Day 4 - McGill, Concordia, Polytechnique, UQÀM

Hello friends, today was a day full of unexpected journeys, so much rain, and a lot more walking than I've done in years! My day started off with me having to navigate my way through the Montreal metro. At first I was afraid, I was petrified, I'd get lost in Montreal with no one by my side (in all seriousness though, I was worried I'd get lost finding my way downtown). But after purchasing a day-pass for the metro and learning to decipher the map that came with it, I found my way towards downtown, where my journey started at McGill University. I will say though, walking around DT Montreal all day in my covies was definitely a wild experience. I bet people were talking about me in French all day without me knowing with the numbers of looks I was given today.

When Anthony and I got off the metro and were walking to McGill it started pouring heavily. We, being as smart as we are, did not really consider the weather before we left the house we were staying at and were not prepared at all for it, so we just toughed it out and got drenched. We walked around McGill campus until we walked into the Arts building, which is smack-bang in the middle of their campus and is the usual photo-op location for most visitors. When the rain had calmed down a bit, we proceeded to walk to the McConnell Engineering Building, where we met up with Alex Scheffel and Kevin Alforque showed us around the Engineering side of campus. We started at the McGill Association of Mechanical Engineers (MAME) office, where we saw so many fascinating pieces of McGill's engineering culture, and a few... "acquired" items from other schools. One thing that I find fascinating is that while many schools in Ontario have our coveralls, McGill Engineers have lab coats, and man are their lab coats artistic. We then went to the Engineering Undergraduate Society (EUS) office, and Alex (who is the incoming EUS President) showed us around his office and told us about some of the things that their EngSoc  has to offer. We then took a tour of their main Engineering buildings, and as we made our way through those, we saw many fantastic murals all over the walls of the stairwells, so obviously I took as many photos as I could. After the Engineering tour was done, they showed us some of the other cool parts of their campus. I ended up taking a photo with the Arts building (#ClassicMcGill), the statue of James McGill, the Roddick Gates, and some of the art pieces on their campus. Kevin was generous enough to give both Anthony and myself a McGill hardhat, which was way too kind of him.

After leaving McGill, we went over to Concordia University. We could have walked, but decided to take the metro (gotta get our money's worth from the day pass). My new friend Rachel Haighton showed us all around Concordia, and it was one of those schools that was significantly larger than I had anticipated. We first stopped by the Engineering and Computer Science Association (ECA) office and met someone named Laura, who ended up giving us a bunch of free swag after I had told her about my road trip. One common theme throughout my trip actually has been an outpouring of support and kindness from everyone I've interacted with throughout my trip, so I am very thankful for that. Anyways, Rachel then showed us around their Engineering buildings, and we stopped by B Annex, which is where all the various Engineering groups are situated. It was really cool to get a slice of the typical day of a Concordia Engineering student. One thing that I noticed about Concordia that I haven't seen anywhere else so far are the amazing views that you get from their buildings. Given that some of their buildings are about 18 stories high, you get some mad views of DT Montreal from them.

One unexpected adventure that I was not expecting today was to climb to the top of Mont Royal, which is 233 m high. While this may not be an unreasonable amount, I am definitely in no shape to do this kind of work out. The only exercise I ever do is running my mouth and running out of money, so this was an endeavour to say the least. Rachel really wanted to take us up there, and so we did despite how hard it was still raining. It took everything we had, but we made it to the top, and while the view wasn't crystal clear because of the mist clouds that had formed, it was worth the trek up the mountain. We got to Le Chalet du Mont Royal at the top of the mountain and took a bit of a break while we waited for the rain to calm down a bit, and one fascinating thing I noticed was that instead of gargoyles, the Chalet had concrete squirrels on it.

After climbing back down Mont Royal, we made our way to Université de Montréal to visit École Polytechnique de Montréal. Because the rain had gotten significantly worse, we were not able to see all of their campus, but what we saw was pretty great. We first got lost in their medical building because we couldn't properly read any of the signs because of the rain, but then found the way to the Engineering side. We walked through 2 of their Engineering buildings, visited the Association des Étudiants de Polytechnique (AEP), took some pictures around their buildings, and briefly stopped by the memorial for the Polytechnique massacre. 

As we were heading back to DT Montreal, Rachel had pointed out that I had forgotten one of the schools in Montreal that has an engineering program, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM), so we stopped by their campus. The main UQÀM Science building that we went to was LEED certified, and had a very modern aesthetic to it. It had a garden in the middle of it, which was nice to walk through. Even though this school was also in DT Montreal, it was laid out in a way that really resembled a full university campus as opposed to several buildings being dispersed throughout downtown, which I thought was really cool. 

To end off our day, and since Anthony and I didn't know when we'd be back in Montreal, we decided to do the most Montreal thing we could think of... get some quality, authentic poutine from La Banquise. Definitely a great way to end an exhausting, but absolutely amazing day. And hey, we never got lost, so I think that's a plus. Tomorrow we hit the road again, making our way to Quebec City as we make a few stops along the way.

McGill: www.instagram.com/p/BiV9MdqlFPK
Concordia: www.instagram.com/p/BiV-JZIlLtj
Polytechnique: www.instagram.com/p/BiV-tghF3Jo
UQÀM: www.instagram.com/p/BiV_Pw8lLTe