Three things on the to-do list today: [1] see Habitat 67 [2] find some Balzac absinthe to ship home [3] have a Montreal bagel and some Montreal smoked meat. I have a list of foods that are named after places that I’ve eaten in those places, and since this is my first time to Montreal, I had to get a bagel and some smoked meat before we head out.

Habitat 67 was pretty easy. Call an Uber, get dropped off. It was built for Expo 67 by Moshe Safdie, one of my favourite architects. I’ve seen several of his creations, including the Jewel Changi Airport in Singapore

The Marina Bay Sands hotel and surrounding buildings, Singapore

and Altair in Sri Lanka

Habitat 67 was his first major project - the idea was to create living spaces that had amenities like privacy and garden terraces, usually associated with single-family dwellings, but have it all exist in a densly-populated area with a sense of community. All the units could be made prefabricated and assembled on site. It consists of 354 identical cubes stacked in various ways, which make up 146 condo units.

It’s a brilliant design and quite controversial for its day. Now, it’s considered a landmark and if you’re lucky enough to catch one of the units for sale, it will set you back a minimum of $800,000 - and the condo fees are $2400/month.

I’d seen lots of photos of it, but pictures don’t do it justice. It’s a strange, wonderful, chunky, jumble of a concrete sculpture that you can live in. The view from the units isn’t too shabby, either!

We Ubered back to the hotel, then I set off on foot to get a couple more shots of the whole complex from across the river.

Hate to say it, but it doesn’t look so great from a distance. At the spot where I took the photo is the cruise port that we’ll be coming to tomorrow. There’s an observation tower there.

on one side of the tower, near the top, there’s a glass box sticking out

I can ride any coaster on earth and barely have an increase in my heart rate, but stepping out into that little glass box almost gave me a panic attack. I couldn’t make myself step out onto it if I was looking down - I had to look straight ahead and ignore the floor, then look down after I was already out there. Also, a lack of any handrails at all took whatever shred of comfort I had and destroyed that, too.

Back to the hotel and I’m off to find a Montreal smoked meat sammich. I decided on Dunn’s Famous Deli as the place of choice. It was about a 25 minute walk from the hotel.

It’s as good as you’ve heard, by the way. I got the smallest sammich they offered.

A quick google told me that the liquor store that carried Balzac absinthe was only a few blocks away, so I picked up a couple bottles and headed back to the hotel. Popped across the street to the post office and was told that they couldn’t ship alcohol. Pull up the UPS store address and it’s a 30 minute walk back to the neighbourhood I was just in. Le sigh.

Got to UPS and they told me they couldn’t ship it, either. I told them they were crazy. I get absinthe from BC via UPS all the time, you can do this. They eventually said they couldn’t insure it because it’s liquid. I said I didn’t care, I just need it shipped because I can’t take it on the cruise ship. Holland America has a policy that if you try to bring liquor on board, they’ll take it and dispose of it.

If you buy something at a port stop, they’ll store it for you and you’ll get it after the cruise…. unless they lose it, which is what they did with a bottle of absinthe I bought in Maine on this very same cruise a few years ago. Anyway….

On the way back, I noticed that Montreal has a big metal donut like Calgary does, only theirs is smaller and sits between buildings.

More drama… two of our friends came in by train today and I checked at the front desk and it seems that Hilton had canceled their reservation for some reason. There were no rooms available at all. So I scrambled and found them a room just down the street at a nicer place, then met them at the train station to do all the ‘splaining. They’re checked in now and we’re waiting for all the peeps to get coordinated so we can go to dinner.

Dinner was at 3 Amigos and the food was still good. Then we headed over to Bar Sara B for some absinthe and espresso martinis. Really enjoyed server Johanna, she was funny.

Getting on the ship tomorrow!

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