Week 225 · Tour De Food · Vieux-Montréal · Stanley Cup Finals · Ottawa Tulips
Second visit to Montreal this year and a little different when it isn't 10 degrees and we have a local guiding us through their hometown. As usual, most of the time is working — but our hosts attempted a "Tour De Food" night which was cut short because we were way too old to hit that third meal of heavy French food at midnight (with an 8am meeting looming).
Beautiful weather that we viewed from the conference room, but I did get out for a couple of hours on our last night just as the rain was coming in. One stereotype of Montreal is that although it is a bilingual city, locals will not speak English to you — I found that to be untrue on both of my trips here. It was interesting to learn how my co-workers grew up in Montreal and the "streaming" of whether you spoke French or English (or both) — not all family history, but where you lived or the profession of your parent.
The first stop of the Tour De Food was a pork place that served the meal family style — brought out a pig in a big dish (OK, maybe a piglet) with all the trimmings. It was excellent and in a very eclectic place called "Chez Ma Grosse Truie Cherie" or "At My Big Sow Cherie." Second stop was a famous dessert place (which I skipped) and the plan was to proceed to St-Viateur Bagel — but alas we encountered an Irish Pub. We were a little older than most of the clientele and were the only people ordering something besides the special of $5 Bud Light pitchers. Then a bad band started so we were off. The last stop was planned to be a French Restaurant but we were in a near food coma at that point and called it a night.
The next night we had a more formal dinner but there was a hockey game on — Capitals vs Vegas in the finals (the two teams in which I have a rooting interest) — watching with Canadian co-workers who could explain the game. The formal dinner ended rather abruptly at the end of the second period and we went to a hotel next door with a TV in the lounge.
Most Canadians were rooting for the Capitals. The logic: (1) Root for their hometown or childhood team. (2) Root for last Canadian team in the playoffs. (3) Root for the US team with most Canadians on it. Vegas was deemed the more "Canadian team." The Capitals are considered a "Russian team" and because of Olympic hockey history, they hate the Russians. But what they hate more is an expansion team getting to the Stanley Cup finals when there hasn't been a Canadian team in 25 years. So they were #ALLCAPS.
On my last day I was able to walk around Vieux (Old) Montreal and visit the City of Montreal history museum where there was an exhibition on the World Expo 1967. The museum provided some good perspective on the back and forth between the English and the French and why Quebec ended up different from the rest of Canada. Reality is that Toronto and Montreal (and Ottawa) are very different from each other — but closer culturally to New York, Boston, and Washington DC than Calgary.
Montreal hosted Expo 67 — the 1967 World's Fair — which attracted over 50 million visitors and is widely considered the most successful world's fair of the 20th century. It was held on two artificial islands in the St. Lawrence River; the Biosphere (the geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller) remains today. The "language question" in Quebec has deep roots: the British Conquest of 1763 left a French-speaking majority under English political control. The Quiet Revolution of the 1960s modernised Quebec society and energised the sovereigntist movement. Quebec held referendums on independence in 1980 (40% Yes) and 1995 (49.4% Yes) — the 1995 result was one of the closest democratic votes in history. The "streaming" of French vs English speakers by neighbourhood and parental profession reflects the historical separation of the two communities that persisted well into the 20th century.
"Toronto and Montreal are very different from each other — but closer culturally to New York, Boston, and DC than Calgary."