Some pictures from Basilique Notre-Dame de Montreal

On our last trip to Montreal, Gabby and I stopped by the Notre Dame basilica in the Ville-Maria section of Montreal (the old part of the city).  We need to go back with our good camera to take some better pictures.  Almost every square inch of the place was covered with some sort of artwork.

Becasue of where the sun was at the time, I could not get good pictures of the stained glass windows on the ceiling, but here is one of the windows on the wall.

One of the countless murals.

Two wooden statues at the base of a spiral staircase.

This is the chapel.  The original chapel burned down some time ago, so this part of the church is fairly new.  There was this huge, carved wooden panel behind the altar.

A few more pictures of our new place

Our house is the white one behind the telephone pole.

A closer view of the splash park.

Here's the play ground from smaller kids.

And the playground for bigger kids.

Looking down our street.

A closer picture of the house.  The middle and lower levels are ours.

Here is our back porch.  It's big enough fir the BBQ pit and a small table.

There's the back door leading in to our lower kitchen.

Here are the back yards of the neighbors.  Basically every yard has tomato plants.  I think the neighborhood is mostly Italian.

As long as Maggie doesn't start shooting dice with Guido and Joey on the street corner, I think we'll be OK.  We did find out, however, that the closest church (St. Raymond) only has mass in French and Italian, so we will have to find another parish.

A few pictures of our new place in Montreal

We have spent the past couple of days looking for a place to live in Montreal.  We have opted for a more urban setting, where we can take full advantage of all the public transportation and convenience that the city has to offer.  We will be living in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace/Cote-des-Neiges burrough (often abbreviated NDG-CDN).  We are in the NDG part (our address will be 1058 Oxford, Montreal, QC, H4A 2X4).

NDG is a very family friendly neighborhood, composed mostly of young professionals with children.  The neighborhood is on the western flank of Mount Royal in the center of the island and is about 15 minutes from downtown by car with no traffic (30 min by subway even during rush hour). It is one of the most anglophone areas of Montreal, but is still very french.  There are many parks, schools, day cares, and people walking around with children.  It has become one of the most desirable areas of the city, but is still very affordable.

The apartment itself is a great deal.  We have the ground floor with a full basement - almost twice the house of many of the places we saw.  There will plenty of storage space for all of our stuff and then some.  Here is the upstairs kitchen.  Nice and spacious with plenty of counter space.  What you can't see to the right is the dining area which is big enough for our table.  The owner also sold us all of her appliances (fridge, stove, dishwasher, washer and drier) for $800.  She also has an additional fridge and stand up freezer downstairs if we want it.

The upstairs has three nice size bedrooms.  I didn't take a picture of the master bedroom, but here is the second largest one.

Here is the upstairs living room than we will probably keep as a play room for the kids.  It's about the size as the playroom they have now (maybe a little bigger).  We will not be keeping the couch that's in the picture.

Here is the third upstairs bedroom.  It is long and narrow.  The owner is going to leave the bed for us as well as some other furniture.  This will probably be a guest bedroom/office for the time being.

Here is the stair case leading to the basement.  (I put this here for Maggie, because she will be really excited about the stairs).

Here is the huge downstairs living room where we will put tv and couches.

Here is the downstairs kitchen.  This is where we'll put our chest freezer.  Owner said we are free to use the fridge and freezer if we need them.  Also downstairs is a laundry room and a LOT of storage.  There will plenty of space four all the camping/bikes/garage stuff.

All in all, this place is much bigger than all of the other places we looked at.  In addition, the apartment is right across the street from a big park with two play grounds and a splash park for the summer time.

The owner told us that in the winter, they somehow create a little ice-skating rink (they must flood a portion of the soccer field or something).  Also, the school that Maggie will probably end up attending is right across the street.  Here is a picture of the school from our front porch.

Here is a picture of the duplex from the outside.  We are all the way on the left.  We also have a parking spot (which is tough to find in Montreal) and a cover for the winter that can be disassembled in the summer (referred to as a temp).

Finally, the place is located very conveniently.  We are bordered by a rail road track on one end and by a river on the other end.  This really reduces the through traffic quite a bit, so parking is not as bad.  It is about a 5-10 min walk to the subway, which will get me to my building on the McGill campus in about 20 min.  We are two blocks from a catholic church, a 5 min walk to doctors/hospital and almost all shopping needs.  However, if you take Rue Saint-Jacques on the south side of our neighborhood to the west, you quickly get to more "suburban-like" shopping areas with parking lots.

There is a chance that the place could be sold to a different owner, in which case we may have to move again, but it is also very likely that any new owner would continue renting to us.  Even with this uncertainty, it was too good of a deal to pass up.  We'll post some more (better) pictures at a later time.