Day 3: Biking up the mountain

Another great day in Montreal. The key is starting off with a good cafe and croissant.

Today we tackled the mountain. Montreal just installed communter bikes all over the city - Bixi Bikes. In the heart of Montreal you'lll find these bike stations every couple blocks. For $5 a day or $28 per month you have unlimited use of the bikes. Thing is, you can only take them for a half hour at a time and then you need to stop into a station park your bike and grab a new one. You can keep them longer, but it costs you a few dollar more. (Toronto, get with it!!)

So Deb and I picked up bikes around the corner and headed up the mountain - Mount Royal, that is. For those of you who don't know Montreal, it's the big huge mountain right in the middle of the city.

It was a beautiful sunny day. I think it's 6.5 km up the mountain, I'm not quite sure. In any case, when you are biking up a mountain in a heavy three speed, it seems like 12 km. It was a beautiful winding trail through the woods. At certain points I had concerns for Deb's wellbeing. Mostly I didn't want to be responsible for her having a stroke half way up the hillside. Getting the body back down the hill would have been way too much work.

Fortunately, she's quite durable and she made it all the way to the top with very few stops. Yay Deb!!

Going down was much more fun. It was a long, long glide. I couldn't believe how much distance we travelled. We just kept going down, down, down.

When we got to the bottom there was a large yoga class going on at the foot of the statue. Looked painful, but fun. I'll have to give it a try before I leave.

I saw Deb off back to Toronto and Andrew Fishman at his office in the veille ville (Old Montreal). Photostockplus has an awesome office in a building that is likely hundreds of years old with two foot thick stone walls. I'd love an office like that.

It was good to catch up with Andrew and to meet his partner Gabby who was absolutely lovely. The BBQ Master cooked up some Flintstone sized steaks, as thick as my raw zucchini lasagna from the night before and with a bit more of a chew. Makes me feel manly again.

Brooke, Seth's cousin, joined us. She is 10 years old and has the personality of a rambunctious 90 year old with mild dementia. Very entertaining. Can't wait to get them together next week.

What's in store for the next few days? I don't know. I need to do some work tomorrow, so I'll find a nice cafe and make it my office for the day. I'll be getting together with Pierre Blais tomorrow. He's a brother from another mother. He's been instrumental in speading chair massage in Quebec and is the first Massage in Schools trainer in Canada. I'm reallly looking forward to catching up with him. It's been far too long since we've seen each other.