Love Frankie
We went to Montreal for the first time – at least for me – last week. It’s a gorgeous city. I liked the idea of a European-style city that I could drive to. And Montreal delivered. And the bonus: no awkward body searches or dry mouth on a long, crowded flight!
If you’ve never been to Montreal, I’d suggest adding it to your travel list. Canada is easy to visit (although I believe the documentation required to enter the country will change in 2007 and 2008), it’s just to the north and I have it on good authority that Canadians are pretty polite.
Montreal was great – we could get all the stuff we loved in Paris: delicious food, quaint old buildings, a sense of history, a walkable city, and a good time. Montreal is different: more English, people seemed a little more polite and friendly, and fewer incidents of dodging dog poo on the sidewalks.
I spoke French without problem, but I will admit that I had a slightly tougher time understanding some of my French-Canadian brethren – they truncate words and pronounce things a little differently. And since my French is more than a bit rusty I had a few moments of struggle. But we could always switch to English without incident – which is good for my husband because you don’t want to have a language barrier between him and a giant plate of chocolate croissants.
I wish I could tell you that we had a very exciting vacation and that I had a million great stories to share. I don’t really – we had a tremendously relaxing time and we walked miles and miles all around town every day. We ate like kings, slept like babies, read books, took in the city and the parks and enjoyed the great weather.
Then we drove home to be reminded that it was move-in weekend: the weekend when students return to the Boston-area for school. Moving vans, cars with out of state plates were everywhere and we spent some quality time cursing our stupidity and zigging around people who had no idea where they were going.
Just like dumb American tourists in one of Canada’s greatest cities.
Idiots.
We went to Montreal for the first time – at least for me – last week. It’s a gorgeous city. I liked the idea of a European-style city that I could drive to. And Montreal delivered. And the bonus: no awkward body searches or dry mouth on a long, crowded flight!
If you’ve never been to Montreal, I’d suggest adding it to your travel list. Canada is easy to visit (although I believe the documentation required to enter the country will change in 2007 and 2008), it’s just to the north and I have it on good authority that Canadians are pretty polite.
Montreal was great – we could get all the stuff we loved in Paris: delicious food, quaint old buildings, a sense of history, a walkable city, and a good time. Montreal is different: more English, people seemed a little more polite and friendly, and fewer incidents of dodging dog poo on the sidewalks.
I spoke French without problem, but I will admit that I had a slightly tougher time understanding some of my French-Canadian brethren – they truncate words and pronounce things a little differently. And since my French is more than a bit rusty I had a few moments of struggle. But we could always switch to English without incident – which is good for my husband because you don’t want to have a language barrier between him and a giant plate of chocolate croissants.
I wish I could tell you that we had a very exciting vacation and that I had a million great stories to share. I don’t really – we had a tremendously relaxing time and we walked miles and miles all around town every day. We ate like kings, slept like babies, read books, took in the city and the parks and enjoyed the great weather.
Then we drove home to be reminded that it was move-in weekend: the weekend when students return to the Boston-area for school. Moving vans, cars with out of state plates were everywhere and we spent some quality time cursing our stupidity and zigging around people who had no idea where they were going.
Just like dumb American tourists in one of Canada’s greatest cities.
Idiots.
Labels: 2006
3 Comments:
Congrats on your award, and on your new masthead. Lovely stuff.
Thanks!
If you liked Montreal, you should go to Quebec City as well. Even more concentrated Frenchness and je ne sais quois - but with enough people who speak English that I didn't have trouble (and every single time my wife, who does speak French, started speaking in French, the other person changed to English).
We stayed in one of the small hotels around the Jardin des Gouverneurs - nice and quiet and quaint and two blocks from pretty much everything.
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