We successful traverse the streets of Montréal and return the rental car. We ride Montréal’s subway, Métro for the first time. We journey to the Beaudry station and emerge in The Village, Montréal’s gay neighborhood. We know the secret handshake and are quickly ushered in. I’d tell you more, but it is top secret. (I’m kidding. There is no secret handshake. Anyone, even the most flamboyant breeder can enter The Village.) It’s mostly a commercial string of bars, restaurants and enterprises of ill-repute on Rue-Ste.-Cathérine Est (East St. Cathy’s Street) surrounded by some pretty swanky apartments/condos on the side streets. (Come on people, it’s the gay neighborhood, of course there are bars and restaurants and enterprises of ill-repute and swanky domiciles. I’m being semi-redundant here.)
Incongruously, there are two large Catholic churches in the neighborhood. As soon as I saw the second church, Église St.-Pierre-Apôtre (Church of St. Peter, the Apostle), I turned to Richard and said, “How many Catholic churches does a gay neighborhood need? I think this is overkill!”
He, of course, explains to me the storied history of the neighborhood as a working class, Catholic community that blah, blah, blah. And yadda, yadda, yadda.
We entered the Église St.-Pierre-Apôtre. Please, I have to ask that you all promise not to get on the horn immediately and contact the pope, but there was a very thinly disguised rainbow flag above the altar. This is not your mother’s Catholic church.
Rue-Ste.-Cathérine Est. Our neighborhood’s more festive than your neighborhood! Na-na-na!
Even the subway station has the colors!
I couldn’t read it in real life, and in pictures it just makes me dizzy.
The Université du Québec à Montréal replaced a church. I loved the way they saved the entry.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment