Friday, June 3, 2011 Montreal

5:40 am

The temperature is +9 C, with a high predicted of +21 C.

From the Environment Canada website:

Today Sunny. Wind becoming northwest 20 km/h this morning. High 21. UV index 8 or very high. Tonight Clear. Low 9. Normals Max: 23°C Min: 11°C

6:30 am

This looks like a perfect day. The sky is clear and the sun is rising in the east.

I have 4 main items on my agenda for our Montreal stay: bookstores (primarily McGill, but also some smaller private ones), geocaching (the goal is to find at least one while we are in Quebec - either in Montreal or later while we are in the Eastern Townships), birding (Mount Royal park), and photography.

1:30 PM Geocaching

I downloaded the coordinates for 2 geocaches near McGill University and headed out to see if I could find them.

• GC2R8YJ McGill University - Une petite pause ?
  • I zeroed in on the area without difficulty, but had to abandon my search since there were a couple of muggles sitting near the cache site having a petite pause. I returned later and made a quick find.







• GC1QJ0E Hôpital Royal-Victoria: cache hospitalière #11
• Geosense made this a quick find in a fairly dense wooded area between two parking lots for the hospital.

I now can add Quebec to the list of provinces where I have found at least one geocache. The others are British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario. So now my total is 5 provinces. And my grand total of finds is up by 2 to 969.

3:00 PM Musings

It has been a very good day. Sunshine and warm temperatures were a good start.

Then came two bookstores, one the McGill University bookstore, the other called Paragraphe which is just off Sherbrooke street. Total number of books purchased: 5. An incredible demonstration of restraint. Here are the details.

• "Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine & Robert Baldwin" (2010) by John Ralston Saul.
  • I will buy almost anything by JRS. He is one of my favorite authors. This is a biography of two of Canada's earliest politicians and the role they played in forming the nation of Canada.
• "Picturing the Land" (2011) by Marylin J, McKay.
  • This is a history of Canadian art in the period 1500 - 1950. I have been looking for a book like this for over a decade. I finally found one and didn't hesitate to buy it.
• "Defiant Spirits" (2010) by Ross King.
  • This is a history of the Group of Seven, artists who set the tone for Canadian Art in the twentieth century.
• "The Symmetries of Things" (2008) by John H. Conway, Heidi Burgiel & Chaim Goodman-Strauss.
  • John Conway is the leading mathematician today on the study of symmetry. This may be a difficult book to read but I am going to give it a good try.
• "A Guidebook to Contemporary Architecture in Montreal" (2008) by Nancy Dunton & Helen Malkin.
  • The is a small book, but it looks delightful. It will help guide me to some of the beautiful buildings in the city where I can try to take a few good photos.

8:00 PM Photography

We went for a walk downtown looking for a nice place to have dinner. We found a deli/bistro in the shopping mall under Place Ville Marie where we had a Montreal smoked meat meal (my second in two days). I took my camera with me and took a number of photos of the modern skyscrapers. There really are some beautiful architectural structures in this city.