#5 Visiting Saint Joseph's Oratory, Montreal

Transcript

So there was an army of people that descended on my Airbnb yesterday to do a super duper-cleaning job, which I can't complain. The place is actually super-spick and span. I don't have that many bad Airbnb experiences, but this one is super clean. So that's nice. But I just pieced together today that the reason they were all there is because the couple who were the there who woke up and had the crack at dawn every morning and played music and had a freaking house party while they were making breakfast every morning. They checked out. So rather than just the person who has been stopping by each day to do a quick little cleanup job, a bunch of people came in to do the whole room. Bigity bam. And I realized even though it's only been one day, just, man, it's so much nice. So without those people and how it's just me and the room next to me is some other weird dude, probably much like me. And the place is dead quiet. It's like a freaking cemetery. It's the best. And yeah, when I first showed up, I was like, ah, you know, sure, whatever. That's what these people do. It's just their routine. They get up in the morning and they get all jazzed up for their day by clattering around and having a parade. It's just like, hey, whatever. You know, I don't know. I guess it's energy and stuff. It's fine. Plus, you know, I haven't traveled in four years and my options were extremely limited because of the price of everything in Montreal right now. So it's just like, that's fine. That's cool. My hand dude. Do you do your thing? But upon further consideration, now that they're gone, this is so much better. I mean, still, I don't think it's good to let yourself be bothered by other people when you're in like a shared accommodation. Just go with it. Just let it happen. Whatever. Certainly don't confront people about dumb crap that doesn't matter.

But my official stance for the record is definitely if you're in in a little communal thing, even if you aren't, I guess, like even if you're air being being a whole place to yourself. I mean, like at this place I met now, I can hear everybody who lives next door, you know, the walls are, walls are paper thin. I've got a couple of apartments to myself coming up in Japan, but in a lot of cases it's like an upstairs and a downstairs.

So if I make a bunch of noise, the people in the other part of the building are gonna hear me. Definitely the best way to proceed in any of these places is to just be quiet, man. Just be quiet. It doesn't matter if the little, you know, quiet time hours, you know, maybe on the Airbnb listing it says. Please observe quiet time from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. or whatever. Maybe it's 7.05 now. It doesn't matter. You could make your breakfast without blaring music. You could make your breakfast without fucking literally yelling at each other across the property.

Don't just act like you live there. You fucking idiots. Come on. Just be quiet. Be a little church mouse. Be a considerate little church mouse. And everyone. I was gonna say everyone will be happier, but I guess you probably won't. If you're a whirling dervish, man, I remember the apartment I had in Vancouver where I finally just kind of abandoned the apartment life and just started being an Airbnb guy because there was just no value to having an apartment. It wasn't that much cheaper. It certainly wasn't nice. It didn't gain me any credit with my bank. It was like, why? Why am I doing this?

There was a roommate there who he really seemed like an ogre or like one of those super mutants and fallout. You know someone who's been irradiated and warped. They're still a person. They can still communicate. They clearly have intelligence, but they're just always loud and to brutish and noisy. And this fucking guy, he was always on Xbox Live yelling at people while he played games. And I got the distinct impression just with the intensity that he was yelling, not just because he was like really getting into it or in a stressful position. 5:00 He just did it all the time. And I got the sense that it's like, does he think he needs to yell because those people are far away?

You know, if he's playing fucking Xbox against somebody in Santa... Jesus. The bird scared the shit out of me. If he's playing Xbox against somebody in San Antonio, does he think like, well, I mean, I'm in Canada. He's far away. I must have to yell. Even though the microphone is right next to his mouth and their headphones are right next to their ears. You don't have to yell, buddy. So yeah, with the dueling examples, back to back. Man, quiet is so much better. Quiet is the best.

Oh, I should mention, though. You know, so I'm not just complaining about... I don't know, what is this? This is like, I'm complaining about a situation that got better, I guess.

