The World, Engineered

Highlights from the Canadian Grand Prix 2008, where I was watching live at the track!

The Grand Prix weekend in Montreal was AMAZING. I got to watch the Formula1 race live at the track and it was such a blast. And there was so much more going on downtown as well. I counted 5 major roads around the downtown area that were completely closed and used for events like the Montreal Fashion Show and other Grand Prix related events. St. Laurent, McGill College, Peel, Drummond and Crescent were all closed to road traffic and jam-packed with people this weekend. And the weather also seemed to cooperate as well. Our first 30-degree-celcius day of the year!

I’ll post photos when I finally make the effort to go through the 1000+ photos i took over this weekend.

A terrific video of the Habs’ mascot, Youppi.

And its made all the more authentic and enjoyable by the typical Québécois accent of the narrator.

Panorama of downtown Montreal just before the sun peeked out over the horizon.

Panorama of downtown Montreal as the first rays of sunlight hit the city.

Click on the pictures to view them at larger size.

Montreal has:

• more university students per capita than any city in North America
• 4 major universities (including McGill)
• 60 theatre stages
• 37 movie theatres and over 170 screens
• 32 major museums
• 13 annual international arts and entertainment festivals
• 1 major Grand Prix auto race (Formula1!)
• 4 professional sports teams
• 45 downhill ski runs and 80 golf courses
• over 32 km of underground pedestrian walkways all linked together in downtown Montreal (largest underground city in the world!)
• 65 subway stations spread out over 4 lines