Thursday (10th) was another sunny day - in fact it seemed to be super sunny!! haha! i just spent the day wandering round Montreal. It is a very pretty city especially the old town - it really is very european. There are loads of little cobbled streets with quaint little buildings - filled with butchers and bakers and gift shops. I also walked right along the port and round the clocktower - all very pretty!! In the summer and when the weather is a little warmer - the old port opens up and there are ferries in and out of the port all day and you can go on mini cruises, and also out to the other island of Montreal. i hadn't actually realised that Montreal was an island!! Its seems bizarre somehow - i took a bus ride to an island!! Over the bridge obviously! Anyway - i also stumbled across a shop where you could hire bikes and also....inline skates!!! Oh how i have wanted to get on some skates ever since i saw people skating round Toronto on them - it is another mode of transport over here! All the bike lanes are split in 2 so there is space for skaters too!! One day before i left Montreal i wanted to hire some for a couple of hours if i could!

Friday (11th) was a full and for me a funny day....I decided to climb 'Mont Royal'. it is referred to as the mountain in Montreal. i wouldnt class it as a mountain - just a very big hill!! Anyway at the top you can see the whole of the city/island and right out across the water. There is also a little cafe at the top that sells the best hot chocolate!! The weather was not so great - it was overcast and a little bit cold. It does kind of make you feel a bit down in a way when the sun was out so strongly just the day before! i only had a couple more days left in Montreal so i headed out - rain can't stop play - its not cricket! I had a look on my city map before i went out and thought i had a rough idea how to get to the foot of 'the mountain' and also thought it would be well signposted anyway! haha! Mont Royal is in a park aswell. There are parks all over in this country and they are all so well kept too. I walked right along Sherbrook avenue - the main road along the top of the city and was looking for the intersection i thought i needed to take a left on - i walked for a good 45minutes and then realised that i was at the other end of the city and just about out of the city!! I had obviously gone too far! So i headed back the way i had come. I came across about 3 streets that sounded like the could have been named in relation to the mountain (well in my natalie logic anyway!) so i decided to go up one of them - and it very definitely went up aswell - so therefor it must be right!! There were some beautiful houses up the road and as i got close to the top the road took a really sharp hairpin and there was a big building which was a private school. Suddenly there were no signs around and no indication that there may be a mountain or a park nearby! I licked my finger and stuck it in the air - it told me to keep going straight forward and upwards!!!! so i did!! haha! About 10 minutes later i came to what looked like a park area - as i crossed the road i found the signs pointing up to the top of the mountain! yey! Felt like id been out all day already and i hadnt even started the main bit! haha! Eee - i thought - if my dad could see me now - i always take the mickey out him for going out without a map!! haha! i must have inherited his sense of direction! There were several signs pointing in different directions for different areas of 'mountain' and i really didnt know where i wanted to go! So i just kept heading upwards! There was a group running round all over the place - they were orienteering. i decided not to follow any of them as they were going in every different direction! There was still so much snow in the park and up 'the mountain' that many of the tracks and steps were buried underneath it all so new track had been created and people were just going...wherever.. Eventually i cam across a sign for 'Centre de Montagne' that sounded about right - the middle of the mountain!! The rest of the walk up was lovely - it was quite a woody area but i could see a good view all the way up. About 40 minutes later i was at the top!! And it was a lovely view - but just as i got there it started to hail/rain/snow. The hailstones were big ones too and they hurt!! haha!! So i went inside for Hot chocolate and it really was yummy!! Proper french hot choc made with milk! I could just imagine Kim loving this. I got a window seat in the "Chalet' cafe too. Perfect!

So i just had a nice walk back down the mountain, through the park and along the main streets back to the hostel - i thought it might take me a good 90 minutes or so. I came out of the Chalet and checked the signs - thinking i would walk the longer way round and get a different view. I started to walk and the next set of signs i came across suggested that i was heading the wrong way and that i would end up back where i started! I kept on walking though as i thought at the next path crossing i would just need to take a right turn instead of a left! My sense of direction was obviously well messsed up!! I ended up walking down a road which looked unfamiliar so thought 'oh this must be right and ive come down the other side' ....but no - at the bottom of the hill was....'the chalet'!!! I had somehow spiraled round the centre of the mountain, gone up a little bit and ended up back where i started from!! It took me 40 minutes to do that too!!!! In the end i headed back down the way i had come and then followed the signs for the main road. However - that then brought me out much further east along the main road than i neede to be and again - i wasnt on a part of the road i recognised!! I walked right the way back along and joined 'Rue Saint Laurent' which i knew ran through the centre of the city - north to south!! I walked another 40 minutes down there before i got to where i needed to be in the very centre of montreal and then i had another 20 minute walk to the hostel!! By this time it was really really raining/snowing and i really needed to use the bathroom!!! hahaha!!!! As i read this i am confused myself!! I really had in my head that 'mont royal' was in a different part of the city! However it was a good walk and i saw most of the city!! It was funny - i wish i hadnt been on own - but the hostel was pretty quiet and the people that were there didnt want to go out as it was raining! Perhaps i should have followed their lead!

