Le Voyage Québécois, Montréal

2016 October 12

Bonjour Montréal

When we last left off, I was on a train leaving Québec City going through the Québécois provincial countryside. And, naturally, that’s where we’ll pick up.

<Note>

21 September 2016: This is a long-delayed article. Before I started writing this again in September, this is as far as I had gotten last May.

10 October 2016: And I got a little further in September, but let’s see if this writing session actually gets the job done.

12 October 2016: And now I’m doing the final draft and revisioning process. This entry should finally get posted today, but work always takes a surprisingly longer amount of time than you think it will.

Procrastination is a bitch.

</Note>

A short time after finishing up the last entry, I found myself crossing one last river (actually just the St. Lawrence again) and entering the similar-yet-completely-different city of Montréal.

I’m not going to compare Montréal to Omaha this time, but let’s just say it’s bigger. One interesting stat to point out, though, is the language breakdown. The city is very multilingual, with 66.5% speaking French as a first language, 13.2% speaking English as a first language, then many other languages comprising the last 22.5%. I could almost feel these demographics when I was in the city.

But you’re not here to read a statistics 101 assignment. If you’re reading this, you probably want to read about my experience in Montréal. If you’re not here to read about that, I’m sorry, but there’s not a lot I can do to fix that. If you need a suggestion about something else to read, I hear that Stephen King is pretty good.

Jour 1 – Mercredi

I arrived at Montréal Central Station and immediately felt the contrast between the two Québécois cities – taller buildings, people walking around in suits and ties talking French business into their cell phones, and almost no cobblestones in sight.

I requested an Über (pronounced OO-bayeihh there) and had a conversation with the driver, this time mostly in English but partially in French. The man was from somewhere in North Africa that used to be a French colony only a couple decades ago. He moved to Montréal around 2011. Some of you may know that 2011 wasn’t the safest year to be in many North African countries, so it’s only natural that someone who speaks French as a second language would look to a place like Montréal to start a new life.

I arrived at Le Gîte du Plateau (the Home of the Plateau) hostel near downtown. Through doing research for this article, I found out you can tour the inside of the place using Google Maps. Seriously, check it out. The more you tour the place using Google Maps, the less I have to write.

From there, I immediately met Deonte from Georgia, Rico from France, and Edwin, also from France, also known as “Squirrel”. We were all roommates and were probably the most consistent people in our outings.

Of course, there were plenty of others, though their schedules usually had them leaving earlier in the week or arriving later.

The first evening started sooner than I expected. Before I arrived in Montréal, I woke up early (early for me), called the most frustrating and rude Über driver in Canada (I gave him a dismally low 4-star rating) to catch the train, traveled across the province (while writing the post about Québec City), caught the aforementioned Montréal Über to the hostel, and then I was ready for a nap… but the Gîte du Plateau does not sleep until it is time to sleep, AKA 3 in the morning.

It was worth staying up though. The 4 roommates along with Sophia from South Africa and Ryan from Zimbabwe went to a restaurant called Le Saint Bock on the Rue Saint-Denis for some drinks.

Afterwards, we went to the Gay Village neighborhood for some food.

Then we went to a different place to play some pool (le billard). After my glorious win, we said goodbye to Ryan as he continued his Canadian journey, and returned to the hostel to call it a night. We were out pretty late, but it was tame compared to the following nights…

Jour 2 – Jeudi

After we said goodbye to Sophia at breakfast as she continued her Canadian journey, Deonte, Squirrel, and I decided the best thing to do while working through the beers from the night before was running up the mountain in the middle of the city.

The mountain is the Royal Mountain, or the Mont-Royal, or the Montréal…

We returned to the hostel, and, right after showering, rode the subway to the Montréal Botanical Gardens. I took the opportunity to get some more pictures…

…and confuse my friends on Snapchat.

Two of our members got into a physical confrontation. They settled their differences later, but it got pretty violent.

If someone edits this I’ll buy you a case of beer.

Thursday afternoon was the fateful afternoon where Edwin learned what the word “squirrel” meant in French. “Squirrel” is pretty hard to pronounce for a native francophone, but Edwin loves a challenge, and pretty soon he said it so many times (so many) that I’m pretty sure he said it in his sleep, and I would know, my bed was above his.

On our way back, we took a break from the day where I probably walked the most in my life (that includes all the days I’ve hiked in Denver) and got some poutine back on Rue Saint-Denis.

