MONTREAL, Quebec - Is This Canada?

We approached Montreal on Wednesday, September 22nd and knew this was not going to be easy.  As English speaking Canadians, we expected that signage, especially highway, signs would be in French with English secondarily.  Nope!  No English.  For a long time on Hwy 20 into Montreal the "Amber Alert" signs declared "Ecouter Hwy 30 - 3.2 metres".  We translated the warning but the "3.2 metres" did not explain, height or width.  If we were expected to be 3.2 metres, we were in big trouble.  Luckily at the last moment the sign showed "<------->"  Whew!

In British Columbia you cannot graduate without Grade 10 level French.  So we do have some knowledge of French words.  How Americans figure it out, we have no idea.  For instance, check this out.

RV's are now VR's.

I thought that a good way to figure out whether someone was French speaking or English speaking would be to say "Hello".  Guess what, French for "Hello" is "Allo".  Solves nothing.  We have heard though that in the big city if you say "Bonjour" they can tell by your bad accent that you are English speaking and they will speak to you in English.  In this park, they are very Anglophone.  In the suburbs, like yesterday when I went grocery shopping (the only way you know it's a grocery store is by looking for the shopping carts), they speak no English.  Fast food usually has numbers to order by.  So throw out a Numero Uno s'il vous plait.

Our daughter Gayle, who lives here in Montreal, and speaks no French took us out to have our first poutine experience.  Poutine is french fries served with cheese curds and whatever else and topped with rich rich gravy.  Not healthly but quite yummy.

And this is our daughter, Gayle.  Doesn't she look French.  Her boyfriend is tri-lingual, English, Estonian and French.  He is trying to teach Gayle French but it's not happening.   You ask...how did Gayle graduate from high school without French.  The short answer is the computer made an error on her final report card and gave her 81% and not 18%.  Ask me sometime for the long story.

Montreal is quite unique in more ways than just the language.  Architecture is quit different to anywhere else in Canada.

These are typical homes.

This afternoon, while I searched out "la toilette" Doug and Gayle toured the huge Mont Royal graveyard.  They took a gazillion photos.  These are the ones I like.

There are going to be a few more blogs about Montreal.  Stay tuned.

                               FINI