Saturday 12th April...... Today i went to the Olympic Park - it was fantastic! I walked there and back; which was another good long walk - on the way back it started raining really heavy so by the time i was back at the hostel i was pretty wet!!! It was very quiet at the olympic park - i think the weather kept people indoors! The building was huge! I can honestly say i dont think ive ever seen pictures of it from the outside before but i knew it was famous for its architecture. It looks as though it is made up of 2 parts - there is a big tower on the front section of the building but on going inside it is all connected. I later learned that at the time of the olypis the tower was not finished as it is sloping and the top of it would have come too far over the tarck and field part of the stadium which at the time was open air. It now had a retractable roof attached to the top of the tower - its kind of spectacular to see! I took a proper guided tour of the park. The man - Paul - who took us round, showed us all the architectural designs and scaled down models of the park over the years. There have been a lot of modifications to the entire park since the time of the olympics. What was the velodrome is now a 'biodome museum' there are 4 different seasonal climate chambers in there housing various animals from around the globe. The track and field stadium is no more - it is just a big stadium with a whole section of seating removed (seating capacity dropped from 67000 to 56000) and is mainly used for trade shows and exhibitions now - it seems so sad that there is no track field facility there now and also that the arena is not even used for sport. The aquatic centre is huge! It is great - i cant remember now how mush water it holds but i know its a heck of a lot and its one of the highest volumes of water in that kind of facility in the world! There is an olympic sized swimming pool, a training pool, a diving pool, a 'baby pool', and a water polo pool which is up higher than the other pools as it was built after the olympics and was put in place of a whole section of seating!! Paul then took us to see some photos from the 1976 olympics - one of which was Nadia Comaneci - he explained how she was officially the 'Queen of the '76 games' - too right!! haha! Then one of the guys on the same tour group as me said '...who is she - what sport did she do?' was he having a laugh??? I had to fill him in - i couldnt resist!! Aftert the tour i went for a swim in the olympic pool - it had to be done!! There were quite a few people training too - they were in trainers and swimming gear running round the stadium before they got in the pool - up and down all the stairs in the viewing balcony!! It was a really good day and i finally managed to answer all my own questions about where the olympics have been held each year - although there are a couple of gaps and im not sure if there was an olympics in those years and i didnt get chance to ask Paul. Back at the hostel it was a fairly mellow evening - we all just watched a movie and had some music on. Tomorrow we are all supposed to be going to the 'sugar shack' on a hostel trip!! Needs sunny weather for it though.........

Sunday 13th April

As the weather had been so so good over the last few days and the sun had been shining thehostel had planned a trip to the sugar shack; we were all meant to besetting off together at 10am. There were quit a few people staying in the hostel that were keen to go. However...the weather forecast was pretty bad - it was sunny this morning but the forecast was so bad that Jean Pierre (the guy at the hostel who organised the trip) cancelled thetrip andalso said ewasnt going out at all!! haha! I was pretty dissappointed! Anyway there was no way i could stand to stay inside all day no matter how bad te weather was! I got layered up and headed out for a walk -the weather was cold but still very sunny. I decided to head down to the waterfront andire some rolerblades to go skating up and down te pier and around the old town! I had so much fun! I was so unsteady at first when i came out of the shop; i had all the knee hand and elbow pads on too! My first challenge was to get over the cobles in the old town and then head straight down a steep hill!! Ho my goodness - i was still trying toremember how to actually stop when onroller blades too!!I nded up grabing one of the lamp posts andswinging round it!! Anyway it just took me a little whle to get steady and then i was away!! And then it happened....the weather changed -like a swith had been flicked - the wind got up up really bad - it was cutting and cold, the sky turned balck and it started to rain!!!! The rain didt last too long at first but the wind continued! I was freeing and i had forgotten how hard rollerbladingcould be!! I only lasted 90 minues in the end!!! When i got back to te shop Mark and Antony (the 2 oung guys running the rollerblade and bike hire shop) were lauging at me!! they only oly charged mefor one hour rental too!!!! I was so glad to be back at the hostel and looking forward to having a nice hot meal!! I had really enjoyed my day though - just wished that the weather had been better and that i could have gone to the sugar shack; that would have been my last chance as i won't bein Montreal next sunday! There was a movie on in the common room at the hosteltonight - it was such a perfect movie evening! Today i thought how much fun it would have been to share with someone else; every single one of my friends would have had fun!