But anyway, to legitimately not complain, I was like sure I was going to get sick because before I left my hometown, my mom was like really sick. Man, she was sick. And then there was this kid on the airplane who wouldn't stop coughing. And he coughed all over me and it's like, man, there's just... I mean, I've gotten sick by way less than this.

So I was just figuring like, all right, 12 days in Montreal. You know, maybe that'll be enough time to shake it. That was kind of my best hope. Maybe I can just make it these 12 days and be mostly not sick again by the time I have to take my epic journey to Japan. But I just... I feel fine. I don't think I'm sick. It's like, how? How did that happen? You know, it's hard to appreciate sometimes the good role of the dice because you just kind of don't notice. You just sort of forget. But I'm noticing this one. My 34-hour trip to Japan is going to be wacky at the best of times. But it'd be so much worse if I was sick. So much worse.

And I seem to be all good. Still time to get sick before then. So I guess we'll see. But for now, everything is a-okay. It's this like beautiful fall day. The trees are about, I don't know, I'm going to say 60% changing color. There's still a fair amount of green.

But I had to take my jacket off because it's kind of warm. And it's like, this is literally the best time of year. This is the most perfect weather possible.

What a good day.

But when I woke up, my mind was kind of preoccupied, I guess. Just like, hey, let's just complain about my neighbors and stuff.

But once you get moving, get up, get walking, get your circulation going, and it makes the day so much better.

I guess also, I mean, it's still, I can see in the distance some ominous gray clouds. But this is the sunniest day since I've been here. It's been pretty overcast.

That should be interesting in Japan too, because the one time I visited before was the dead of summer. Actually, maybe not quite the dead of summer. I think I left in July. So I think maybe late July, August, September are like even worse when you hear people talk about the heat and the humidity in Japan. When I was there was still plenty hot, though, where, you know, a lot of places didn't have air conditioning. Actually, I don't think I stayed anywhere at the head air conditioning. So I'd be up at like three in the morning sometimes, because it's just like, ooh, too hot, too hot to sleep. But none of that seemed bad, because it was just so exciting. It's just like, fuck yeah. It was part of the awesomeness of Japan was just, just it being sunny and bright.

It's going to be interesting this time. I wonder what it's going to be like. I did think while I was there that it's like, every time I'd go to a vending machine and they would have the row where there would be hot drinks, but none of them would be available, because it's summer. And I was thinking like, man, I want to come back here in the winter sometime. So I want to get these hot drinks, and I'm so excited about that. I think it's going to be cool. And as I get older, I used to like summer when I was a kid, but nowadays I don't like the heat as much. I like the winter.

Like I definitely want to get back to my hometown in the middle of winter on purpose. I like when it's like minus 25 degrees out. You know, I like it when it's just, you're in a snow globe. Everything's covered in whiteness. It's fucking awesome. But since I'll just be in Tokyo and Fukuoka, Japan will not be like that. But maybe one of these days, if I keep making trips to Japan, maybe I'll make it up north, because just from watching YouTube videos and stuff, I think Japan, it's one of the highest snowfall areas in the world. It might actually be the highest. It's crazy. I mean, the tip of Japan is right next to Russia.

And domestic flights are so easy to get, and so cheap in Japan. Maybe I should have even done that this time. I'm just going to Tokyo and Fukuoka because that's where I've been before, and I know how they work. I didn't want to branch out any further on this trip. But now that I think of it, I mean, I could. Especially by the end of my trip, I've just got like an Airbnb for like 15 days in Yokohama, because it's near Haneda Airport, and I was looking at my listing, and it's like, well, it's too late now. I mean, I said it all this up. But 15 days is way too much. What am I going to do in Yokohama? I mean, I don't know. I've never been there, but I get the sense I'll probably be traveling out of it a lot. A few days there would have been plenty, just to be near the airport. And I mean, I literally could have just hopped on a plane, gone up north in January. See what that's like, and then if it's horrifying, get the hell out of there.

