Montreal was the first stop on my cross-country tour. We went to see Geoff get ordained, so I got to experience the actual religious versions of all the Quebec swearing. Before, I didn’t know that the “‘ostie” tacked on the end of every sentence when a person from Quebec gets emotional was referring to little flour wafers, but Geoff had a little tub of hosties and they taste pretty good. Crisse, chalice tabarnac ‘ostie!!!

In general, it was interesting to see the issues with language that are prevalent in Quebec. Here, language is something that requires no thought; it’s a safe assumption that everyone speaks and approves of English. There, every greeting requires a guess as to whether one should say “hello”, “bonjour”, “hellobonjour”, or “bonjourhello”. Sure, everyone will probably understand any of them, but the language one starts with will colour the first impression given off, and there is always uncertainty over whether the other person will understand. I often felt a bit bad starting with English, but I don’t know if starting with mangled French would be any better (P.S. Education system: you failed me. Thanks for nothing. Sarcramant!)

The city has its own feel to it, with the unique houses with the stairs on the outside and the “mountain” always giving a sense of direction. The subway system is great. It felt almost like a teleportation system; get in the subway station, wait a while, and pop up in a completely different part of the city.

We went to two different bars that made their own beer – one was Brutopia and I forget the other one. Both were delicious and I wish they shipped their beer outside of the bar. Like to my house. Montreal is also famous for its bagels, and those did not disappoint.

Montreal is an awesome city, and I’m looking forward to going back. There is so much to see there that I didn’t, like the people who beat each other up with fake weapons while wearing duct tape every Sunday, and I didn’t stop by to see my entire family that lives there. Next time.