Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Friday, 30 May 2003

# 6 AM

Went up to McGill University to have a look round. This seems like a fine place. Their CS department developed the McCAT experimental compiler, whose internal representation inspired GIMPLE (discussed previously). Also, they have one of the oldest departments of meteorology and oceanology (now renamed "atmospheric and oceanic science" in the world. And the rare books collection in the Redpath library is open-stack.

After that I went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts since Jo said that they had a larger collection of Inuit art than the museum in Ottawa. This may be true, but I didn't get to see it because that entire floor, and in fact most of the museum, were closed for exhibit rearrangement. They did have one small Inuit gallery open, but it wasn't very impressive. Also there was a collection of Art Deco furniture, which was nifty indeed.

And then I was meaning to visit Concordia, the other Anglophone university in Montreal, but I got confused about which bus stop I wanted and wound up back near Jo's flat so I gave up.

In the evening we went out to eat at a Greek restaurant in the old French part of town. They had delicious spanokopita and decent shishkebab.