Easter Monday was so much warmer than Sunday!
I was heading out for a little bike ride, when I ran into Alex coming into the apartment. He asked if I was going to sell earrings in the park, and I said I thought that was Sundays.
He told me people would be there today too since it's a holiday and it's warm out and such - so I thought hey why not see if anyone is there..
There were indeed people playing drums there! Probably about the same turnout. This time I put my earrings out on their crappy piece of fabric and sat there reading my book enjoying the sun. Some almost-homeless looking hippie old guy came over and sat and talked. He gave me a small shoulder massage for about ten mintues. When he realized all I was going to do was thank him and continue to read, he went to get food. Another guy came over but barely spoke English to he sabotaged that one hahaha. Then this other guy came and he was much more chill, mentioned that he had brought a slack line and could maybe teach me how to do it!
I wanted to learn, but in my crappy little spot where you could barely tell I had anything in front of me, no one had noticed that I was selling stuff, and noone had stopped yet even to look. So I wanted to stay there a little longer to see what would happen.
He disappeared.
Then a Mexican dude came by and ended up putting his bike on mine, and pulling out a mini set up of jewelery himself! He made crazy huge stuff, mostly for males from what it looked like. He had a perfect cheech and chong accent, and was smoking weed the whole time too lol. He showed me some cool pieces and told me their story - where the stones came from, the style of the art (maya, indian, etc) and inspiration etc. It was actually pretty interesting and I was glad he plunked himself down there.
After a while though, I got colddddd. Not nearly as bad as last time, but still cold enought to want to leave. I went back to the house, thawed, ate, and went to the fair trade coffee shop pi to enjoy the sunlight/change of scenery now that I was wearing pants instead of a skirt. I had been in the house a fair bit the past few days, it was nice to be out all day!
I ended up getting carried away with the time, so the next thing I knew it was evening and it was time to meet up with Shai again. Of course, once you intend to leave somewhere everyone starts chatting!
The guy that was sitting across from me had lived in Western Canada, and we were talking about places when I heard a "East Van represent!!!" coming from behind me! I was surprised to hear that, so I turned around and started talking to her.
This girl, I had noticed before) was very much like a commercial driver. She had the hat with feathers, feather earrings, suspenders, wearing dark earth tones, short dark hair, no makeup, and wore a fox tail attached to her rear (poor fox I didn't like to look at that too much). I should have known. Well, we talked for a while too, and she told me to come back and she will give me free coffee! By then I was pretty late and went to the bike...
The stupid bike lock WOULD NOT OPEN. It was always sticky, Tania couldn't even open it when she went to use the bike, but this was stuck in between open and shut, and the number dial would not even move more that 5 numbers total. I didn't know what to do, so I called Marco. He told me to yank on it, but I had already done that! I had to leave it - at least it was not going to get stolen cause the lock was so messed.
I made it back and promptly went out again. This time Shai took me to a funky little place that looked closed from the outside, but inside was really nifty. Good music, good beer. We sat on a couch and talked about traveling. It was pleasant :) I learned lots about Japan, and I told him about some of the places I'd been. We seemed to be on the same page about a lot of things.
the next day was sunny and warm (for Montreal anyways) so I walked down to see if the bike was still there. It was. The lock was still stuck, and even after two big dudes pulled on the thing for me, it refused to move!
I went into the coffee shop looking for wd40 or something, so he gave me some "3 in 1 oil" stuff.Of course, withing two seconds of it hitting the lock, the thing worked perfectly smooth. I was so relieved - that problem solved itself fast! I could then take the bike on the day's mission: the cemetary and the oratory.
I had no map, and a vague idea of where the thing was... so I biked the wrong way at first. After a couple blocks, I asked someone and turned myself around... I went up a hill and found a really beautful residential area around the park! I was not sure about if I was going the rigth way, but I turned a corner eventually and saw a Jewish Cemetery.
I found one! The gate was closed though, they weren't letting visitors in. There was something strange about this place though...
One of the graves had been dug up!
I took a picture of it - still have to edit a million photos though. EDIT: here they are!
So I continued down the road knowing if I follow this little one, I will find the BIG one. I did, and it was bloody huge!
I wandered... but it was so big, the map showed there were tons of parts, and a couple exits...I didn't know which direction the Oratory was in though, so I wasn't sure which exit to head towards. Ah, lost in the cemetery.
I was walking the bike for a bit to gather more energy, when a random person walked by. We talked, and he apparently hung out in this cemetery a lot, so he knew it inside and out. Today he was searching out a grave. I though searching for a name might be fun! I decided to help him find his grave.
We searched, talked, and kept looking. We knew the area it might be in, but it was massive and not really labelled at all. After a while we realized it was going to be impossible without more information... so he decided to help me get to where I was going!
There were two cemeteries on this valley, one was Mont Royal, the other Cote de Nieges. The first one was the prodestant, the second catholic. To get to the oratory, I had to go through the second one, but it was separated by a fence. Charles showed me this small little door in the fence in a really strange spot (I never would have found this thing or known where to go without this guy) to get to the other side.
He ended up joining me through the entire other cemetary as well. We came out through two old houses to a huge field. It had a view of the city on the other side, but it was big enough that you could barely hear traffic - it was quiet, very calming.
I decided it was time to sit under the solitary giant tree and eat the food I'd packed in my bag. he joined me and ate some peanuts. I could see the roof of the oratory from the field, but he still walked me to the place, drew me a map of how to bike back to my house withing 20 minutes (mostly downhill too yay! I was so happy).
I headed into the oratory stoked that today was turning out to be a classical solo-traveler-random-perfection type days where you just constantly end up talking to strangers or looking at cool things.
The oratory was huge as well... and there was a real human heart in a jar. I tried to take so many pictures!
By the time I was done with the oratory, it was starting to get that evening sun. I started to bike back. I was not paying attention though, because I went well past where I was supposed to turn, and had to weave my way back, look at the map, and then I finally found my way to the mountain. Even with the detour, the trip was not too long :)
I got home all sweaty and happy. I showered and ate dinner, then two women from France showed up! They didn't speak much English, so we were mostly making conversation with enthusiastic hand motions.
Going to the sheesha lounge was debated, and postponed. Renaud was possibly going out, and same with Rob, but both ended up staying in and so did I. I did computer stuff while watching the French girls play mario 3 the first time.
Slowly but surely I am catching up! Off to hula hoop!
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