Much of this was written in mid-September, forgotten in draft hell, put off for months, and occasionally augmented. I’m not sure it’s perfect yet, but it’s good enough.
A friend and I went to Montreal for four and a half days in September before classes started. My first visit to the city, though with any luck it won’t be the last. Here are some random thoughts collected by the end of the week. Not a proper blog post, but spamming all of this on Twitter would have been excessive. I have pictures; they will make their way to Flickr eventually.
Note that this uses “Montreal” to mean roughly “river to Jean-Talon, Beaudry to Atwater with a T-bias along Ste-Catherine and St-Denis plus Olympic and Expo parks”. Yes, I know.
- Very pretty old town. I’m sure helps that it is out of the way these days, just off downtown, by the river, a perfect place to trap and milk tourists. But it is pretty, and despite the occasional horse shit smell (and I say that as appreciatively as possible), it is very nice to walk around in even as a stingy student not at all intent on $50 meals or $100 art pieces.
- Less of a waterfront; they try, and I haven’t seen all of it, but the part beside old town is held back by being in active use more recently and the correspondingly higher piers. The stretch along Lachine Canal is nice, but nothing extraordinary. Perhaps I’ve looked in the wrong places, but I didn’t see anything on the level of Harbourfront.
- Very interesting culture on the streets, at least downtown. I observed and thought so much, this had to be split out into a separate post which is coming shortly. For now, suffice to say Montreal seemed nothing short of amazing.
- This might be more generally a large-city thing, but it seemed like there were a lot of people out and about around us. I don’t think I’ve seen that much in Toronto, let alone Waterloo. Ste-Catherine Ouest is a delight around the clock (or at least between noon and midnight), and we had curious experiences like the Métro being positively clogged on a weekday at noon for some random reason (admittedly around Berri, but nevertheless).
- The local bilingualism can only be described as a uniquely Montrealian mix of pure awesomeness, hilarity, and adorableness. Officially, the language is French; in addition to French, the city also has a lot of English history. This leads to such charming street names as rue Bishop and rue Peel, to say nothing of rue City Councillors.
- Just to confirm we are in Montreal, there is a Square Victoria, named after the queen, lending its name to Station Square-Victoria on the Montreal metro, name announced with stress on last syllables, with one of the entrances adorned by a Paris Métro staircase.
- We went to see a concert; confusion about availability of doors tickets was only exacerbated when one of the bouncers spoke to us in French. (Success in not looking like obvious tourists!) I replied in English (a possibly rude but, as I’ve learned by then, definitely viable strategy), and he switched to perfectly fine English; we got in. A pair of girls behind us spoke to the bouncer in French; once in, they talked English to each other.
- Perhaps it’s just a case of grass being greener on the other side, but the universities seem so pretty. On a late summer day, McGill’s quad (with trees!) surrounded by university buildings (but not overbuilt!) and city skyscrapers beyond looked lovely. Université de Montréal is on the wrong side of the mountain, but apart from that, it enjoys awesome views of north Montreal and some amazing sunsets. Coming back was a struggle.
- As an aside, I am pretty sure whichever building houses the anthropology department at Université de Montréal has only one exit and it is the one we walked in through. Eventually we had to retrace our steps back out through the law building. We found another exit which, as far I could tell, was marked as “will sound alarm if opened between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.” It wasn’t 11 p.m., but I wasn’t quite prepared to test my French knowledge. (t)
- I apologize, but as I saw it, the underground city has nothing on PATH. It might be longer in total, but the gaps and the missing connections make the much needed northwest PATH exit out of Union chill out and take a vacation on Gran Canaria and the Dundas-to-Bloor gap look like one of the many cracks in the Berkeley Stadium. Of course this is partially since the development downtown is older, but still.
- The semi-enclosed mall along St-Hubert has at least 15 bridal stores along four blocks of storefronts. Not quite sure why. Also featured: creepy dolls, very ’80s–looking decor. (t)
- Honoré-Beaugrand, Angrignon, Côte-Vertu, and Montmorency all have meanings now. Snowdon and Saint-Michel somewhat less so. Longueuil–Université-de-Sherbrooke even less so, because who wants to go there anyway? (I kid. The Expo islands are nice. The casino is massive.)
- Of course Line 3 doesn’t exist.
- The subway trains were noticeably narrower at first, but I got used to them pretty fast. On rubber, there is no squeal/whine while turning, and perhaps accordingly the lines do have more turns. I found the trains surprisingly loud anyway – I think it’s whatever they are using for a ventilation system. Also, surprisingly bumpy.
- STM got their buses spec’d with narrow doors. Why? No idea.
- The Biosphere has a major hard-on for Buckminster Fuller (even accounting for the fact he designed the thing), and features a massive greenwashing theme.
- The Olympic Stadium Tower was built on an angle which takes away best view onto downtown. I realize viewsighting wasn’t the first priority, and I guess it was already enough of a disaster without trying to accommodate photo-hungry tourists like moi. (t)
- Seeing the RF transit pass card (OPUS) in use was more than enough to convince me to shell out $3.50 for one. Beeping through the turnstiles by placing wallet on top was more than worth it. TTC, please get on this.
- Cross-platform transfers are pretty cool (hello, Lionel-Groulx). Ending up on the wrong side of a cross-platform transfer is somewhat less cool (hello, UdeM to downtown via Snowdon).
- Amazing weather all the way through. This was mostly luck, but the first time it got cloudy was the morning we were about to leave. I gambled and didn’t take anything heavier than a t-shirt; it paid well off.