I guess, though, the thing that makes me enjoy winter in my hometown is that I've got giant boots and an enormous coat. You know, like cold weather is not good unless you're ready for it, and I guess I wouldn't be ready for it. I don't have any of that stuff. So, I guess, yeah, no, it would be a bad idea to go up north in Japan, even if it was only for a week.

If I don't have a big coat, I should really plan for it. I should have the big coat, and then just go up for like a month and just soak it in.

Next time, maybe.

Alright, let's do what's traditionally always a great idea. Let's record a podcast while I'm walking up a hill. I should try to walk slower. I walk really quickly, partially because I'm a long, like, gangly fellow. But a lot of it is that I'm just not being mindful. I'm just kind of pushing myself a little too hard for no particular reason.

But I have to keep reminding myself, like, I mean walking meditation is the thing where you just focus on yourself walking rather than the traditional sitting meditation. And it is kind of like that. Like, I have to pay attention to walk slow, even now. It's like I'm walking up a hill that's getting progressively steeper. I don't know, just walk slow, not in the hurry.

But it's tough. I just want to push myself for no good reason.

So it's a couple days later, and I'm on my way to the St. Joseph's Oratory that I keep talking about, which Montreal is full of big, gorgeous churches.

But this is the biggest of them all. The one that's up on the hill that I saw from the airport that caused me to walk from the airport. And generally, when I visit places, I don't really do a lot of touristy stuff. I kind of tried that when I lived in New York. I was like, you know, I guess if I'm here, I guess I should see these famous things, right?

So I just looked up generic top 10 list, New York sightseeing, and I went and saw some of them, and just none of it stuck in my mind. I've just seen stuff that I've seen before on TV or in pictures, or just seen the same stuff everyone else is seeing. My mind's just not wired that way. It's like, I don't care about this. This is a far more severe example. But I don't understand why people want to climb Everest. There's literal lineups to get up Everest. There's traffic jams.

Everest is not special anymore, you know? I mean, physically, yeah. Sure, technically, it's the tallest mountain.

But when you've reached the point that not only have hundreds of people done it, thousands of people have done it. Hundreds of people have died trying to do it. 15:00 I don't know. It's just I don't get just the very idea that you could climb Everest and not be by yourself, blows my mind.

That should be some rarefied air, but human beings we've just gone everywhere. There's a lineup. Fuck that.

