and sound show on Tuesdays to Fridays which i missed out on. It looked pretty amazing. I finished the day walking down the main shopping strip (again a lack of clothes shops??). There are many homeless/down and outs around. Every underground has 2-3 people sleeping on the benches. There are people holding the doors for a tip, people coming upto you on the street, etc. It must be extra hard being homeless in this weather.
Tuesday 30th. I got up early and caught a bus from montreal to Val-David. It took about 2 hours. I'm staying in a converted log cabin that is set atop a small hill in the forest. It's a 20 minute walk (mostly up hill) from where the bus stops. It's fairly cold here - around minus 20 degrees centigrade. The condensation from my mouth crystallises on my moustache meaning that i constantly have a frosty moustache - attractive.
I had a walk around town and it is really beautiful. There are lots of small little wooden houses dotted around, each painted brightly. It reminds me of the images on Christmas cards. Because it's so cold this seasons snow hasnt melted and so walking along the roads everything is covered in about a foot/metre of snow. The people here are really nice. Most don't speak English and my French is really rubbish. I have attempted to converse in French but i cant quite get the Quebecois accent. Apparently Quebecois is like a 17th century version of French with a strong accent. It sounds like a constant blur of noise to me.
Sunday 28th - I bought a museum and metro pass and so i decided to visit some of the local museums to learn about Montreal. Montreal was founded in the 17th century and there are many museums each telling the story of Montreal's founding in various ways. The old city is between Mont Royal (where the city's name comes from) and the St Lawrence river. First off i visited the site used for the Olymics in the 70's. The velodome is now a biodome. It has basically been split up into four areas to recreate the environments around four areas of the world - forest, st lawrence river, artic and the dry praries. Each has walk ways around the area which is full of plants, animals and information plates. It's a pretty amazing place with birds flying over you, monkeys climbing up trees metres from where you are... There is little glass seperating you from the animals. The place absolutely stunk of fish though. Think that was something to do with the penguins!!! It was pretty strange walking through the different habitats having to take of jumpers/jackets as you go. My favourite animals were the brightly coloured birds busy hunting for food under the trees in the tropics section.
Next to the biodome is the main olympic arena. It has a really ugly looking upright next to it that is attached to the roof and is supposed to lift the roof off. It never actually worked and so they built a fixed roof but made it look like it would work. French engineering. Montrealers are still paying for the olympics, apparentely. Shocking. Walking back I found $20 on the floor - result.
I then made my way to the musuem of montreal. It tells the story of the city through multimedia exhibitions. On the bottom floor is a number of galleries with artifacts, sound booths, and stuff to touch and look at. They focus on the period between the city being founded and when the british took control. Upstairs are a number of rooms each kitted out with various objects from recent periods, e.g. 1920's, 1950, etc. You sit on a period chair/sofa from the period and watch a short film of montrealers discussing the period from their perspective and what it means to be from montreal. It was pretty interesting sitting in a period kitchen listening to people talk about what foods evoked Montreal to them. Glad i went it was really interesting.
On the top floor there was a temporary ehibition. The idea was that you went through various rooms of exhibits each providing evidence on a specific crime. You then have to make your mind up as to who was actually guilty. The crime concerns a fire that ran through montreal destroying around 40 houses of wealthy businessmen (who all lost a lot of merchandise). Because a maid spread a rumour that a slave had set the fire (on purpose) the authorities arrested the slave and found her guilty under the law of "common knowledge". She was hanged and then her body burnt and ashes spread to remove any trace of her exsistence. Now the evidence shown (records from the time, testimonies from the trial, backgrounds of those in the vacinity at the time etc) doesnt necessarily point to the slave having done it. Walking around the rooms there are sounds, artifacts to explore and open (with clues in them), lights etc and you could easily spend 2-3 hours in this temporay exhibition on its own!!
Monday 29th - Most of touristville Montreal seems to shut down on Mondays. I headed for the Old town to explore some of the architecture. I then moved onto the Famed Basillica Notre Dame. A pretty amazing church that is covered in stained glass, frescos, lights, and chapels. They hold a light and sound show on Tuesdays to Fridays which i missed out on. It looked pretty amazing. I finished the day walking down the main shopping strip (again a lack of clothes shops??). There are many homeless/down and outs around. Every underground has 2-3 people sleeping on the benches. There are people holding the doors for a tip, people coming upto you on the street, etc. It must be extra hard being homeless in this weather.
Tuesday 30th. I got up early and caught a bus from montreal to Val-David. It took about 2 hours. I'm staying in a converted log cabin that is set atop a small hill in the forest. It's a 20 minute walk (mostly up hill) from where the bus stops. It's fairly cold here - around minus 20 degrees centigrade. The condensation from my mouth crystallises on my moustache meaning that i constantly have a frosty moustache - attractive.
I had a walk around town and it is really beautiful. There are lots of small little wooden houses dotted around, each painted brightly. It reminds me of the images on Christmas cards. Because it's so cold this seasons snow hasnt melted and so walking along the roads everything is covered in about a foot/metre of snow. The people here are really nice. Most don't speak English and my French is really rubbish. I have attempted to converse in French but i cant quite get the Quebecois accent. Apparently Quebecois is like a 17th century version of French with a strong accent. It sounds like a constant blur of noise to me.
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