Le Marche

Breakfast in Montreal had to involve bagels.  I still remembered them from the last time I visited Connie in Quebec.  They're thinner and a bit chewier than their New York cousins, but still delicious.

Walking through the city had been nice, but we thought it would be more interesting to go out and have a look at some of the parks and local forests.  I had seen a lot of built up cities over the last few days, so this suited me.  The parks and forests were calm and peaceful places.  They were also enormous.  I really was loving the forests of North America.  The long drive through the US and the wanderings through Quebec were so peaceful.  The forests and the bush of Australia felt so much rougher in comparison..

The city side of Montreal was nice, but the natural side of the place seemed to be much nicer.  The forests of North America have a size and density to them that I'm not used to.  There are big forests in Australia, but they don't seem to be as verdant and dense as these North American forests.  The parklands were also lovely places to walk around, and were very well maintained.

Lots of people were taking the opportunity to walk around the parks and all the food they brought with them was clearly helping to keep the local squirrel population fed.  I found a few new squirrel friends and their fatness was astounding.

We walked up to the top of one of the parks and we were able to see the full skyline of Montreal.  As expected, there was nothing particularly memorable about the city itself.  There was no building or landmark which stood out and it just looked like a fairly standard city.  The abundance of greenery was probably the one thing I took away from looking out towards the horizon.

The city seemed quite liberal, or at the very least lax, in the open flaunting of the law I saw.  On the outskirts of one of the parks we were walking around, we saw a couple of guys going through their drug dealing transaction.  This in and of itself is not anything necessarily out of the ordinary, and it happens in cities around the world.  What surprised me was when the dealer pulled out his precision digital scale and started to weigh out the drugs on one of the benches.  Later on, we walked back towards the city.  As much as felt outside of Canada at times, I was definitely in Canada.  There were constant reminders of that fact!

Everything around me had the Canadian flavour and style to it.  Yet at the same time, I couldn't shake the feeling of not really being in North America.  The United States was only an hour or so away by plane, but it could have as easily been an ocean apart from me.  We went to one of the big markets in Montreal and browsed through the abundant local produce on offer.  It felt like I was in one of the local markets on the outskirts of Paris.  With the French being spoken around me and the neatly organised tables, it did not in anyway feel like a market in North America.  I looked at the tins of maple syrup to remind myself of the reality of the situation, before buying a couple of boxes to take home as gifts.

I was reminded of the last time I had visited the US and the lack of vegetables I had eaten during that trip.  The side trip up to Ottawa had given me lots of fresh produce to eat and I couldn't help but think that this trip to Montreal had offered me the same.

As I stood outside of the market looking at the enormous pumpkins, I still felt a bit confused.  Montreal was an interesting city to visit, but it seemed to be the coming together or so many different cultures.  The Canadian, the French, the Quebecois, the American?  The French and Quebecois cultures were definitely what was desired the most, but the strength of the Canadian and American influence was also clearly growing.

Maybe it wasn't right to think about this from a Quebecois and Canadian perspective?  Maybe this was just another part of Canada that wasn't being properly brought out for the rest of Canada.