Un bonjour de Montréal
It's only an hour's flight from Boston to Montréal, but it feels like you have gone much further when you emerge in the Canadian province of Québec. We're in France really - lots of cheese, onion soup, gallic shrugs and pouts, as well as an emphasis on culture (films, books, traditions) - but with a North American twist: the roads and buildings look American, fast food chains abound (although not as much as in the US: we have not seen a Dunkin' Donuts for days), and there is a wonderful mish-mash of language. Although everyone's first choice language, especially outside of Montréal, is most certainly French, bits of English are are slipping through the net, leading to wonderful combinations such as 'Bon Cop, Bad Cop' (the title of a newly released movie that was being advertised everywhere). As for the language, it's definitely French, and it's called Québecois French, not Canadian French (I made that 'mistake' only once), but the pronunciation of vowels has definitely taken on a life of its own in La Nouvelle France (as it was originally known). This means there is a slight delay before the meaning of a sentence filters through to me whilst the brain is trying to decode the 'chewy' vowels that make the words sounds familiar yet not quite. We met a French lady in Montréal whilst waiting for the train to Québec City who had encountered the same problem, which made me feel better. When it is my turn to talk, everyone seems to understand my 'vieux français' (as someone selling me beer in Québec charmingly called it), which is useful as the people in some of the places we visited did not speak very much English. This surprised us, as this is Canada after all - although it's easy to forget that when having a soupe à l'oignon with a verre de vin rouge in a summery ski resort.
We arrived in Montréal late afternoon and by the time we got through customs, collected our luggage and taken the airport bus into town, it was early evening and we had discovered that Montréal was hosting the Outgames. This turned out to be an Olympics sports competition cum conference cum cultural event cum party for the international gay, lesbian and transgender community. I have to admit I did not think that the 'standard' Olympics had any focus on the athletes' sexuality, so I therefore still don't quite get the sports part of the Outgames, but it seemed like a great party with lots of events happening all over the place. However, this did mean that Montréal had an additional 20,000 inhabitants and that accommodation was hard to come by. Especially as our stroppy bus driver had dropped us off at the wrong stop, and we had ended up at the bus station rather than at the tourist office. On top of this, we had hit yet another city experiencing record temperatures - According to the news, Montréal reached 32C that day, but because of the humidity it had felt like 46C. This sounded a bit extreme, but it certainly was very hot, and as it had been a long day of travelling, we decided to take the first hotel that actually had a room available. This turned out to be a rather nice boutique hotel - not quite what we had budgetted for, but it was hot, we were tired and the city was full. And at least it would allow us to stock up on free toiletries.
The hotel turned out to be very nice indeed. The room had beautiful exposed brickwork, a 'rain shower', the most enormous bed (with an impossible number of pillows) and, importantly, the free toiletries. As the heavens opened whilst we were enjoying our complementary welcome wine in the hotel bar (nice touch!), we decided to eat in there as well and share a dish called 'ribless beef ribs' (we were intrigued!). This turned out to be a posh version of chips & gravy - with blue cheese. The ribless ribs also turned out to be beefless as well as ribless, but the gravy tasted nice and did contain the occasional flake of beef. And the thunderstorm we got to watch from the bar was very impressive indeed.
The next morning, we filled ourselves up on the complimentary breakfast buffet (a great way to save on lunch money!), and set out to find ourselves some new digs because, lovely as it was, the boutique hotel was not quite the sustainable option. So we moved to the other end of the accommodation scale: the Montréal university halls of residence. These were very nice indeed (and cheap too): own bathroom, fridge, kitchenette and centrally located - life for a student at the University of Montréal is not bad! We shared the halls of residence with an interesting mixture of other guests amongst which the Manchester Lesbian & Gay Chorus (wherever you went, the Outgames were never far away) and a variety of asylum seeker families.
Montréal (pronounced 'mon-royale' by the locals) turned out to be a pleasant city. It was not immediately stunning, and some of the central areas were definitely a bit seedy (but maybe that was because we were looking for an old-fashioned internet cafés with machines rather than just wifi access, which took us to the slightly more run-down parts of town). However, once you started to find your way around, it was a great city to hang out in. It had a café culture and, unlike New England, you did not have to make sure you had had your dinner by 8pm. We spent a few days exploring the city at leisurely pace (the heat wave continued). We walked around Vieux-Montréal, an area of cobbly streets and beautiful old buildings, visited the docks, and climbed the 'mont' that gives Montréal its name (at least according to some accounts). It's not really at mountain at only 211 meters, but it had great views across the city and we need all the practice we can get in preparation for our Machu Picchu hike in Peru. We also had a look at Montréal's business district (with some great outdoor art on display -: a vast network of underground shopping malls that is also connected to metro stations and many office buildings. This allows Montréal's inhabitants to escape the cold in winter. 
see photo) and its 'underground city' Impressive to have a look at but the weather was glorious, and one shopping mall is much like another, so we quickly escaped back into the sunshine after James managed to get himself a haircut. In the evenings we made the most of the hot weather, had dinner outside and checked out a few of the bars, a lot of which curiously seemed to have a slight bias towards 1980s music.
