Trip to Montreal, Canada - 5th to 6th September 2008

During a big trip to the USA for work, I had to spend the weekend away. Looking around for what to do, an Oasis tour (where they were starting to play their new album) was going on in Canada. Having never been to Canada before, I decided to get on a plane from Philadelphia and go for a look around, as well as to take in the gig. So, I flew to Montreal for a day looking around the city, and an evening watching Oasis.

Landing in Montreal, the first thing you notice is that everything is in French. Of course, I knew that people in Montreal speak French, but to see everything in French, and only sometimes with English underneath, was a bit of a surprise. I had plenty of time to get used to it, as I was stuck in an immigration queue behind a huge planeload of people. Then, when I got to the desk, I was asked an absurd range of questions by the immigration officer. What I was doing, what I was carrying, what I was planning to do for the rest of the day - all very weird. Eventually he put a stamp in my passport and let me go though.

After getting to my hotel and dumping bags, I went out into the city on an absolutely gorgeous day - 30 degrees plus, sunny and really humid and sticky. My image of Canada had generally been that the whole country was white with snow and ice for the whole year, so this was a pleasant surprise - if a bit strange to be in such warm weather. The city itself reminded me of San Francisco in that it has quite a relaxed, almost artistic feeling about it. Compared with the US (and, I hear, Toronto too, which is apparently the serious, businesslike cousin), Montreal is very relaxed - you can drink at 18, nobody IDs you, people smoke spliffs on the street and nobody seems to care, and the nightlife is late and edgy. I saw many eccentric people there, and the city seemed to be a place that encourages such individuality.

The other thing that really strikes you about Montreal is (I suppose not too surprisingly) the clash between French and North American influences. So, the streets are all in blocks, and there are lots of skyscrapers - so far, so North American. But everything is in French, and every so often, you come across a building (usually a church) or street that could very easily be in Paris. The clash of cultures is probably best summed up by the fact that Canadian French (as well as not being much like French French in lots of other ways) has words for pounds, ounces, feet and inches. Parisians would scoff at the abuse of their language and metric system, but it is a good example of how Montreal seems to be stuck between France and the US.

Overall, I really liked Montreal. I wasn't in town for very long, but definitely got the feeling that the city would be a great place to hang around and spend some decent leisure time. I'm really glad I went, the city seems very young, vibrant and artistic. It was difficult to tell if this was a summer thing, and whether everybody hibernates when it gets cold, but I definitely liked what I saw there.