Sorry for the late post, had a late night. We got up in the morning and made our way into Montreal. The city is situated on an island, so you have to cross one of the many bridges to make it into the city. But, the drawback to the bridges if someone has car trouble, or a train passes on the other side of the bridge, then traffic gets extremely backed- both of which happened on the bridge on our commute. I can see that as a real challenge for living/working on an island.
When we got to downtown (centre-ville), we took a bus tour of the city. We had great tour guide- knowledgable and witty, oh, and perfectly bilingual, as in he used English idioms in his jokes. We visited all of the major parts of the city, including the Notre Dame Basilica, where we also got to walk around for 30 minutes, Old Town, the 1967 Expo cube apartments and sphere, the bus drove on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, the local racetrack, and finally up to Mount Royal, the highest point on the island for a grand view. It was a great experience, especially for those of who are staying extra to get a big view of the city and find things to explore.
Lastly, we went to Botanical Garden, where all of the spring flowers were in full bloom. Montreal is a few weeks behind us in terms of weather, even though it has been unseasonably warm here, which is good for us. We spent several hours walking through the flower beds, trees, and even an insectarium. So beautiful, a must see if you ever make it to Montreal.
We were picked up at the Garden and taken to our final club meeting for the trip, meeting Rotary Club Riv-Sud at their meeting place in a restaurant. We watched their club meet, then ate a delicious dinner before presenting to the Club. By now, we can somewhat properly pronounce our words in French and the club was impressed we were able to give the presentation in French. After our presentation, we exchanged banners and they even had a small gift for all of us. It was a perfect way to have our last meeting, even though we are a little sad we won't be meeting anymore wonderful Rotarians here in Canada.
Thank you to all of the Rotarians who have made our stay possible: arranging vocational days for each of us, housing us, taking us from place to place, and overall treating us like family. It has been a great trip to teach us about Rotary, an organization most of us knew very little about prior to this trip. There are a lot of wonderful people in Rotary, and looking forward to the future.
And looking forward to this morning, where I have my last vocational day.
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