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Published: August 27th 2009
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Salut! Comme talle vous? We're in North America, just an hour away from the US... Americans joke about Canada being "America's Hat", or "America Junior", but at least in Montreal, it feels worlds away.
Everything's in French, everyone seems to be out on the street taking leisurely brunch-dinner-drinks (bars and restaurants seemed full at all hours of the day), and people prefer to greet you with
bonjour, only grudgingly switching to English if there's no alternative (they're not mean-hearted about it though like in my experiences in France). In short, this feels like Europe, and it's right here, in my backyard so to say.
One of the most interesting things we noticed was the freeness of spirit of of the
Quebecois. It seemed like half of the population between 18-30 was somewhat "alterna". A lot of hair dyed in crazy colors, facial piercings, and fashion that made us feel like we'd walked out of a McCarthy hearing. Even the H&M was sporting crazy retro 80's fashion, and every 4th guy walking around had donned capri pants (would be nearly unheard of fashion-wise in the US). People here care about how they look, and are very much into expressing their
individuality. Yet, there doesn't seem to be any criticism from more "established" individuals that we saw at least. For instance, we went to the coffee shop Pi which was a chess enthusiast hang out, and an old man would be playing chess with a long haired, multi-pierced Japanese man in his early 20's. I don't recall ever having seen a melding of sub-cultures like that before with such mutual respect.
There seem to be a million places to eat and visit, some really odd stores to check out, and plenty of great and diverse areas in the city such as Saint Laurent, Saint Deniz, Saint Catherines, Old Montreal, and the Plateau. Richie, Karin and I in short, had a blast in Montreal over a long, long weekend.
Tam Tam Sunday
One of the biggest highlights of the trip was going to Tam Tam Sunday at Parc Mont Royal. Tam tam players all get together and engage in tribal beats in Montreal's version of Central Park. Eventually, the crowd grew to several hundred. Everyone was relaxed and taking in the sun. With the musicians, anything went. One guy took a public trash can and a stick, and got
in close with the drummers to play along. All of a sudden, a trombonist walked in and started playing. People were drumming on trees with sticks in beat to the music. Some people started dancing within the drum circle (our favorite was an old man with Willy Nelson braids playing guitar who was wearing nothing but neon green short shorts and a vest).
Next to the drumming scene, were a gaggle of Larpers (LARP stands for Live Action Role Playing), who were reenacting fantasy battles with foam weapons (yep, hitting eachother).
We had planned on spending an hour or so at the park, and were drawn in to the beats and stayed for hours on Sunday. I highly recommend this if you're in town in the summer. Check out the Youtube video (and take a look for the jolly guy with deadlocks in the first few seconds):
Tam Tam Clip Food
Poutine - So delicious even though you know it's taking years of life off you. French fries... doused in gravy and covered in melty cheese curds. This must be the official meal in heaven where they don't care about calories anymore. I also tried a variety
Poutine
Each serving will take 1.5 years of your life off. with ground beef on top, which put me yet closer to my maker, but felt worth the experience. I wonder if it's even possible to eat anything greasier.
Crepes - Always one of my favorite foods... There's crepes everywhere, of all sorts. So good, so good.
Bars
We actually didn't make it out to that many at night. Our hostel was great with an amazing balcony and tons of friendly people from all over the world. We did go out one night to Electric Foufounnes, which claimed to be a "punk" bar, and was the cleanest such bar I'd ever been to. In short, it's about as punk as polka: clean, nice art on the walls, comfortable tables and chairs scattered around, Offspring playing on the airwaves at a reasonable volume.... Yeah... Nice try. Otherwise, we went to many microbreweries and enjoyed the relaxed, laid back atmosphere. Bars were really expensive in general, as we saw.
Transport
Bixis - Biking is the best way to get around Montreal. The city is actually not that big, and you can probably get from end to end in 20-30 minutes. There's a system of rental bikes with
Bixi's
Best way to get around. docking stations all over the city. If you need to ride, about 5$ will cover it for the day unless you have it out all day... Just put in the code to get a bike - ride it your destination - and then drop it off at another rack. Montreal has a totally different look and feel on a bike.
Overall, I can't wait to make it back to Montreal, and it's only 5 hours away from me by car. Why don't I live here?
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karin
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viva la montreal
yesss! best vacation i have ever been on. you gave it a proper bloggin', alex. good work!