As the Canadians are keen on the outdoors, we also used our stay in Montréal to buy some of the bits and pieces we needed for our South American leg - like 4-season sleeping bags (hard to remember what minus 5C feels like and what you need for it when sweating buckets in a heatwave) and a new backpack for me. I had run out of time before we left London to sort a backpack out and have been carrying a 6-year old unisex backpack. And what a difference a properly fitted backpack makes. I now finally know what people are on about when they talk about weight distribution and ensuring that you carry the bulk of the weight on your hips.
It was nice to spend a few nights in one location after having driven around a lot in New England, but after a few days of relaxing and sorting out some of the practicalities of our next few destinations, we were ready to hit the road again. On to Québec city and the Canadian countryside.
We arrived in Montréal late afternoon and by the time we got through customs, collected our luggage and taken the airport bus into town, it was early evening and we had discovered that Montréal was hosting the Outgames. This turned out to be an Olympics sports competition cum conference cum cultural event cum party for the international gay, lesbian and transgender community. I have to admit I did not think that the 'standard' Olympics had any focus on the athletes' sexuality, so I therefore still don't quite get the sports part of the Outgames, but it seemed like a great party with lots of events happening all over the place. However, this did mean that Montréal had an additional 20,000 inhabitants and that accommodation was hard to come by. Especially as our stroppy bus driver had dropped us off at the wrong stop, and we had ended up at the bus station rather than at the tourist office. On top of this, we had hit yet another city experiencing record temperatures - According to the news, Montréal reached 32C that day, but because of the humidity it had felt like 46C. This sounded a bit extreme, but it certainly was very hot, and as it had been a long day of travelling, we decided to take the first hotel that actually had a room available. This turned out to be a rather nice boutique hotel - not quite what we had budgetted for, but it was hot, we were tired and the city was full. And at least it would allow us to stock up on free toiletries.
The hotel turned out to be very nice indeed. The room had beautiful exposed brickwork, a 'rain shower', the most enormous bed (with an impossible number of pillows) and, importantly, the free toiletries. As the heavens opened whilst we were enjoying our complementary welcome wine in the hotel bar (nice touch!), we decided to eat in there as well and share a dish called 'ribless beef ribs' (we were intrigued!). This turned out to be a posh version of chips & gravy - with blue cheese. The ribless ribs also turned out to be beefless as well as ribless, but the gravy tasted nice and did contain the occasional flake of beef. And the thunderstorm we got to watch from the bar was very impressive indeed.The next morning, we filled ourselves up on the complimentary breakfast buffet (a great way to save on lunch money!), and set out to find ourselves some new digs because, lovely as it was, the boutique hotel was not quite the sustainable option. So we moved to the other end of the accommodation scale: the Montréal university halls of residence. These were very nice indeed (and cheap too): own bathroom, fridge, kitchenette and centrally located - life for a student at the University of Montréal is not bad! We shared the halls of residence with an interesting mixture of other guests amongst which the Manchester Lesbian & Gay Chorus (wherever you went, the Outgames were never far away) and a variety of asylum seeker families.
Montréal (pronounced 'mon-royale' by the locals) turned out to be a pleasant city. It was not immediately stunning, and some of the central areas were definitely a bit seedy (but maybe that was because we were looking for an old-fashioned internet cafés with machines rather than just wifi access, which took us to the slightly more run-down parts of town). However, once you started to find your way around, it was a great city to hang out in. It had a café culture and, unlike New England, you did not have to make sure you had had your dinner by 8pm. We spent a few days exploring the city at leisurely pace (the heat wave continued). We walked around Vieux-Montréal, an area of cobbly streets and beautiful old buildings, visited the docks, and climbed the 'mont' that gives Montréal its name (at least according to some accounts). It's not really at mountain at only 211 meters, but it had great views across the city and we need all the practice we can get in preparation for our Machu Picchu hike in Peru. We also had a look at Montréal's business district (with some great outdoor art on display -: a vast network of underground shopping malls that is also connected to metro stations and many office buildings. This allows Montréal's inhabitants to escape the cold in winter. see photo) and its 'underground city' Impressive to have a look at but the weather was glorious, and one shopping mall is much like another, so we quickly escaped back into the sunshine after James managed to get himself a haircut. In the evenings we made the most of the hot weather, had dinner outside and checked out a few of the bars, a lot of which curiously seemed to have a slight bias towards 1980s music.As the Canadians are keen on the outdoors, we also used our stay in Montréal to buy some of the bits and pieces we needed for our South American leg - like 4-season sleeping bags (hard to remember what minus 5C feels like and what you need for it when sweating buckets in a heatwave) and a new backpack for me. I had run out of time before we left London to sort a backpack out and have been carrying a 6-year old unisex backpack. And what a difference a properly fitted backpack makes. I now finally know what people are on about when they talk about weight distribution and ensuring that you carry the bulk of the weight on your hips.
It was nice to spend a few nights in one location after having driven around a lot in New England, but after a few days of relaxing and sorting out some of the practicalities of our next few destinations, we were ready to hit the road again. On to Québec city and the Canadian countryside.
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