Oh, and this is the back side of Mount Royal. I'm going up to get to this church. I'm walking up Lansdown Street. So it's less steep than the front, but it's still pretty fucking steep. This is a nice neighborhood though. But yeah, this church is one of the few big, famous landmarks that I do like that I try to go see. But I found it on my own. You know, I found it by accident. So it still feels like one of those little places that I just found on my own, even though it is enormous and famous. But yeah, I just thought I'd talk about Montreal a bit on my way up this hill. So a bunch of my family on my dad's side is from Quebec. My grandmother used to live here. So we come visit her occasionally when I was a kid. So I've got little memories of like, here's what my grandma's apartment was like and here's what the park near there was like. But I don't actually know where that even was. Somewhere in East Montreal, I think. You know, since I was just there with my parents and had no autonomy or whatever, I didn't have any sense of where anything was or anything in relation to anything. It's all just little random moments. The first time I came to Montreal by myself or almost by myself was me and my friend Sean and his girlfriend whose name I don't remember. But we came in 2003 to watch pro wrestling. So by 2003, they sort of late 90s year 2000 wrestling boom. It was over. Most of my friends had stopped watching wrestling. But we were still watching wrestling and a paper view was coming to the bell center. So we got like a cheap hotel somewhere and went to this paper view and it's weird because I won't bog this podcast down with wrestling talk. But it's just weird to look back at that. It shows like that wrestling fans. We really do have like very bad taste because that paper view had like Stone Cold Steve Austin was on it before he retired. The big one was the rock versus Hulk Hogan. It was one of the most famous matches in wrestling history. This was their rematch. The second time they fought. And I just like don't remember those. You know, I had to go back and look at the DVD cover for that paper view and be like, oh yeah, I guess I did see that stuff. What I remember is Triple H versus Scott Steiner too. Who are these two guys that at the time were both way too big. Let's just put it that way. Way bigger than human beings should probably be. And they'd already had one of the all-time terrible main event matches. So this was part two. And it was partially just the comedy factor. Like, oh man, that match is gonna suck. But also it's like, oh but I hope they pull it off. It'd be great if they pulled it off. But they didn't suck. It's terrible. But that's what I remember the most from the show. But that visit was only a couple of days. We didn't hang around too long. But I do remember it was the middle of winter. And this was like my first taste of what a big city was like by myself. Because I'd been a Montreal with the family. Passed through New York once for an afternoon when I was a kid. We went to Florida a couple times. But being on my own. I walked down St. Catherine Street and I went in some restaurant and got some you know some noodle soup dish that was probably the most basic thing in the world. But that just didn't exist in my hometown. And it was so cool. So I wouldn't say that that directly inspired me to move away a couple of years after that. But it certainly didn't hurt. Me and my friend Matt were gonna move to Ottawa. And then that fell through. So then I finally just moved to Vancouver on my own. And just kind of started traveling after that. So yeah Montreal. My first little city experience was very good. But then I didn't 20:00 really come back to Montreal for quite a few years. By this point my grandmother was still alive. She lived to be a hundred and one. But she was living in gas bay. Which uh me and my dad went out to visit her. And I had longer hair at the time. Which was never a great look on me. But I don't know. I guess a lot of skinny white nerds go through their long hair phase. But I remember I was in gas bay at their one Tim Hortons. And this guy held the door open as I went in. He said Prévou Madame. And I was like you French fuck. Oh my direct route is blocked. Man it really is really handy to have the map. So it looks like if I turn left that's my best way to get to St. Joseph's oratory. But there's something here if I go to the right called summit woods. And I'm halfway through a large coffee. So I'm going to go to the summit woods. See if there's somewhere I can just go pee in a bush. I assume the oratory is open and there's a washroom in there. But just in case. This is definitely part of just wandering around cities is just having a mental idea of where all the washrooms are. It's just handy to have. And in a pinch random woods can do the trick. But yeah like I remember I mental map of New York was basically entirely based on washrooms.

It was like a spider web connected by where I could pee. It was especially important then because I went to a lot of bars where I lived in New York. I did a lot of drinking because that's the people I was hanging out with at the time. That was their little culture. And New York is certainly not a place where if you're just walking around Manhattan that you're going to just find some woods to pee. And that's not likely you got to you got to know where the washrooms are. But yeah I mean jeez my mental map. So at a date it was like the 2008-2009 map. I don't think I think the last time I went 2012 or 2013. So it's been 10 years. I'm sure my washer map now is not good enough. But yeah having this having this map on the phone sure is handy because again because of how this this place is situated since it's way up on the back of the mountain that the town's named after. You can see it from all over the place. Oh what do we have here? So there's a crosswalk here and there's a mysterious set of steps between these two beautiful properties. It's two big gorgeous houses. But it's definitely a public path. I got to assume it's going up. And the summit of Mount Royal is the main adventure end here. Oh yeah look at these steps. This is going to be death but this is sweet.

But jeez walking down Mount Boulevard and there's like a little canal there. And you can see St. Joseph's and it doesn't look that far. But I did a little walk down that way the other day. And I got quite lost in the industrial tangle. It's already new to be suspicious of it. But today I check the map. And it's like yeah man there's a train yard. There's industrial stuff. There's fences everywhere.

