What a busy day!

Since coming to Montreal we have moved several times.  First we came to train for serving in the office with the Giles, before they went home. We lived in their building in a vacant apt. we were preparing for another Senior couple to come- The Allens. (putting together lots of IKEA furniture!). Then, when the Giles left, we moved into their old apt. on the 16th floor.  When our replacements finally arrived - The Conways from Tooele, UT - they moved into the 16th floor apt.  We were supposed to go & live at the mission home while we trained them, but, of course, nothing is every easy!  President & Sister Cannon were having 10 members of their family come that week, so we had to move into an empty missionary apt. we were preparing for a set of sisters. We took our Aero beds-
(blow up mattresses) and our luggage and were off again to move into a totally bare apt.  Today we were at the Mission Storage Unit moving some furniture in and out. It is in a large Jewish section of town. (Right beside the storage building is the BEST Jewish bakery in the world!!!) It was Saturday - their Shabbat- Sabbath) and we noticed a large number of the men leaving their services. I have been so intrigued with some of their clothing as we have watched them coming & going- so I thought I would get a picture of them.  I saw one elderly gentleman walking alone, so I came up to him & said, Excuse me... wanting to get him to explain about their wonderful round bear-skin hats. He totally ignored me & kept walking. Not to be deterred, I said again, Excuse me, sir....  Nothing... he didn't look up, or at me, but just kept walking. These are very orthodox Jews & it dawned on me then, that women are not highly regarded among them & they would never speak to a Gentile woman!  But, I wanted a picture of their clothing...rats!  So, I decided to hide behind a huge bush and as they walked
past, I took several pictures, surreptitiously!  (I know, I know...

I am so intrigued by these bear-skin hats. They are called Shtreimels (Schtray-ml) and they are very expensive! Usually upwards of $1000. and only married men wear them. I don't know if they are hot, but they wear them winter and summer.

The Jewish religion requires the men to have their head covered, so some just wear regular black hats, and the young ones usually only wear the yarmulkes.

All have beards and most have the side curls - very Hasidic. 

After getting all the furniture moved, we decided we needed some lunch. The missionaries told us that the best burgers in town were at Burger de Ville.  It's a place similar to Fuddruckers in that you build your own burger with whatever you want on it. They were certainly right... It was great!!

It took alot to get Elder LeVitre to NOT go to his favorite place...McDonalds !!! AAGGHH!!  But
after eating, he decided it was pretty good! ha!
Since we couldn't get into the next apt. until after 5pm, we decided we would take the rest of the day and go sightseeing down in Old Town section of Montreal.  It is downtown, right on the St.Lawrence River. We parked right across from the Hotel de Ville:

The Hotel de Ville really isn't a hotel at all... It is City Hall. We dropped in to pick up a couple of city lapel pins... called epinglettes. The missionaries here all collect a pin from each city where they serve. Some cities charge for them, some give them away.  Here is the pin from Montreal:

The most famous street in all of Montreal:

The walkway down to the river is lined with restaurants.

with, of course... a little of the US thrown in....

All of the restaurants have inside & outside eating... and always alot of flowers!

 

Hotel Nelson is this amazing restaurant that has been reconverted from on old 1804 hotel. It was named after a patriot of the Rebellion of 1837 and the ninth mayor of Montreal. It is wonderful inside:

As you go down this street and turn the corner, you come to Rue des Artists, or Artists' Alley:

We were VERY tempted to buy a beautiful scene of Montreal.... It was very expensive, though,... and
as Roger says... We'll just have to haul it home!... (so romantic, that man of mine!)

 

It was a fun day. Still, we like Quebec's old city more. Montreal has not done as much to preserve their old section of the city as Quebec. What you cannot see in all these pictures are the tall smoked glass & steel skyscrapers right across the street.  It sort of ruins that old world charm. 

May Zone Conference & Fireside

No sooner had Lindsay, Cameron & family left than we had to help with Zone Conferences. The Senior couples always help with the luncheon (since none of the wards here are financially set enough to furnish the luncheons). This was the last luncheon the Nobles were in charge of. We will miss them so much! Today's menu: Sloppy Joes, potato salad, green salad, & fruit. The triangular Ciabatta rolls they sell in Costco here are very good.

This is the Mont-Royal Zone. There are 5 zones in our mission. This is the mission where we serve.

Back: Nobles, S.Limburg, S.Gutierrez, E.Teuira, Williams, Prawitt, Mieville, Brown, LeVitres, Us
Middle: E. Hayden, Bagnall, Green, Nzojibwami, Tam, Bernier, Dalton, Holm, Babin, Jaquier
Front:  E.McMurrin, Glenn, McRoberts, Neitz, Kastendieck, Pres.Cannon, E&S. Christensen - Area
                                          mental health Missionaries.

Then on Sunday night we were so thrilled to have a Senior Couple fireside at the Mission Home led by our temple president Pres.David Galbraith & his wife (center). He got his doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, then stayed for the next 20 years working for the church to procure the land and build the BYU Jerusalem Center and be it's director for several years. He came home to teach at
BYU - then was called on a 3-year mission to be the temple president here. They go home the end of Oct. 2012. He is so knowledgeable about the middle east. The fireside was on the Arabic-Israeli conflict!  It was fascinating.
Back: LeVitres, Pres.&Sister Cannon, Nobles-(she is taking the picture).
Front: Allens, Galbraiths, Mahaffeys

Last big push for all the sites

Today is our last day with The Sanders family and so we're shoving in a huge day of sightseeing!
Our apartment is on the 16th floor and so everyday when we look out our patio window, we see the sight of the Olympic Stadium and Tower:

It was built for the 1976 Montreal Olympics. First stop was the Tower. There is an observation room on top.

