This morning I went out and headed straight back up the hill, hired skates, and skated round and round for an hour and a half. It was fun!
In the afternoon I went down to Old Montreal to hear a choir singing in the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours.
They were evidently amateur but quite good. They did a mixture of Christmas music, some overly familiar, some less so. Their soloist wore a sleeveless/strapless dress, which seems an odd choice in a cold church in Montreal in the middle of winter. The chapel had model ships hanging from the ceiling, some in an older style each holding a pair of green votive-style lights, but there was also a modern tanker towards the front.
The day before I left Denver I went to a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in St. John's Episcopal Cathedral. My car is always parked outside there, so for once I thought I would go inside. It's turning out to be a good Christmas for choral music.
I didn't hang around in Old Montreal after the performance finished. It's a very pretty area down by the waterfront, with a lot of old buildings, but it's like the Royal Mile: full of tourists and tourist-oriented shops and restaurants, and little sign of any real life. Instead I came back up into town, and since I had managed to miss lunch along the way I decided to go and eat early at an Italian restaurant I'd been told about near my lodgings. This is where my evening started to go wrong. No! It started to go wrong much earlier in the day when I went off on a doomed quest for stamps. Anyway, the restaurant was closed for the holiday, so I had to trek back in the other direction to go to Le Commensal, Montreal's big and well-known self-service vegetarian restaurant. They have a variety of salads and hot dishes, and you pay by weight. Of course, if you haven't eaten since breakfast, you are attracted by only the heaviest food. I also got a nice bottle of white beer, Cheval Blanc, most of which I managed to spill across the table.
Afterwards I thought I'd go underground again and have a look around the shops. I wandered in circles for a long time, unable to find any of those numerous entrances and beginning to think I'd dreamed the whole thing. Finally I found a way in, only to discover that it had been abandoned. It seems that by 7 p.m. on a Saturday the whole place is dead, all the shops are closed, and many of the passages are shut off. This definitely isn't Osaka.
In the afternoon I went down to Old Montreal to hear a choir singing in the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours.
They were evidently amateur but quite good. They did a mixture of Christmas music, some overly familiar, some less so. Their soloist wore a sleeveless/strapless dress, which seems an odd choice in a cold church in Montreal in the middle of winter. The chapel had model ships hanging from the ceiling, some in an older style each holding a pair of green votive-style lights, but there was also a modern tanker towards the front.
The day before I left Denver I went to a Service of Nine Lessons and Carols in St. John's Episcopal Cathedral. My car is always parked outside there, so for once I thought I would go inside. It's turning out to be a good Christmas for choral music.
I didn't hang around in Old Montreal after the performance finished. It's a very pretty area down by the waterfront, with a lot of old buildings, but it's like the Royal Mile: full of tourists and tourist-oriented shops and restaurants, and little sign of any real life. Instead I came back up into town, and since I had managed to miss lunch along the way I decided to go and eat early at an Italian restaurant I'd been told about near my lodgings. This is where my evening started to go wrong. No! It started to go wrong much earlier in the day when I went off on a doomed quest for stamps. Anyway, the restaurant was closed for the holiday, so I had to trek back in the other direction to go to Le Commensal, Montreal's big and well-known self-service vegetarian restaurant. They have a variety of salads and hot dishes, and you pay by weight. Of course, if you haven't eaten since breakfast, you are attracted by only the heaviest food. I also got a nice bottle of white beer, Cheval Blanc, most of which I managed to spill across the table.
Afterwards I thought I'd go underground again and have a look around the shops. I wandered in circles for a long time, unable to find any of those numerous entrances and beginning to think I'd dreamed the whole thing. Finally I found a way in, only to discover that it had been abandoned. It seems that by 7 p.m. on a Saturday the whole place is dead, all the shops are closed, and many of the passages are shut off. This definitely isn't Osaka.
So I wandered along to Maison Ogilvie, a department store known for its Christmas display window. Well, I remember how exciting Christmas windows were when I was a child - enormous shining wonderlands. This was just a display window with a bunch of toys made to move unconvincingly in a snowy scene with some buildings. Were the ones of my childhood just like that too? Is it just that I'm much bigger now?
3 comments:
Sounds like Yume-no-Shima to me.
ET
Just to let you know I'm reading.
And thanks for the good wedding wishes. It was a really good day. Sorry you weren't there.
Yume no Shima.... shudder. Do you think I need reminding of the awfulness of this time last year, Uncle Eric?
And Robert, good to hear it went well. Congratulations.
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