This Canadian life

There's a bleakness to Canada that I haven't seen before.

Previous visits, I've been greeted by the perfect snow.  The beautiful and clean whiteness has covered everything and given it an inherently lovely glow.

This time though, the weather has been strangely warm.  Besides one lovely day of snow, most of my trip has been accompanied by temperatures of around 5 or 6 degrees.  So instead of the white coverings I had become used to, I instead see a more standard grey suburban landscape.

It's a stark and brutal scene.  A suburban landscape filled with highways, carparks, warehouses and light industry.

I find it all a bit depressing.  It's the type of cityscape that I have no particular interest living in.

Still, the coldness of it all makes the feeling of comfort you experience when you escape it all the better.  That morning, I decided that the best escape was to go to a diner to get breakfast.

Eggs and corned beef hash never tasted so satisfying.

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.

Quebecois

The New York wedding was over and everyone was starting their respective journeys back home.  I still had a bit more time though.  Since I was up this side of the world, I decided I would go and visit my friends Christina and Eric in Montreal.  The flight was short and I had always wanted to go to Montreal.  My last trip to Canada had been to Ottawa, so I wanted to see something a bit different.  The Quebecois side of Canada would definitely be a change.  On arrival in Montreal, I was immediately confronted by a Tim Horton's and reminded that even though I was seeking out a change, there were some things which would remain very much the same.

There was something very hipster about Montreal.  There was a love for old things and an old look.  Much of the city reminded me of life in the 90s, and this was made strikingly clear to me when I walked past a video rental store.  Here in Montreal, this lone outpost for past technology stood resolute against the onslaught of time and progress.  Even the people seemed to take a bit more of an old fashioned to how they dressed, with lots of dark colours and baggier clothes.  At times, I felt as though everyone was inspired by a Nirvana but when I saw a girl walking past me in a tartan skirt, knee length socks and a rock and roll t shirt, I realised that Nirvana probably didn't go far enough.  This was all just part of the Montreal look.

The weather in Montreal can get exceedingly cold, but it was still nice autumn weather for me.  One of my old bosses had lived in Montreal for years and he described to me how much of the city was designed so that it could operate "underground", with series of tunnels and underground malls interconnecting to allow for people to move about without ever being exposed to the cold winter winds.  Walking through some of these tunnels and looking at the maps, I was surprised at the sheer extent of them and how seemed quite organic.  There was no central theme or design, but it was instead very much different plans and designs that happened to then connect together.

The outside was a bit different.  The city had a much more classic look than I expected.  It felt a bit like a smaller version of Manhattan without any of the newer elements to Manhattan.  Whilst it was quite similar visually, it was definitely much quieter than New York.

One strange thing about Montreal was there really wasn't anything that stood out for me.  There didn't seem to be an iconic building or street which could be used to advertise it to the world.  Instead, it was just a whole series of relatively tasteful buildings, all arranged in a grid pattern for easy access and walking.

It didn't mean that there weren't lovely parts of the city.  At one point, Eric and Christina took me to this innocuous looking pub.  At the back, it had a courtyard surrounded by the high walls of the adjacent buildings, covered high with lush ivy.  It was a beautiful place to sit for a drink.

The rest of the city was all nice, but again, not all that memorable.  I liked the vibe and the atmosphere of the city, but there really was a greyness to everything that seemed to make it hard to distinguish the buildings.

We had been walking all day, so we left the city centre and went to get some dinner.  Eric thought that the best place to go would be an old Montreal institution called "Le Banquise".  This restaurant was open 24h a day and specialised in all things poutine.  We ordered some strange beers (I got an apricot beer which was quite good) and then we started looking through the poutine menu.  I love poutine, but I was only used to the simple form of chips with curds and gravy.  Here at Le Banquise, they upped the stakes further and also included various different topping options.  Given we were in Montreal, I thought that adding the Montreal smoked meat option seemed to be the best approach.  The plates arrived overflowing with chips, curds and meat.  It didn't look like all that much, but it was delicious.  Eric and I quickly finished our plates and then we moved onto cleaning up Christina's plate.  I contemplated ordering another plate, but then thought the better of it.

The weather was very chilly in the evening.  We started to walk back to their apartment.  In the night, the city looked much nicer.  The old style of the buildings seemed to suit the evening lights.  As we walked down the old streets in the suburbs, they pointed out to me the peculiarities of the split levels and the staircases leading from the outside up to the top floors and the metal frames made for scraping snow off of shoes.  Everything felt very cosy and I thought that maybe this was a city that would be best enjoyed in winter.

Canadian stereotypes

Canadians love their ice hockey???

I never would have guessed it!

Oh Canada

I only had a few days in Canada. But it was worth it.

I got to see Connie and her family for the first time ever!

It had been 8 years since I had seen Con, so seeing her with a young family was a pretty crazy thing.

Canada is an incredibly serene and pleasant place. It sure is cold though.
Surprisingly so in fact.

There are always stereotypes about how "nice" Canada and Canadians are, but there really is a lot of truth to it.
I even found myself some lumber jack food in the form of the "beaver tails"
What was most unexpected was the quality and the freshness of the food.

Canada is pristine and it definitely shows in the food. The salmon and the fresh produce were amazing.
However, some of my newly formed habits were difficult to break, and even in Canada, I sought out some bagels. Thankfully, I was able to satisfy my wants with the famed "Montreal bagels".