There's a big overpass highway. Trying to orient here visually. It's like that would have been so shit if I tried to cut through there. It would have been awful. Man this is actually pretty beautiful. There's a bunch of people just sort of power walking their way up through this thing. But the buildings on the side you know everything's on this curve and they've got their own little side steps going up into their houses. It looks like it's like Italian villas or something all of a sudden. I was thinking of taking a picture but I've noticed that. I've started taking pictures for my Instagram which is novel pod. And there's a lot of stuff that looks really cool in person. It just doesn't come across in a picture. This is one of them. Picture doesn't look right. Yeah I figured out through the power of having Google Maps. But I just had to hang a right a little bit. Go to the right. Take a 20-minute detour and then I was able 25:00 to walk pretty much straight here without too many problems at all. It's happened. I've become a map guy. Maybe that'll make Tokyo a little different from just wandering randomly. Although I guess even in Japan I mean I still would stop in at the 7-Elevens and stuff and check maps once in a while.

For whatever reason you couldn't download an offline map of Japan in 2019.

And now you can. Anyway the reason I came back to Montreal is my friend Matt who I was supposed to move to Ottawa with back in the day. He was here taking a language course because half of his family is French much as mine is. But he never learned the language which is very understandable because nobody in my family actively speaks French. If I didn't go to French school I wouldn't know any French. So that's what happened with him. So he was trying to squeeze it in but it was it was too late. He's too old. It's so much easier to learn these things when you're young. But he had this like dorm they sat him up in with a bunch of other people that were trying to learn French. So I hung out there for like a week in his dorm and then the girl I dated in New York she came to visit. So for the next week after that I got man it was the worst hotel. It was like a two star hotel. But that must have been 2009 or 2010. No 2010 I moved to Toronto. So that was 2009. So that was my first time in the modern era hanging out there and really having enough time to soak it in. And after that Matt moved to Montreal for a couple of years and I would just go visit him once in a while and just start building up the mental map and starting to figure out how the city worked. And just realizing how great it was that I could finally use that French because I just never get the opportunity. It's kind of all or nothing with French. My French wasn't good enough to pass the final exam at the end of high school to be considered officially bilingual. So you know I couldn't get like a government job in New Brunswick where you have to speak French. And casually I just didn't have any friends who spoke French. So that's just fun. It's just fun here. And I just did it today at the Tim Hortons when I got this coffee. I always open with English. I want to set the table. Hey can I get off but then I'll order in French. I just want to make it clear from the get-go that I'm an Anglophone. So then if I switch back to English because I have to bail out because I can't remember any words, it doesn't seem weird. But it felt kind of good just being in the environment of French radio, French TV, French street signs, French people. You know just all of that dormant French knowledge that I never get to use. Like I don't know how comfortable it is to live here if you don't know any French. Certainly doable. Everyone speaks English. But all the signs are in French. Every single one of them.

I don't even know what that was. Whatever that big engine was it just turned off.

There's no fucking clue. That's weird. I made it to the top of the stairs. Almost at the summit woods. Let's go see what this is all about. But yeah there's just a tone and just a feeling to French culture that just really brought me back to be in a kid. Oh there's the roof. The roof of the oratory to my left. I'm walking like kind of past it. It's fine though let's keep going explore these woods. Yeah and I mean I spent my whole use in 100% full immersion French school. Half my family's French so I feel I feel like it's okay for me to make generalizations about French culture that are mildly potentially offensive. Offensive to one gender and not the other because French women I just really like. There's just this very cool attitude to French women. I just really feel like I maybe again because all my teachers were French women growing up I don't know. These woods are kind of nice. I think it's just like a little loop. Let's just walk around the loop. But yeah I just feel like I vibe with French women. It's just comfortable. When a French lady gets gets all dressed up in the morning and goes 30:00 out she wants you to notice and that's just it's a wild feeling because it's not like that outside of Quebec. The vibe outside is much more like you're not supposed to notice. Don't look at me. It's like all right sorry. I don't know. Let's not get into all that I guess. But it doesn't feel that way in Quebec. When somebody's hot they know they're hot and they like when people acknowledge that they're hot. It's nice. Whereas on the other side French men are so not masculine.