This was the plate I got. It was meant for me, because ‘nuage’ means ‘cloud’, also ‘Francis’ is my middle name and that looks like ‘Francois’, and I’m a guy.

And after that, instead of calling it a day, you guessed it, we went out. Instead of dancing like everyone else, I decided to be the weirdo that walks through the club recording the dance floor because it might look kind of cool on my travel blog.

Then we called it a night.

Jour 3 – Vendredi

Friday was a rainy day, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying our last full day in the city as a group.

First, we explored Vieux Montréal (Old Montréal). The advantage Québec has over Montréal is that the old part of Québec feels like you’re in an old city, but the old part of Montréal feels like you’re in cobblestoney part of Montréal. (Montréal is still my favorite, though – don’t tell Québec.)

Then onto some SCIENCE!

There was a hurricane exhibition at the Centre des sciences de Montréal and we went to the French viewing. Afterwards, the presenter asked some questions to the audience, which I barely understood, but after hearing the words for “name”, “hurricane” (of course), and “2005” in French, and then silence, I took a stab in the dark and said “…Katrina?” and got a resounding “Oui!” from the presenter. I couldn’t have been more proud of pretending to know a language I don’t speak.

As it continued to rain, we appropriately took the subway to the (maybe) busiest underground city in the world, the RÉSO, also known as just the Underground City.

That night, I finally got to go to the event I’ve been waiting for since Argentina: MundoLingo!

You may remember MundoLingo if you’re a long-time reader of this blog. If not, here’s the rundown:

1. Get stickers of flags of the languages you speak that they offer at the front of the bar and put them in descending order of expertise.
2. Meet people.

That’s it! This MundoLingo was probably more diverse language-wise than the one in Buenos Aires, and that’s saying a lot. There was more representation from Western Europe and many parts of Africa, but less representation from Latin American countries. Anywhere I go, though, I can and will find the Spanish-speakers. In fact, if I ever return to Montréal, I was offered the opportunity to join a group of Spanish-speaking expats for weekly group activities – not bragging or anything.

For the rest of the night, we hung out at the Bar Le Saint-Sulpice. This place had 5 stories and a terrace, and each floor had a different feel. The top floor had dancing to the likes of Major Lazer and similar artists, the 3rd floor had a lounge feel, the bottom floor had karaoke, and the terrace had food. I think the business was about eliminating the need for bar-hopping when all you need to do is go up a flight of stairs. In a city that gets cold as Montréal, that’s a smart business model.

Jour 4 – Samedi – Le dernier jour

Saturday was a half-day since my flight was in the afternoon. While everyone was relaxing from the night before, I was preparing to say goodbye.

My last breakfast was with Deonte back on our favorite street, la Rue Saint-Denis. My favorite moment was when the waitress approached and nobody said anything for about 5 seconds, because no one knew whether to speak in English or French.

Dear Omaha, I no longer live within your limits, but I need to ask: why do you insist on building no more than 2 restaurants with good outdoor seating? I used to assume it was because it got so cold in the winter, but if Montréal is able to do it, you have no excuse (look, they block off the street because outdoor seating is so worth it).

We caught an Über back up the mountain to rendezvous (French word!) with our francophone friends for a short while.

Then the airport. Then the plane. Then Omaha.

Then we all know what happened next.

Will I return to Montréal? Probably, I just don’t know when. It’s a much closer and more accessible “actually foreign” place than a lot of other travel destinations around here. One thing I like about the province of Québec is that it’s familiar enough to me to feel like home, but foreign enough to stay interesting for a long time. I’m sure if I visited a small town in Manitoba right near the border of Minnesota, I wouldn’t have nearly as much writing material. Just because Manitoba and Québec exist in the same country doesn’t mean they’re in the same nation, “nation” here meaning “cultural nation” (also the main topic of the book, American Nations: A History of the 11 Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodard, in which Québec is called “New France”).

If you talk to me about this trip, you might notice that I don’t say “I went to Canada”. When I hear the word “Canada”, I think of a nation that seems like an alternate-reality United States with kilometers and hockey instead of miles and football. Québec is “France, except you can road-trip there from Nebraska”. Also, I pronounce it like KUH-beck, not KWEH-beck. If that annoys you, I don’t care. And if you say something like “But in English it’s different”, I say, “Then why don’t you pronounce the Spanish word for cheese like KWAY-so?”.

Québec, I hope to return. Until then, I’ll be spreading the good (correctly pronounced) word of your province.

By the way, next week I’m going to an Of Montreal concert. This band has absolutely nothing to do with Montréal.

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