CanadaMapMay 9–12, 2013 Canada’s not too bad. HalifaxMapNo sooner had I taken a photo of the sprightly pedestrian on the sign.  And one of a payphone.  Than fog began to descend on the city.  And all visibility was lost.  MontrealMapA bus pulls up to the plane. The body of the bus rises on a built-in hydraulic lift, everyone gets on, the lift lowers, the bus drives to the exit gate, the body rises again, everyone gets off.  An old payphone.  A new payphone.  A traffic light.  A street sign.  Montreal gets a lot of snow in the winter, so there are special sticks to help find fire hydrants buried in a snow bank.  This is the first time I encounter a warning about snow falling from the roof in the West.  Dumpsters.  The Canadian post box looks like tourists have defaced it with a bunch of stickers.  Montreal’s main object of note is the parking pole. It displays the parking rules and instructions and has special slots into which blue metal plates with parking space numbers are inserted. They’re very metal and very nice.  The “no stopping” sign uses a crossed-out stop sign symbol.  And the stop signs have an extra plaque underneath showing the location of other stop signs at the intersection (the first car to pull up to the intersection has the right of way).  There’s a gas pipe sticking out of every building, with a pancake-shaped valve that regulates gas pressure (like in Iran).  Many buildings also have other pipes of some kind, protected with a bent sheet of metal. Presumably, this measure saves the pipes from being damaged by sidewalk snow removal machines in the winter.  There are bike rental stations everywhere.  Everyone can leave their mark in Montreal.  |