In this weird way that is hard to describe because I'm not exactly Mr.

Super muscle guy myself. Mr. Take Charge man guy that's certainly not me. But there's a different feeling with not just like your average French guy walking down the street. But everyone like in media anyone on the news anyone on a billboard anyone on a magazine cover there's just something off about them. I know like I said I didn't have any male teachers but I was a kid. All my experience with French culture was through women. So maybe there's just something there that I'm just not getting. You know I mean I don't mind it. It's fine. But it's just so pervasive. It's everywhere. Just if you're ever in Quebec just just look at a billboard. Look at a magazine cover. Look at a movie trailer. Look at the nightly news. Look at anything. And it's just these guys that are like like this just there's a weird softness that I find strange. These are these woods are pretty nice. I've never been in here before. They're bigger than I thought they were.

But, you know, again, I guess even to take my offensive stereotypes and just bring them back home, bring them back to a home base to my family. My dad is the one from the French side of the family grew up in rural Quebec. And man, he did not wear the pants in our house. My mom's not French, but my dad sure. Now that I think about it, he demonstrated all of these qualities.

I'm not in charge and did not seem to want to be. So again, broad generalization, probably unfair. But I notice it every time. I notice both those things every time I come here. There's like an exciting electricity to the women of the city. And there's a weird dope-iness through the men.

So yeah, I would come visit Matt when he lived here. He lived up by Coteville too. So I got to know that neighborhood. And then he moved to Toronto. He moved in with me in Toronto.

And then that apartment dissolved and I moved away from Toronto. So after that, that's when I started coming to Montreal just purely by myself with nobody that I knew here.

And that's when I really felt like I got to know the city. Just again, back then, Airbnb's were a lot cheaper. Just getting Airbnb for like two or three months. Or break it up with little train rides into Toronto to see my friends and then come back to Montreal. Montreal was like my little home base. It just felt good. I also like Vancouver a lot, but Montreal is a lot closer. It's very close to Toronto. It's pretty close to my hometown. It's really convenient and it's just neat. It is just a very unique city. The Frenchness alone is awesome. It's kind of a grimy city though. It's weird, but it's true. I mean, these woods right now, these are gorgeous. That neighborhood I was just in. It was gorgeous. So I mean, it depends neighborhood to neighborhood. But by and large, there's just something about Montreal that's got like, you know, there's just a lot of random garbage on the streets. There doesn't seem to be any kind of a street cleaning program. You know, if you're waiting for the street cleaner to come, you got a long way to head here. He's not coming. There's graffiti everywhere, which is kind of cool. But the whole place is just kind of grimy in a way that it feels like it needs to rain. Like wash this place off, except raining doesn't help. But these are not criticisms. I like it. It feels kind of cool, which is kind of hypocritical of me because one of the things I didn't like about New York was how dirty it was, and I go way out of my way to not litter. I hate just random littering. It's just like, what is wrong with you? Can't you just pick up your garbage?

But in Montreal, it's so kind of pervasive. It's just the culture, just how it is around here, that everything is just kind of grimy.

That it feels kind of cool. It feels like, have you ever seen like those like street punks, gutter punks? You know, these punk kids that have like denim jackets with studs on them and band patches and a dog. And it's like performative homeless in a way. It's not like homeless because my life fell apart. It's homeless because it's cool to be homeless, you know? It's like, okay, maybe circumstances led me to be homeless possibly. But I'm not exactly fighting to get out of it because my identity is to be a cool homeless punk kid. That's how Montreal feels. If those people were a city, they'd be Montreal.

So yeah, between the grimyness and the Frenchness, your results may vary. I don't know. It's hard to just say like, oh yeah, you should go to Montreal, you'll love it. But I very much love it. It's a really good city.

I believe I met the back door of the oratory or near it because I remember I went in there once.

