Montreal 2013

Hello Internet-land!  I just got back from Montreal Canada!  

It was really interesting place to live because they meld 2 very different cultures nicely.  Driving wise- the signs are in French (the official language is French).  Everywhere else, everything is posted both in English and French.  Everyone speaks French and most people speak English.  Puerto Rico was another place that reminded me how 2 cultures can co-exist.  In Los Angeles, people make broad assumptions and usually assume you are a certain culture and just start talking to you whatever language.  In Montreal, most people have either French or English people in their families and get along pretty good and make effort to know each other's language and culture.   In the restaurants you see the menu in both languages.

Here is a picture of their downtown.  It is like NYC but fewer people, less traffic, waaaay less graffiti, barely any litter, people bike often, and cleaner air.

 Here is a picture of their "Old Town".  

Old buildings and lots of good places to eat.

Here is an M3 with tons of parking tickets.  

Too bad the car doesn't have a garage...

I am surprised that they didn't tow the car.  If that happened in Los Angeles, the car would have ended up impounded.

 Not too far away from the M3, was the Place Jacques-Cartier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_Jacques-Cartier

That day was the Jewish Holiday Rosh Hashanah and kind of cold so I suspected that is why the square was rather empty. 

Up the walk a bit was the City Hall.  Really nice place. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hall_of_Quebec_City

Here are their gas prices for the record. 

 

 So as you can see it is $1.46/Liter of gasoline.  Keep in mind there is 3.8L in 1 Gallon.... so that comes out to a whopping $5.55/gallon... and somehow I am guessing that is not premium.

 Here is the Montreal Biosphere.  

Not to be confused by the Biodome.  The Biodome is close to the Olympic Park.  This one is close to the Casino. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Biosph%C3%A8re

Here is their Casino!  It doesn't look like one that is for sure.  When I went inside it was kind of depressing.  It reminded me of a Dave and Busters with hoards of senior citizens.  There were lots of slot machines, which didn't use coins.  It definitely was not exciting in the least.  One of the things that wierded me out the most was the fact that THE ALCOHOL WAS DISPENSED ELECTRONICALLY.  When I first saw the bartender use this electronic device to measure out your hard liquor I was kinda disturbed.  Even the bartender was kind of ashamed that they had that system.  Speaking of alcohol, of course the drinks were weak.  Booooo!  At least they were not expensive @ $8 a pop.  Throughout the province of Quebec, hard liquor is tightly controlled.  They sell their liquor though "State Stores" (more grumbling) and close at 10pm.



Here is the Biodome (on the left) and they have this observation elevator going up.  This was pretty neat because there are 4 eco-systems!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodome_Montreal



Here is the Capybara.  It is actually a rodent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara

Here is a beaver.  He was sleeping

Piranhas!

The croc was sleeping.

The weather inside is really tropical @ 60% humidity.  You can smell it!

This little frog is called the Dyeing poison frog. 

Native Americans would use it as poison for their tools to kick ass.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrobates_tinctorius

Atlantic Sturgeon. 

http://espacepourlavie.ca/en/biodome-fauna/atlantic-sturgeon

King Penguins.  These guys were just looking up.

They are actually pretty big animals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_penguin

Here are some more Penguins.  

They looked like they were having fun.

Sorry about the flash.  I took this picture with my crappy phone.  I thought Air Canada was cool for having those power ports.  Unfortunately they don't give you a place to put your device that you are charging.  I also liked the map showing where you are at.

Here is the nasty soggy "pizza" that was $8. 

Bring your own food with this airline.

See Downtown LA?

 

Here it is zoomed in.  Loving that smog!

Pike Place and Canada

Here are some more pictures in Seattle.

 

Here is the Public Market.

 

 

Note the "Old School" logo. 

 

Inside the market there is all kinds of things to get!

 

Here is a crumpet I ate.  It was the bomb.  It had this maple syrup sauce that was amazing.

 

They have this Russian pastry store called...

 

It is super authentic and amazing!

 

Here they are making the magic.

 

Here is the view outside.  The stadium on the left is for the Seattle Seahawks.

 

They have this "Underground Tour".  It talks about the history of Seattle highlighting the unsavory things.  They talk about the humble beginnings including terrible infrastructure and prostitutes.

 

Here is our tour guide.  He is talking about the logging community. 

They used the sod for the foundation of streets!

 

 

Note the original floor.

 

 

Here is a "water pipe".  Wow, how shitty.

 

Perhaps you have seen some glass blocks in the sidewalks in older cities. 

This is because they have an underground!

 

At the end of the tour, they have an original toilet.

 

Here we are en route to Canada!  It not to far..only 2 hours.

 

And then we got some traffic.

 

 

Because some bozo  hit the bridge with his truck which triggered it to collapse.

Here it is zoomed in.

 

So finally we got to Canada!

 

Here is the actual boundary.

 

 

So we took the Lions Gate Bridge

 

 

It is on the left.

 

 

 

 

We were going to check out the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capilano_Suspension_Bridge

 

They made this entire resort around this one bridge.

 

Here is the bridge.

 

Here is looking left.

 

 

Check out the Bald Eagle!

 

Here is the guy looking the other direction. 

I was singing Seal- Fly Like and Eagle and thinking of the USPS.

Space Needle and Chihuly!

So when you go to Seattle you got to go to the Space Needle! 

It definitely looks taller in the picture.  It is actually 605 feet high. 

To put that into perspective the US Bank Tower is 1,018 feet and that is an actual building.

 

Once you are up there, the views were pretty impressive. 

You can actually go outside on an observation deck.

 

I stuck out my arm and took a picture down.

Here is another picture from another direction.  Downtown is on the other side.

 

This is the same scene as the photo above... but zoomed in!

 

Right below the Space needle is the Chihuly Garden and Glass.

 

It is pretty neat that this is all hand blown glass.

 

This one is called Mille Fiori which is Italian for "Thousand Flowers"

 

It would be super cool just to have ONE of these chandeliers. 

I am not being greedy.  I just want ONE.

This one is pretty cool.

 

Here is "The Sun" up close.

 

And this guy is HUGE.

 

Keep in mind that this is all glass!

 

They have this cool greenhouse. 

Note on the top left, that is the restaurant for the Space Needle

 

And then it started to rain.  Again.

 

My camera has 30x zoom!