Brenda has been the hostess with the mostess (she always is), hauling us all over Montréal, making sure we were well fed, had snacks as we were out and about, and showing us all the sites. Today, however, she had things she needed to do without us, but she suggested several activities which were all within walking distance of the apartment. We assured her we could take care of ourselves, though we would miss her, and set out to see interesting things.
We began at Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral. It is a lovely minor basilica in Montréal, with a neo-baroque ciborium (the bit with pillars that covers the altar) with twisted pillars. The domed ceiling was also impressive. We walked around quietly, admiring the artistry of the building.
The cathedral sits on one side of Dorchester Square, with the Sun Life Building on another side. At the time of its completion in 1931, the Sun Life Building was the largest building in square footage anywhere in the British Empire. In Wikipedia, there is a fun story about the building.
Cool huh?During the Second World War, during Operation Fish, Britain's gold reserves and negotiable foreign securities were secretly packed in crates labelled 'Fish' and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada. The securities, arriving at Halifax on July 1, 1940, were locked in an underground vault three stories beneath the Sun Life Building, guarded around the clock by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The gold was shipped on to Ottawa. The extremely secretive United Kingdom Security Deposit, operating in the vault, arranged for the sale of Britain's negotiable securities on the New York Stock Exchange over the next few years to pay for Britain's war expenses. The 5,000 Sun Life employees never knew what was stored away beneath them. None of the cargo went missing and no information about the operation was ever leaked.
There is a Boer War Memorial in the Square, a statue of Robert Burns, and a mural along a building on another side. It was a lovely public space.
Not that any of us is terribly interested in Barbie, but Montréal is home to the Barbie Expo, the largest permanent exhibition of Barbie dolls in the world. It features more than 500 Barbies, including Hollywood stars, unique one-of-a-kind Barbie dolls and glamorous outfits created by famous fashion designers. As it was on the street we were walking along to get to our next destination, we thought we would pop in and check it out. Fortunately, maybe, the Barbie Expo was closing down for major renovations (I guess) and there were only a few on display. We were there only a few minutes, which was just about right.
A fashion show
The Barbies on the catwalk are on a moving track.
A scene from a James Bond movie.
The best-looking Barbie doll I've ever seen.
We saw all sorts of interesting things along the sidewalks as we walked along. Montréal has beautiful flowers planted around trees, and as I mentioned in yesterday's post, there are random sculptures all over. We passed several of those.
These were both outside the shopping center where the Barbie Expo is housed.
Aren't they funny!
La Leçon
This was near McGill University.
I like how his computer is a Pear, not an Apple.
This square was outside our next stop, the Sherbrooke McCord Stewart Museum.
I don't know what the trees represent, but I think they are super cool.
I took a closer shot because I think I might like to recreate one or two in the yard.
The Illuminated Crowd
by Raymond Mason
1985
I like what the plaque says about this sculpture. "A crowd has gathered, facing a light, an illumination brought about by a fire, an event, an ideology--or an ideal. The strong light casts shadows, and as the light moves toward the back and diminishes, the mood degenerates; rowdiness, disorder and violence occur, showing the fragile nature of man. Illumination, hope, involvement, hilarity, irritation, fear, illness, violence, murder and death--the flow of man's emotion through space."
Interesting building face
Our next stop was the Sherbrooke McCord Stewart Museum. We saw a couple of really interesting exhibits here. One was of First Nation (what the Canadians call Native American) artifacts; hunting tools, traps, beautifully beaded child carriers, shoes, and gloves, and other things. They were beautiful. We watched a video installation of First Nation members speaking about their communities. We also wandered through a collection of paintings by an early Montréal artist who painted scenes of everyday life. There was also a wonderful photo exhibit of shots taken in and around Montréal during covid and the stories that went along with them.
Brenda recommended we stop at the Time Out Market for lunch. Time Our Market is a "dining destination that showcases the best of the city's culinary scene under one roof." It is a large indoor space with tables you share with whoever all under a massive skylight. There are sixteen restaurants you can choose from that all serve fantastic looking food. There is everything from pizza to curry, barbecue to sushi. It was a perfect place for lunch because everyone could get what they wanted. Sadly (in my opinion), Kent and Isabella chose to eat pizza. Brandt opted for barbecue, and I chose Middle Eastern food, with a flavorful chicken dish served with hummus and a cucumber salad. Everyone was happy and we went on our way with full tummys.
