Mes aventures à Montréal

Salut à tous

Greyhound

Before I’ll be reporting from my stay in Montreal I want to spend a few words on the travel to it. I traveled from Toronto to Montreal by Bus. It’s comparable to the “Fernbus” we have in Europe. With Greyhound there were only three major differences. The first two differences were that the WiFi was working and your feet have enough space (That seems to be a thing in America). The third distinction was the way the tickets were issued. Normally you book a seat in a bus and when there are no more seats you can’t book. That’s obviously not the way Greyhound operates. Because they have such a huge amount of buses driving the same route they just hand out tickets for a certain bus. And if there is no more space in that bus you just wait for another one. That’s the reason why I arrived an hour late to Montreal, but that wasn’t really that much a letdown for me. There where only a few waiting with me for the next bus and therefore everybody could ride like we want to ride back in Switzerland: With the seat next to me not occupied by someone else =) The ride was smooth and the bus driver was very helpful when I had to find my connection in Ottawa.

Montreal

This was the first city on my trip so far where I would consider moving to. Compared to Toronto or NYC there are not as much “WOW” moments in Montreal. Most of the things are only good for “Oha nice” moments, like I’m used to in Switzerland. The buildings are tall but not that “WOW”-tall like the One World Trace Center, the streets are busy, but not that “WOW” busy like at Times Square. You might wonder why I would prefer living in Montreal instead?

Well, compared to NYC there are nearly no “WTF” (What The Heck) moments, if something’s strange it’s mostly only on the “mkay” level. When you walk through NYC you spot one after the other “WTF” thing – why would you build it that way and why didn’t they change it yet (My Maturaarbeit was about the spirit of innovation and the urge to improve in the Silicon Valley, clearly that way of thinking didn’t reach all of NYC yet).

If we take the metro for example: In NYC the metro sucks if you are used to Swiss standards. But in Montreal you can see that they were inspired from the French and put some real effort in the planning. The only time I have seen a subway like in Montreal is in Paris, instead of steel wheels they use rubber tires. At first I thought why would you do that, the only obvious advantage would be a shorter breaking path. On the other hand you have a lot more maintenance and a higher energy consumption. But when you look down the track you see the reason. Montreal is hilly, therefore it completely makes sense to use tires with all its drawbacks in order to cut down on construction costs and make the way to the top for the commuters much shorter. I can’t remember having one such “Aha” moment in NYC.

An other thing is that you come across a “real” grocery store downtown. Upon entering you are greeted with fresh vegetables and fruits (I mainly focused on finding some apples =) and not much later you find some bread – real bread, not only toast and bagels – even some baguettes are there to buy. And unlike in New York, the apple didn’t look as perfect but tasted way better – like a real apple.

Where I stayed

Where I stayed too

And again where I stayed

Guess what, I stayed here

Another guess, this is the street where I stayed

Nice grocery store!

Microwave popcorn

Reasonably sized main hall of a train station (compared to Central Station in NYC)

Impressions

But lets leave the NYC bashing behind us and talk a little bit more what Montreal has to offer:

As you may know the language spoken in Montreal is French. Given that I can speak a little bit French I tried to use my knowledge. I tried to understand the first thing said to me in French and ………

wait for it

……… immediately switched to English =). French has yet to become a language I can fluently speak in, but that’s a skill to refine on another journey.

Entering the metro

The one day of heavy raining

Notre Dame, where did they get that name from, I wonder

Notre Dame from the inside

Notre dame from the inside

Park near my apartment

Botanical garden

Apparently one of the top things to do in Montreal, according to the internet, is to visit the botanical garden. The indoor part was nice but not that breathtaking. But with the outdoor part they did a really nice job. The huge outdoor park is sectioned into different themes. In the front you have plants from different regions (Japan, alpine, etc) and the back part is like a forest with different sorts of trees. The first squirrel I saw ended up as a photo model for me because I thought it was something special to see an animal. That was wrong, the park was swarmed with squirrels and even a fox was walking around. I might have missed the best season to walk through that garden but nevertheless I spent some nice hours there.

Catch em all pumpkin

Well known flora

Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve

Another cool thing they have is a racetrack. When there is no race or another event the track is open to the public. It is separated between cars and non motorized travelers. Quite a nice spot to make a few rounds with the bicycle, if you have one.

Me on the racetrack

Biodome near the race track

Mont Royal

As you might have concluded the Mont Royal is the name-giving hill in Montreal. It has some very nice views and tracks to offer, for free. The weather was good and enabled a wide view around the landscape.