Montreal

In Montreal we decided to spend the day doing a walking tour of the city. We started out downtown at our hotel, and headed through the shopping district (which for the first time on this trip made me a little sad that we can`t buy anything to carry with us). We visited La basilique Notre-Dame, which was built originally as a small chapel in the mid 1600`s., and later expanded to fit the needs of growing Montreal in the 1820`s. The decor of the church is amazingly ornate, and the building can fit over 10 000 people when standing, with seating for 4000. We walked all through Old Montreal, and saw many historical buildings. Unfortunately, the weather was so hot and humid that it was uncomfortable just to be outside, so we tried to be inside as much as possible. Stopping for a lunch of poutine, and smoked meat sandwhiches, was a good excuse to enjoy some air conditioning.

In the afternoon we decided to visit Bodies The Exhibition. For those of you who have not yet experienced it, they have taken real human bodies, preserved them using aceto

ne and silicone, and displayed them so that people can see how bodies work. Some are full bodies, with skin, hair, eyes, etc. fully intact, others are simply one part, such as a heart, lungs, systems of arteries, muscle fibre, etc. I had always been under the impression that these bodies had belonged to people who had donated them to science, so although looking at dead bodies seemed a little strange and intrusive, it also seemed to have some scientific value. I was quite shocked to learn after entering the exhibit, that they are actually unclaimed bodies that were found by Chinese police officers. This made the exhibit much harder for me to enjoy, as I could not help but think that these people once belonged to someone, someone who may be missing them and searching for them...

I guess that is why I study psychology, and not medicine! Although the initial weirdness of looking at thousands of body parts got to me, the exhibit was very, very interesting, and I did enjoy it a lot. I think that anyone who feels they can handle it, should check it out if it is in a city near them.

The next morning, we met up with my friend Bruno for breakfast, who had lived in Burns Lake years ago with Katimavik, and I had kept in touch with ever since. We had initially planned on cycling out of the city, but reading the weather network changed our minds. With the humidity in the air, the temperature felt like 45-50 degrees Celsius, and not only is it not fun to ride for hours in that kind of heat, it is really unsafe. Unable to afford to stay in a hotel in the city for any length of time, and the weathernetwork calling for 4 or 5 days of the heat, we opted to rent a car and head far enough out of the area that we could continue cycling.