And I realized there was a side exit where you could sneak out the back and it took me to this little neighborhood and I think that's the neighborhood I'm in right now. But I'm going to loop back around through these woods going the front way. I guess now at this point too.

Now that I'm nearby a washroom, I can guzzle down this coffee. Don't worry, I did not defile the woods. Again, that's just one of those emergency things. I tucked away in my brain in case I'm ever in this neighborhood and it's like everything's closed and I just need to pee.

It's like, oh, okay, there's this. Add it to the mental map. Ding, add a pin.

Man, coffee's so good. You can expect when I get to Japan. There'll be a lot of just getting coffee out of the little machines.

I'm definitely a caffeine addict, but oh man, it's so good because I always have a hard time sleeping. I'm not a good sleeper. And I know, first thing everyone says is like, well, why don't you just stop drinking coffee, but it's like, trust me, I tried. I tried quitting caffeine before.

Ironically, while I worked at a coffee shop, it just wasn't worth it. My sleep problems were not noticeably ameliorated without caffeine and just having caffeine makes the day so much better.

But yeah, one of the times I was visiting Matt when he lived here, I borrowed his bicycle and I was bicycling around. Not a bad city for cycling. Montreal, like I do not recommend it in Toronto at all. It's a fucking nightmare. It's terrifying. New York is weirdly not that bad because there's so much traffic that it gums itself up. So cycling there was still a bit of a weird feeling, kind of an overwhelming place, but not as bad as I thought it would be.

But Montreal is nice because the same way I was saying how it's nice to be a pedestrian here. For the same reasons, it's nice to be a cyclist because the traffic tends to be nice and calm.

But I was cycling from Matt's place in Coteville, too, and I cycled past this place. I'd never been on the west side of Montreal, so I had not seen this place from all the different vintage points you can see it over there. And yeah, I just stopped and I was like, Jesus, what the fuck is this place? I took a picture. When I got back, I asked him, like, do you know what this place is? And he didn't know.

So I looked it up later, and as far as hard facts go, I'm afraid you'll have to do that on your own because I don't recall. I don't know what denomination this church is. I don't know when it got built. I don't know any of the details. I read them all at one point, but it's like, I don't know whatever. But religion's just a wash to me. I went to Catholic Church as a kid, but it did not sink in. So I kind of like religious stuff, just because it's neat. I like how big this place is. Once you go in there, and there's all the cool candles and stuff.

And there's like an underground rock, weird crypt thing. And just the organs in the big giant room and the pomp and circumstance of it all is really cool. But the religion side, don't mean nothing to me.

But that first time all I did was take the picture and ask him what it was. It wasn't until later on when he had moved away when I came here on my own.

That I think again, I think I just stumbled across it by accident. I don't think I went out of my way to come here.

But then I was like, what is this place? I should go, and that's what I find out. You can just go inside and just check it out.

Yeah, I'm going to figure out how to get out of these woods. And we'll reconvene at the actual place.

All right, I'm inside. I have to talk extra quietly because I'm talking in church. No one's playing the organ today, which is too bad because it gives it an extra eerie vibe. I don't know how that works if you have to pay for like a deluxe package or something to go play the organ because it never seems to be real organ players. It's always people playing the creepiest, weirdest music. Yeah, this place, I mean, it's just a great big giant church. It's just red. It just feels cool. I don't know what I mean. I think I'm Catholic or I grew up Catholic. I don't know if this is a Catholic church, but it certainly feels the same as my church when I was a kid except fucking enormous. And it's weird to see the occasional person doing actual religious praying stuff here because it's mainly tourists. You can just tell these are tour buses that stopped in here. And there's a gift shop downstairs and stuff. I'm kind of going in backwards. Normally you'd start at the bottom and move your way up. But since I started at the top, I'm going to move my way down.

