xythian

Wednesday was Canada Day, but there weren't fireworks then. Instead, there were fireworks on Thursday, as part of a summer-long fireworks festival at the local Six Flags. (Six Flags over Canada? Who knows.)

I had to miss the last half-hour of dancing, and I wasn't excited about just trucking off by myself, but there were 4 others who were interested, one of whom had been in the city for a few days and was all genned up on public transport, so off we went. Unfortunately we made a tactical error by choosing to go on the bus rather than walking to the subway, because the bus did not take its expected route, and at some point started driving further away from the river. We saw detour signs and understood why it was doing this, but then we wondered if it was ever going to get back on track, and after it had gone half a mile out of our way, it stopped and announced last stop. So we got off and walked half a mile back towards the river. It also hadn't gone as far down the river as we wanted, so once we got to the river we turned and started walking towards the fireworks. The bus was also extremely slow, so by this time the fireworks had started, and we could occasionally see them peeking around buildings as we walked. Our view improved as we walked, and eventually we just stopped and said "this looks good enough".

We ended about a mile from the fireworks, which is not as spectacular because they don't go as apparently high in the sky as they would if you were closer, and has the odd feature of a several second delay between the visual explosion and its associated bang. The fireworks were not spectacular, but they were pretty good. In particular there were some closer-to-the-ground parts which we could just barely see, and they probably would have been better closer up. But it was an adventure to walk around in parts of Montréal that I otherwise would not have seen, including a bunch of adult theaters (striptease etc.)

We elected to take the subway back, and that was extremely smooth. Surprisingly the train was not enormously crowded with other fireworks watchers (who were abundant on the sidewalk), although had we taken the subway there, we would've used a different line and ended in a different location, and maybe the return would've been worse.

Today's adventure was less interesting: Canada changed its currency some years ago, and we still had some of the old stuff. So I brought it with me and was successfully able to launder the money into modern currency at a nearby bank.

I'm still having some trouble with getting my car charged; it doesn't seem to want to charge above 75%, and it is asymptotically approaching that, by stopping charging sooner, the closer I get to it. The last session only lasted for two minutes and got me 0.2 kWh. Maybe I should go down there and sit in the car and watch it and see if the car gives an error. Nothing was obvious when I got down there an hour later. Likely 75% is fine, since I will be charging on the way home anyway. I might try to find a fast charger somewhat closer than the one I used on the way up.

Passport, check.
Everything appears to fit in suitcase, check.
Charging station list, check.
List of stops to pick up passengers, check.
Directions to hotel, check.

Driving to Montreal tomorrow in the electric car, bringing 3 others, for the International Gay Square Dance Convention!

Slightly sad that I will once again miss fireworks. There's actually fireworks on Thursday (strangely not on Canada Day), but probably hard to get to, like it was in SF last year.

On Wednesday afternoon the local Indivisible group had a "stand up for women's rights" in the center of a neighboring town. There were 25-30 people standing there holding various signs. Somebody was dressed up in handmaids tale garb. We got the usual collection of happy toots and fingers, with happy toots outnumbering the others.

A pedestrian expressed the opposing opinion, specifically to me in response to my sign which said "hands off our bodies", in a vaguely insulting way, which I ignored, as we have the "no engagement" rule. He came back a few minutes later to apologize for having been insulting, and try to explain his opposing view, which wasn't the usual Christian "life begins at conception" one, but rather that the state has been charging people who assault women and end up killing the unborn baby with murder. I said I didn't agree with that precedent, and he said "well at least you're consistent". I don't really know if I actually understood his argument, or if he was convinced to moderate his view. I told him that we were not engaging, but then after he apologized I felt like I had to accept his apology, so we had a little conversation. An organizer came up to make sure that the conversation did not get out of hand, but did not interfere, and the guy went away soon. I think if the conversation had lasted longer, the organizer would have tried to break it off. (I was trying to break it off also.)

I think it would've been better to "stand up for free speech, especially in prairieland", but this one had been scheduled for a month already. I'm not plugged into places where I find out when there's a protest for some immediate newsworthy thing; sometimes I go hunting, but I didn't in this case because I already had planned to go to the women's rights thing.