We made our way to McGill University to see the Redpath Museum, a natural history museum. Brenda hadn't been there yet and wanted us to check it out and see if they should go. It is an old museum full of old stuff. It had that old stuff smell. The building, however, it pretty terrific, with an upper level and carved ceiling. They had an eclectic collection, but it was interesting, and we all found something we liked.
This is Chimila Anthropomorphic Burial Urn.
The effigy on the lid represents the spirit of the deceased.
I love how the representation of the person has jewelry and other decorations.
I wonder if the person was this chubby in real life.
I figure this is what my burial urn would look like.
Brandt and Kent on the mail level
Cousins!
Don't jump!
All the crystals and rocks and shells that Isabella liked.
And a bird.
We walked home, passing another sculpture I liked. So many! We also passed an actual YMCA. The kids didn't realize it was an actual place, not just a funny song.
Newspaper reading apes
We spent the rest of the afternoon back and Brenda and Brent's. We finished the Montréal puzzle, had some dinner, and prepared for an evening at Cirque du Soleil. With our Montréal passes, we could get a discount on tickets, and we wanted to treat Brent and Brenda as they have been such terrific hosts.
We took the metro back to the Old City, passed through a very hopping Place Jacques Cartier which we strolled through earlier in the day, and made our way to the big top tent that houses the circus. It is on the waterfront at Old Port Montreal. We could see it from the top of the zipline in the morning.
This is not a picture I took,
but it is representative of what the Place looked like as we walked through.
I had told the children we were going to see Cirque du Soleil and I think they were excited, but neither of them realized how cool it was actually going to be until we got there and it started. We were on the second row and it felt like the action was happening right on top of us. We could see all the costumes and makeup, we made eye contact with performers, and the kids could see all the stuff that was going on from a tech perspective too.
The show was fabulous. The performers were so strong, doing daring things. Two women dangled from each other's hair, flying high above the stage. Others flipped off teeter totters, hung from gangling metal contraptions, and flew through the air. The music was cool, the lights were cool, the costumes were amazing (lots of animals), and it was all right above us. By intermission, Brandt and Isabella were both ready to run away and join the circus. We loved it! As we leave tomorrow, it felt like the perfect ending to a really fabulous trip.
I look most of these pictures, but I really didn't want to spend a lot of time taking pictures, I just wanted to watch. Those pictures I did take weren't very good.
We were literally on the second row.
The clowns who made their way in and out of the audience
throughout the performance.
This guy was just standing on the stage at the beginning of the show,
but later, that jacket came off revealing huge muscles that allowed
him to shimmy up and down a long ribbon of fabric.
These three pictures are not mine.
This is not my picture.
The first act had performers in animal costumes leaping around this huge cube.
They were twisting and swinging, pulled up and down.
It was so cool!
I was so entranced I didn't get a single picture myself.
These two guys were hilarious.
The one below flipped the one of top over and over and over,
balanced him on one foot and did other amazing things really really fast.
Here are the women hanging from each other's hair.
More clowning around
These guys were throwing each other around.
One doesn't think about circus performers as being stocky,
but these guys needed to be because they were literally
throwing the smaller guys around.
This huge puppet came out just before intermission.
It has so many moving parts manipulated by so many people.
There is someone up in the head.
At intermission, Brandt went up to talk to the techies who climbed down from the metal tent support. They were running lights up there. I think if they had said, "We could really use another guy. Want to come work for us?" Brandt would have stayed in Montréal and not come home. Isabella probably would have begged to stay too.
In the second half, the sides of the cubes came off and two men
tightrope walked over flames.
The tightropes were not all that tight, so it constantly looked like
they were in danger of falling into the flames.
The cube was turning slowly as they performed
which made the whole balancing act that much trickier.
Performers dangled off these metal contraptions
which spun through the air while simultaneously twisting.
More box antics from the clowns.
These performers were jumping so high,
then flipping and jumping from board to board
down the line.
At the end, the cube opened and all the performers were inside.
The set was a super cool part of the show and Isabella wanted to be running it.
Again, Brandt and Isabella both made plans right then to join the circus.
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