or how I failed to learn to stop worrying and love the french
Let's just get it out of the way- Montreal gave me a headache. By the end of my first day I was thoroughly overwhelmed and exhausted. I do not blame Montreal, I blame myself. See, thing is, I don't speak french. Like none at all, with no exaggeration. This is in stark contrast to the other languages that I don't speak like spanish, german, and italian, in which I am pretty sure I could competently recognize at least some percentage of important words and phrases. The only french I know basically comes from Pepe LePew cartoons. We're talking 'I don't know how to say I don't speak french in french' bad.
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| Montreal's big central-park type park, Mont Royal Parc. There were a lot of steps.. |
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| featuring views like this |
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| and the famous la croix (no points for guessing what this means) |
I figured that Montreal would be bi-lingual, like most of the places I had been in in Canada so far. Nope, all french, all the time. I guess it makes sense, I mean, this is why the Canadians train themselves in at-least-incidental french from an early age. When you visit montreal you want to know that the truck in front of you makes frequent
arrets and you need to know not to wander into
le machine qui écrase la tête. It is an intimidating place for someone unprepared. Thing is, it actually is bilingual. Like, virtually everyone can speak english, they just tend not to. Still, I felt a little bit of internal tugging between my desire to at least attempt to speak to these people in their native language and the realization that I really really had no capacity to do so.
It was silly to feel this way, I realize, but Montreal is no stranger to linguistic confusion and conflict. It is split about evenly between 'francophones' and 'anglophones', on contrast to the rest of Quebec, which is much more 'francophonic'. To give you an idea of how extant these issues are, these are real words that are used regularly there. I've digressed on this either too long or not long enough, so let's move on.
Although I had trouble at first (and indeed throughout), I left with a very pleasant impression on Montreal. It has that european/metropolitan mix of new and old and is organized in a way that makes for an engaged and active population. I don't have much else to say about Montreal, other than that it managed to be challenging to me in a way that drew me in, rather than repelled me, which is no mean feat. I look forward to going back. And now, some pictures of my self-guided bike tour around Montreal (an amazing way to see the city, highly recommend).
This is one of Montreal's greatest architectural wonders, La Basilique Notre-Dame de Montreal
It was built in the 1820's and boasts a spectacularly 11 ton bell and two towers named Perseverance and Temperance. You can bet that if I ever come into possession of towers, I will be naming them in a similar way.
In addition to traditional stained-glass, it also features depictions of important events in montreal's history.
Like all good churches, it is literally awe-inspiring.
Celine Dion was married here, in case you care to know such a thing.
I just love church organs
Some of Montreal's oldest sky-scrapers. Once again I am impressed by how legitimate the history is here.
Biking along the waterfront I came upon some of the coolest looking apartments I've ever seen.
Central station, a site of much confusion for me, but a beautiful building.
Next blog post will probably be the last one in this series and will cover Nova Scotia and some general observations. See you soon
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