I made it to Montreal, Quebec. My first time in Canada. What can I say? It’s cold and there is plenty of snow. What a surprise… My beloved Adidas sneakers (only pair of shoes besides flip flops) weren’t made for the Canadian winter. My toes are frozen stiff most of the time and my favorite sport here is jumping over the not-so-small puddles of melt water you find everywhere in the streets. Which raises an important question: where the hell do those come from at -10 to -20° C?! Mysterious Canada… The more sensible pedestrians wear gumboots which deprives them of the fun to jump their way through the city. Montreal must be the first place I visit where much of the window display of shoe shops is reserved for the wide variety of fashionable gumboots.
One of those shops I saw in the ‘underground city’ which is a large underground complex, mostly shops and food courts, stretching across many blocks and built in the sixties and seventies. It keeps people warm in winter and cool in summer. Pretty convenient.
Besides shoes, underground shops and that karaoke bar I went to (was too sober to sing) there is another reason to visit Montreal: it is one of the friendliest places I have been to in years. People are incredibly friendly to strangers and go out of their way to help you. It makes you feel very welcome here. None of that grumpiness I often criticize Germany for. But it gets better. Montreal is one of the few truly bilingual places I remember to have visited (then again, my memory is short). I might be traumatized by my visits to Paris but approaching a French speaker with English and him/her switching to English with a super-friendly smile feels … well … completely unnatural and almost suspicious to me. Amazing.
These were my first impressions of Montreal. Didn’t take any photos. Party because it gets dark here early, partly because at this time of the year the city looks pretty drab and gray. I would love to come back in summer. Tomorrow I am moving on to Toronto.