Pictures From Saint Joseph's Oratory

inside the oratory

Outside the oratory

View from the oratory

















Frere Andre's house

My Neighborhood

Cote De Neige, Montreal, is where we're currently living.

Every night, the woman in the apartment above us starts stomping 

around 1am. We like to call her, Stompy :)

One night, a few weeks ago, the temperature dropped really low! 

My sister, Georgia and I were under tons of blankets, shivering!

So my mom calls up the owner of the building, complaining, and 

demanding he turn the heat on. After lots and lots and phone 

calls, he finally turned on the heat. But he turned it on to like 90 

freaking degrees! So we were really hot instead of really cold, 

because that's sooo much better, right Anyway, when Stompy 

isn't paces back and forth way too loudly, someone in an 

apartment below us is smoking way too much pot! You know 

it's legal here to smoke pot? It's legal to smoke it, but you can't 

buy it or sell it. It's like, where do you think they get it from, huh? 

The magic weed fairy?! And get this, not only are the police here

too lazy to arrest people for smoking pot, so that's legal, but 

prostitution is legal here too! Apparently, you can do it all you 

want, but it can't be your only "source of payment"! As long as you 

say you have another job, it's fine! What's up with that, right? 

Seriously, people only become prostitutes because they have no 

other means of getting paid! No college education, and no source

of money! That's why they do it! I swear, I thought the police in 

Vermont were bad, the police here are just plane LAZY.

Here's a description of our neighborhood:

We live across the street from this huge pharmacy, where the 

make up is $70 for a tube of lipstick! Oh, and next to our 

apartment is an "all night massage parlor" that only opens 

around 9pm and I guess it's open all night for creepy old men to 

get a "massage". Ew.

But there are a couple good things in our neighborhood :)

Around the corner from us, is this HUGE and AWESOME 

German pharmacy with an unpronounceable name. (Yah, I'm 

kinda wondering why a German Pharmacy is in the middle of 

montreal too...) The food there is great! And they have these 

cookies with little chocolate school boys on them. Yah, it may be 

wrong to eat little boys, but dude, they taste awesome! :) Also, 

near the German pharmacy is a really fancy bakery. The deserts 

are really good, but way expensive! Have you ever paid 15 

dollars for a slice of pie? I haven't and I'm not about to start either! 

Plus, next to us there's this HUGE church from like 500 years ago! 

It's REALLY beautiful! Oh, did I mention it's HUGE?? Our dogs 

love this park near us, but you have to walk up the biggest 

(but only) mountain in Montreal, which my overly-energetic mom 

calls "a hill" to get there. It's covered by a neighborhood called 

"Place Royal" and trust me, it's even snootier then it sounds! 

The houses there are as big as the freaking white house! No joke! 

And they have these high security systems out side, like they 

actually think they're going to get robbed in a place were absolutely

no one needs money! In fact, everyone there is so filthy rich 'pocket

change' is a hundred dollar bill! Outsiders might try to steal from 

them, if they didn't all have 1 million dollar iron gates outside! I tell 

you, it's unfair that people get to live like that, while I'm gaging from 

the smell of over-powering pot in an apartment that had to get 

fumigated for bed bugs just last week!

Well, I have to work on my math now, so I'll see you next time, bye!

Saint Josephs Oratory

The Oratory of Saint Joseph on Mount-Royal is a very big attraction in Montreal and it all started of with one humble man who was supposed to have healed the weak, Frere Andre. Here is his story. His name at birth was Alfred Bessette, he was born August 9, 1845. He was really weak at birth and his parents baptized him the day after he was born because they were scared he wouldn't survive. He and his family were very poor and in 1849 moved to Farham so hopefully his father could make a better wage as a lumberjack. His mother was widowed at 40 and had to take care of ten kids because his father was killed by a falling tree,Alfred was only 9. Alfred's mother died of tuberculosis three years after his father died. The family was separated and Alfred, only 12 had to face life as it really is, cruel. Alfred traveled from job to job, but because he was so frail he often got replaced. After a while he followed the rush of French-Canadians to America and worked for 4 years in a textile mill. In 1867 he came back to Canada. He wanted to be a Novitiate of the Congregation of Holy Cross in Montreal but they questioned him because of his poor health. Eventually they made him Brother Andrew (or Frere Andre) and gave him a responsibility at Notre-Dame College. He worked at Notre-Dame college for 40 years as the doorman, and eventually he became very weak, he prayed to st Joseph during that time and people started coming to him when they were injured or weak. It started in his small office and the tram station across the street but eventually he built a shrine for Saint Joseph. The shrine became to small and he and his friends built something a little bigger. when that became to small others started helping, but when they needed to raise money and couldn't they came to Frere Andre. Frere said to put a statue of Saint Joseph in the middle and if he wanted a roof he would raise the money, a month later the money was raised. Now Saint Josephs oratory is one of the biggest and Frere Andre is buried in the middle. The church has a wonderful story and a wonderful view over the city, if you're ever in Montreal you should visit it.

i got this information from
http://www.saint-joseph.org/
By Georgia Cowan-Essig

Blogging outside the box

This blog is by Willa Cowan-Essig and Georgia Cowan-Essig. It is about their year of living elsewhere and thinking outside the box (school, that is). Living in Montreal and London, and who knows where else, Willa and Georgia are following their passions, figuring out how the world around them works, and trying to learn French.

If you are interested in finding out more about what they're discovering, thinking about, reading, or seeing, check the blog for weekly updates, photos, essays, and even fiction.