It wasn't finished in time for the Olympics... only the stadium was... and it was finished 11 years later.
It is supposedly the tallest inclined tower in the world at 574 ft. high. We took a funicular to the top. It takes less than 2 minutes. The funicular car stays level as it goes up the incline. At the top is a panoramic view of all of Montreal.
Next stop was the stadium itself. The Stadium is called the BIG O - both as a reference to its shape, and the BIG OWE because of the huge cost to build it & keep replacing the roof. At one end is the swimming venue. At one end are the diving towers, both platform and springboard. The pool with the lanes is in the middle.  At the top left you can see a smaller pool where we watched the Canada's synchronized swim team practice.

At the other end is a play area for the young kids. You can buy a membership to use these pools.

The balcony above the kids pool (in the above picture)  is where we are standing in the photo below.

The indoor stadium is at the other end. It was originally used for the Montreal Expos baseball team.(now they have moved to Washington DC)  Now it is used fo soccer, indoor Arena football, and special events like concerts and trade shows.

The roof has been a big source of contention. Originally it had a retractable roof, but the snow caved it in.  Since then they have tried several roof designs, all with some kind of flaw & needing to be replaced. Currently it is made of some thick polymer material held in place by steel cords attached to the observation tower.

Next we drove by Habitat 67:

It was built by an Israeli-Canadian architect. It was originally conceived as his Master's thesis in Architecture at Montreal's McGill University. Then it was built as a pavilion for the Expo 67 World's Fair. Now it is an apartment complex.

12 Stories, 158 apartments and each apt. has its own private terrace.  The idea was to show how people could live in increasingly crowded cities and still have gardens, fresh air, and privacy in a multi-level environment.  But because it was so expensive to build - it never revolutionized the "affordable" housing market like they hoped it would.  It is also the site which ALMOST saw Lindsay and I arrested!!  It was kind of a drizzly-day, so we parked nearby & Dad & Cameron stayed in the car with the kids & Lindsay & I went to take pictures.  After getting a few shots over the loud speaker comes a blaring voice shouting... ARRET, ARRET  (stop! in french) NO PHOTOS !!!  It just about scared us to death and so we did what any normal tourist would do... We turned tail and RAN!  We made it back to the car laughing so hard we were crying! Sheesh!
   We decided to finish our tour with Montreal's most iconic landmark - St. Joseph's cathedral. It was founded by Father Andre Bessette who was beatified  (made a saint by the Catholic Church) in 2010.

There is a beautiful view up as you walk in. It is the 3rd largest dome in the world - modeled after St.Peter's basilica in Rome.

Father Andre was known for all the healings he supposedly did for people who couldn't walk. Here are all the canes and crutches left by the people healed.

Or you can light a candle .. there are a million available in displays like this one:

 

Of course, there is the EVER-POPULAR site of Father's Andre's  ACTUAL HEART - encased in glass, which he requested be kept here as a protection to the Basilica.

The view of the upper balcony:

and us on that balcony...

What a great time we had.... THANK YOU SANDERS for coming to visit us. We love you!
Hope you had as much fun as we did!!

Lunch at Schwartz's

Today we took Cameron & Lindsay & family out to lunch at one of Montreal's famous landmarks:  It has been here since 1928... Schwartz's.

If you ever talk about coming to Montreal & people say you should have a smoked meat sandwich,
...this is the place they mean!  The chain was sold in Jan of this year for $10 million to a group that includes Celine Dion.

It's a tiny place inside - so mostly people line up outside to wait to get in.

'
You can see Cameron (sunglasses on head) at the back and Lindsay behind the young man taking a picture...she's in grey pants and a teal sweatshirt. From here it took us about 35 minutes to get in.

We were all REALLY ready to eat by the time we got in.

Can you tell we just LOVE getting visits from our family?

They serve their smoked meat sandwiches ONE WAY - white rye bread, mustard only, and LOTS of meat!  The fries and the pickle were wonderful too!  And the Black Cherry soda is a MUST !
After lunch we had to go back to the office, and LJ & Cameron took the kids home for naps. I'll have to say it is always so much fun coming home to a house full of family. We had lots of time to hold and hug, and of course... teach Cambria to say "OH".

And Nana got some time in too!

We had a great time waking up with, playing with, and dressing up little Cambria.

 

 

 

Tomorrow is our last day together... it just seems to fly by!  We are able to take a day off from the office, so we have a full day planned!

Happy Birthday!

Today was my 60th birthday!  (ugh... I had a hard time typing that!) Since we had to work at the office, Cameron & Lindsay & family took off to see some of Montreal on their own.  Sister Levitre baked me some brownies. They also sang to me... and since Elder Levitre used to sing in the Tabernacle Choir, and she tried out for the choir at one time, it was a beautiful rendition!

It almost made turning 60 almost bearable! Later that night Lindsay & Cameron gave me some presents that included this cute tote bag that she had made herself!

We all went out for dinner at a great place we love here... called Scores. They have great ribs & chicken dishes & a wonderful salad bar - pretty reasonably priced for Montreal - 2 for $20.00 !

Then we drove over to show them the Montreal Temple. Of course... the first thing we noticed when we drove up was the gorgeous tulips they had in front.  Here we had gone to Ottawa to see the Tulip Festival and there were hardly any, but around the temple they are thriving!

While we were there, our temple President - Pres. David Galbraith - drove up to lock up something, and offered to take all of us on a tour of the temple, if we had our temple recommends. But, rats, Lindsay & Cameron had theirs back at the apartment in their suitcases, so we just had to settle for seeing the outside. The people here feel so lucky to have a temple in Montreal. Before that, it was drive 6 hours to Toronto and before that it was a several day trip down to Washington DC for them to attend the temple.

All in all, a pretty good birthday!