But I couldn't find my little secret back passageway that I used before to sneak out the side here and go up into that neighborhood. Trying to come in. I could see the dome of the church right there, but it was like just gated off and I couldn't figure out how to get back in. The whole thing did seem kind of weird in general because you're supposed to come in the front and go through the fufur. You know, see the majesty and go through the gift shop. You're not supposed to just sneak in the back way. So I'm not sure if you can still do that or what, but I couldn't figure it out. But I figured that might be good anyway to circle around and come in more or less the right way. But they're doing construction outside and that's weird too because there's a bunch of steps leading up to this place. And I don't like having this microphone crammed right in my face because you can hear, I don't think of all that coffee I drank. You can hear my mouth.

Sorry. I'll try to keep this brief because this is going to, yeah, too many gross mouth noises when the mic is this close to my mouth. But I saw these people because there's all these steps leading up to this church. There would be these people who were on their knees and were slowly climbing the steps on their knees. And I looked that up and it's like, you know, one of these religious observances that's like, you know, just, you know, to flagulate yourself. Yet another thing that makes me feel like this might be Catholic. And in a way, I mean, I have a certain, I mean, in some ways just even exercise is kind of like that, right? I mean, meditation and yoga are the very easy ways of that. You know, you want to put pressure on yourself to help clear your head. But to climb up like a hundred steps or something on your knees and just the pain deliberately putting yourself through that kind of torture is weird stuff. That's such a religious thing to do. And it just seemed to weird for people to be doing the religious stuff here because this place is just such a tourist trap. It's not a real church anymore, you know. I'm sure they have services and stuff, but that's not the point. It seemed a little weird to me. Again, kind of, I mean, I don't know, maybe all religious stuff is performative, but performative religion. Like, why would you come do your stuff here? You know, go do an obscure church, do it for yourself. Don't do it in front of everybody, but maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe the point is to show everyone, look, look at what I'm doing, look at me, flagulate myself.

However, I thought I'd come in the front way and get the nice classic picture of the oratory, but I ended up not taking the picture because they were doing tons of renovations. Which just, again, of course, it's a big financial concern, obviously. It's a big tourist trap, but it just seems weird for them to be putting in a new parking lot and fixing up the stairs. Because they had special stairs before, like they had stairs put aside for if you were doing this religious stuff, so you wouldn't get in people's way or people wouldn't trample you. 45:00 I'm not sure if those are still there because they're all new now, so that seems extra weird. I wonder if people are still going to do the going up the stairs on your knees. In the brand new renovated steps, like it really seems weird now. It just really would feel like this is not whatever connection this has to ancient old school religious ways is certainly gone now. They've renovated the whole place, but I don't know, I guess we'll see. So I didn't take the picture because it doesn't look very cool while everything's being renovated, and there was a construction everywhere. But I did take pictures from the top because the view from up here is super awesome. But yeah, I think I'll cut this short here because there's really nothing to say. This place is just cool. I just like hanging out here.

I used to just come here for no particular reason. I do some writing. In fact, that's what I'll do. I usually write on my smartphone. That's just in my pocket. You know, just be extra sacrilegious. I've done my podcasting from in the church. Now I'll do a little bit of writing. But yeah, as you go downstairs, there's a smaller church, like a kind of normal-sized church. So there's a church inside the church, so you can church while you church. And then there's this part that is like a tomb with all these rocks. And it's all moist and weird and watery. And there's candles, which again, I just know nothing about. I went to church every week, but I don't know why you like the candles. I don't know what it's all about. I don't know what the point is. I remember like, we'd have to do confession. And I would just be struggling. What do I confess? I just think we remember confessing that I walked in front of the TV while my mom was trying to watch it, which I don't even think I did. I was just trying to think of something. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what you fucking people want from me. Fucking church.

Church as, you know, a religious thing and fuck right off. But just as a cool place to it just feels neat and as enormous and cool. I do like that.

I'd love to be like an eccentric billionaire by this place. And I could live in here if you fucking weird as hell.