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North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal
September 9th 2014
Published: September 9th 2014
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We travelled to Quebec today. It is only about 120 miles from Montreal. We arrived here early so I thought I would add some more observations that I had about Montreal since I was afraid that I would be kicked off the internet last night. Beautiful weather here. Around 72, sunny and no humidity. I am doing laundry in our RV. I have a washer/dryer combination that will only hold a small amount of clothes (about 10 lbs. max). So, you have to do laundry everyday if you have enough amperage coming in to the coach. Montreal has a large Chinatown. The early workers came from China to work in the mines and on the railroad. One of our guides was from Hong Kong. He said that he has been here 20 years. He worked in the hotel management(I believe Hilton) when he lived in Hong Kong. He wanted to leave Hong Kong before it was returned to China. He thought he could transfer to Montreal but found out that he couldn't get a job with the hotel because he couldn't speak French. We asked him if he tried to learn French and he said that he had tried 4 times and that was enough. I am sure that speaking Chinese and French are quite different. He said that he could speak 4 languages..but not French. He said that when he went to school in Hong Kong they were taught to read English but not to pronounce the words. He said that in China the students are taught to pronounce the words in English which he feels is a lot better way to learn. When we took the tour on the bus, the guide had to speak in French and then in English. I imagine that that is very hard to keep jumping back and forth between languages. When we were on the bus, we could get off and then get back on another bus if we wanted to see an attraction. One of the stops was the Museum of Fine Arts but it was not open on Monday. It had a beautiful glass sculpture in front of the building. Hopefully, I can add a picture of it. We passed a group of buildings that our guide said were low-income housing (but they looked nice). They had a communal garden. He said that there are over 100 communal gardens in the city. Many of the older churches are being either torn down or converted into condos. I guess that church attendance is down and they feel that they can be put to better use. I saw one church that had been torn down. All that was left was the front and the steeple. Then they built a new library.

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