LeeCash.net Will write for food

Day 2 – 5 : Montréal – “Parlez-vous free wifi?”By Lee

We wake and check email. Things are looking up in the writing world as I receive an interesting offer for ongoing writing work with favourable terms. I decide to mail the guy back after I’ve soaked in some of Montréal. After all, the trip comes first — securing employment over the three months while away from home was always going to be viewed as something of a bonus.

We spend the next four days rambling through the city with no real plan or design other than proving that our Lonely Planet guide is as opaque and dated as it is heavy. We take in the sights and get a feel for the place quickly coming to the conclusion that Montréal is truly a beautiful city on many levels.

A marriage of old and new, Montréal’s French heritage is acutely on display from the Gothic architecture that appears to erupt from every corner to its inhabitants and their decidedly European outlook on life.

Montréal is a clean city and a spacious one at that; a smattering of modern sky rises incongruously standing right next to Old World churches. Hidden in between these giant curved stone structures are secluded groves where Montréaleans gather and talk, and drink coffee, and smoke their brains out. Obviously some of the idiosyncrasies from the Old Country having made the oceanic leap. The passion for food and culture, the laid back attitude toward what is and what is not important in life, and yes, the smoking. It’s everywhere.

Bienvenue au France! Actually, it's Montreal

Montréal is a wonderfully painted city. While some towns invest millions doggedly scrubbing graffiti off buildings and walls, Montréal’s city officials prefer to commission giant murals to adorn the side of every building, bridge and thoroughfare. Such a progressive approach: being patrons of a sub-culture rather than subverting it, shows just how forward-thinking and in touch the city is with its people. In fact, it’s clear that Montréal and Montréaleans are in perfect sync and go to great effort to compliment one another. Just as its walls are decorated with fanciful designs and intricate glyphs, the people of Montréal have mirrored this passion with an almost obsessive attitude to body art. I have never seen so many tattooed people in one area in my life. And not just the young. Everyone is tattooed. It’s almost like a right of passage.

During the short stay in the city we walk the streets from early morning to late at night. Depending on what time we’re a-rambling, the experience of Montréal can be stark opposites. Just before 9 a.m., the quietness of the city’s deserted streets is almost startling. Dead to the world, Montréal’s inhabitants are either sound asleep or still underground quite content to continue with the previous night’s hedonism. Come dusk, however, and the streets transform into busier and subversive versions of their daytime counterparts. It’s as if the city folk have some sort of aversion towards sunlight, cultural vampires who only operate in the shadows of their own Notre Dame. Montréaleans like to party, to live, to talk and to exist in the moment, and they’re not shy about showing it.

Best. Cafe. Ever.

We confine ourselves to the Vieux Port (Old Port), the lush and plentiful parks pocketed in the lee of towering buildings and in Old Montréal itself with its quaint cobblestone streets and winding paths. Montreal’s diversity is not restricted to just a moiety of old and new, however, but a heady fusion of east and west. Embedded into the very fabric of its streets are bustling pockets of foreign and diverse cultures witnessed in the abundance of different cuisines, languages and cultural iconography on display. From Chinatown to Little Italy — the list of ethnicities who have claimed Montréal as their own is remarkable.

There is a thriving Jewish neighbourhood along with Vietnamese and other Asian communities around every corner assaulting visitors with a myriad of aesthetics and curiosities. Montréal is the epitome of multi-culturism and how contrasting belief systems and customs can come together and birth a city of balance and beauty.

With this level of diversity it’s no surprise to learn that Montréal is also the gayest city in North America with more gay and lesbian people calling the city home per capita than anywhere else on the continent (including San Francisco). So if you’re looking for some same-sex lovin’ (and perhaps have a penchant for the French language) you owe it to yourself to see Montréal and its thriving gay scene.

The murals are everywhere

In our short stay we take in a number of parks including Mount Royal, a sprawling and elevated area designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the same architect who designed Central Park in New York. It’s a wonderful place full of joggers, picnicers and people seeking refuge from the urbanity that encompasses it.

We dine at numerous restaurants from Ghandi, an Indian – obviously – where I manage to have my second “Oh shit, I’ve ordered something that very well be the death of me” moment (after Prague’s spicy orange chicken debacle) to tucking in to a delicious General Tao at a Vietnamese restaurant literally a stone’s throw from the hotel. Delicious food made all the better from the free show unfolding beside us. We spy a couple who look a tad on edge in each other’s company and I quickly realise what’s unfolding: a first date and, as first dates go, this is a train-wreck.

I start to mentally write an article entitled “Top 5 things not to mention on a first date” and decide that the topics of politics, ex-relationships, religion, how the pair of you would make “good looking babies” and that you once dated a girl but broke it off because “dwarfism ran in her family” and, you know, you “just can’t handle dwarves” all make this imaginary list. They’re a little ahead of us in terms of ordering and leave before we finish but I’m quietly confident there will be no good looking babies (with your great skin and my awesome curly hair) being created that night. By the look on the girl’s face as she politely thanks the staff and frantically searches for the friend we covertly saw her calling while Don Juan went to the bathroom to check his great (and curly) hair, this mythical child of permed goodness will likely never be.

Montréal has a lot more going for it than its quaint pseudo-euro sensibilities, floral recreation areas and schismatic architecture. At its heart, it’s Montréal’s people that make it so pleasant – cheesy lotharios included. Thankfully it’s not that flavour of faux-friendliness that any wily tourist can see right through. At Titanic, a rustic open-kitchen underground bistro, the wifi is as free as the chatter with genuine and laid-back candour. St. Denis street, a bohemian stretch of coffee and blues bars with seemingly more people outside soaking up the nightlife than in, needs to be experienced to be believed. A riotous mix of merrymaking and a meeting of the minds, you get the feeling that Montréal has inadvertently created a perfect commune. In fact, you can’t imagine crime in Montréal at all though it surely happens. Maybe two people might get into a fracas when they discover they have the same tattoo only for things to quickly turn into an all night drinking session with a new best friend.

It’s not all roman orgies and joviality in Montréal. There’s a homeless issue (like all Canadian cities apparently) but even the habitually challenged are more cultured than your typical mendicant. Begging in both languages, they politely inform you that they “Need some change for a beer or two” rather than the trite and transparent “I need a coffee” routine. Like Obama, one bearded ruffian exclaims “I want change.” I believe him but have none. “No problem Monsieur,” he replies, far too jovial for what his current living situation suggests.

I’ll miss Montréal for its character and how a city can balance so many diverse yet complimentary cultures and ideas. A great place to start the trip, I hope I’ll get to see Montréal again one day. If anything for the Chocolate Mojitos.

Finally, a note on Montréal swearing. A strong Catholic town, the majority of their curse words have religious origins. “Tabarnac!” (from Tabernacle), which I believe is the equivalent to our “Bollocks!”, can be heard wafting occasionally from the subterranean drinking spots. Or you could just buy a t-shirt in Old Montréal with it proudly emblazoned across the front before casually wandering down to the harbour to avail of the free wifi as Montréal continues to pulse and evolve around you.

Tags: Trip