Montreal

Spent a day in Montreal for the labor day weekend. The drive from Boston is reasonable and its as close as NY is to the south. Moreover Vermont is a beautiful state to drive past. The weather was good and city was lively and busy. We went and saw the Olympic stadium and the Notre Dam Basilica church, rest of the time strolled on Rue Saint Catherine and Rue Saint Denis. We even tried a couple of Indian restaurants out of curiosity and they were pretty decent. There was a store that sold Nepalese clothes and knick-knacks which I particulary liked on Rue St Denis. Even outside on the way from Notre Dame Basilica church to the water front, there was an Indian store that sold Souvenir stuff that had Indian kurtas and middle eastern clothes which was really good. I was tempted as usual and got myself a kurta and P bought me this Nepali wrap-around skirt as well . The place reminded me of Auckland a bit, though the skyline is better than Auckland but Auckland is over all a bigger place as its the main commerical capital in NZ. The strong French culture truly makes it a "foreign" experience, which I really liked. The people spoke decent English though so it was not difficult at all.

The stroll on the water front also was pretty good. All in all I thought its a fantastic city to spend the weekend, small cosy, yet busy. The people were friendly and very bindas, had a good dressing sense and style too, a place where freedom is I guess personified, so you see all kinds and types of people and places (well though I even felt Toronto is 'freedom' personified). I am waiting to visit Montreal in winter and stroll in the underground city and do some shopping. Cirque du Soleil is the other thing that we didnt do as we didnt have enough time, though it can be seen in any other city, since its base is Montreal, I thought it would add that extra charm.

On Rue St Denis, it so happened that a cyclist squeezed in between 2 cars and waited for the red traffic light to turn green. One car passenger to the left of the cyclist opened the door without seeing the cyclist to get off and hit the cyclist who lost his balance fell on the other car to the right. The car from which a passenger had got off sped as the lights turned green and this car which had suffered a small dent due to the cyclist falling on that car, the driver got off that car and began mercilessly beating the cyclist. I was shocked, P got off to stop that guy, by this time the driver had lifted his cycle and was willing to throw it on that cyclist, a small thin college kid and the driver a middle aged and well built/obese man! Some lady started yelling in french, turned out there was a cop car, 2 cars behind us, for some reason no cop came forward for a few minutes. Our interpretation was he didnt want to go there alone, by the time the cop walked till that car driver and cyclist, 2 other cops joined him, and took them to the side to resolve the matter. Phew! it was such a mood off to see a person being beaten up like that all for a small dent on his Honda SUV, irrespective of whose fault it is.