Montreal, Quebec, Canada

My view of the city from the Yacht Club.

So I finally made it, and WOW is it French.  I of course knew this to a degree, but I had envisioned something between how Spanish Mexico is and how French Louisiana is, where people held on to their culture strongly, but that getting around with English was no problem.  Montreal is the second largest French speaking city in the world, just behind Paris, and it is quite a large city with over 3 million people (the small town of Washington, DC has about 1 million people in all of the MD-DC-VA metro region.  The language barrier was definitely a problem at times.  One day I was exiting a parking lot and the lot attendant (who spoke only French) said “$%&#%$$ gauche $%^&$*##”, and since there was a double yellow line in the middle of the road, I figured he was reminding me not to turn left out of the lot, but when I turned right I realized that the lanes were all reversible, big red “X” above my lane ahead and all traffic coming my way…clearly he instructed me to “be sure to turn LEFT only.”  Another day, it took me literally more than 30 minutes to get fuel in my car because the only attendant on duty only spoke French and the damn automated fueling terminal didn’t have a working “English” language button and was apparently asking me stupid questions in French, like do I want to come inside to get a coffee after fueling, and crap like that. 

Other customers were extremely helpful in translating at retail shops, grocery stores, etc.  The city is very much like a typical East Coast city with some interesting historical sections, cluster of tall buildings and a huge amount of Catholic Cathedrals.  Honestly it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but then again, I was making this excursion to discover and find out for myself.  Many of my East Coast friends over the past 20 years have raved about Montreal, but I now realize that was specifically geared toward club hopping and partying…it is very much like going out in Europe in that regard. 

Not only did people of Quebec (name of this French Canadian Province of course)  keep their language and religion in tact, but they also kept their French looks and cultural style strong.  Probably because much of their advertising, media, news and entertainment is  generated in France and carries with it a very European style.  They are very “French” looking, dark hair and pale skin is common, with lots of short old “French” men sitting around in parks or cafes. They all drive like crazy Parisians in little fast cars.  Driving is of course a fun challenge with everything in French and all road names using long 8 word Catholic names (blvd. Saint-Roy-du-la-Riche Rue).

My local grocery store was amazing with access to a huge selection of pate, terrine, cheeses, dried meats, olives, etc.  They carried bison, rabbit, moose, deer, emu and other exotics, and this was simply in their equivalent of a Safeway.  And again, back to the French theme, every single thing was in French.  How they would get every single package in the entire grocery store in French in North America surrounded on all sides by English speaking Provinces and States is amazing to me.

Farmer's Market.  Open 7 days a week and under permanent structure.  Why do we not have these in America?

The city sits on the St. Lawrence River (which of course Lobo had to go swimming in) and was established in the 1600’s.  It is named after Mont Royal, the mountain (no larger than the Laguna Hills, but typically called a “mountain” under East Coast standards) directly in the center of the city.  For half of my visit, I stayed in the “suburbs”, which like France is actually rolling farmland with clusters of “villages” that might include a tiny convenience store, maybe a commuter rail stop and a cluster of houses all tightly webbed together around the village.  Nobody was living out on half an acre in a McLean style McMansion.  The entire city is surrounded by farmland within 20 minutes drive in every direction.  For the second half of my stay, I had found that the local yacht harbor had an RV facility that was not advertised at all and only luckily did I stumble upon it while driving around.  It provided electrical hook ups and was literally 3 minutes drive across the river and into downtown.  Had a great view of the city.  I of course did all of the touristy stuff, saw the sites, took some tours and generally hung out for a few weeks soaking in the culture and language.  I chugged through my Rosetta Stone French every night for about an hour and by the time that I departed Montreal for Ottawa I could talk to the neighbor’s 2 year old just fine.