My first swim in Canada

I'm a keen swimmer. But that doesn't mean the same thing in North America as it does in the UK, or even to everyone back home, so I better explain - I love to go to the swimming pool, cruise up and down at my own pace and let my mind wander. If I'm feeling particularly indulgant I might even relax in the jacuzzi (spa/hottub) or steam room afterwards. I'm not a competitive swimmer and have no interest in lap times or personal bests. For me, it's a pleasant thing to do that has the happy side effect of giving me some regular exercise.

Which is why it's really sad that I haven't been swimming in Montréal since I moved here 9 months ago. The thing is, in Canada, it's not so easy to just "go swimming". In the UK, the normal way to go swimming is to turn up at a public pool, at pretty much any time you like (save for a few swimming classes or women only sessions when it is not available), pay a few pounds admission, and go swimming.
"Public" pools that aren't publicly accessible

In Canada, it doesn't work like that. Almost every pool (including the numerous "public" pools provided by the city), require memberships fees - usually around $50 (£30) a month, plus a similar joining fee, after which you can have general access at most hours. If you want to keep yourself "unaligned" to any particular pool, then you can come during the pool's "public" hours.. Typically 1-3 hours each day are assigned as open to all (all Montréal residents that is). And during that time it's free to swim. The catch? These "free" hours are not particularly convenient. At the downtown YMCA where we went today, the free hours are 2.30pm-4pm and 8.30pm-10pm. ie no use at all if you want to swim (a) before work, (b) at lunchtime or (c) after work. Canada, your swimming system sucks!

But, unperturbed, Mrs Alex and I turned up for our swim at 8.30pm this evening at the Downtown YMCA (after an interesting lecture at the Goethe Institut commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall). I should add that in North America, YMCAs are not just youth hostels but also community centres and sports facilities, and you can even take adult education classes there.

Compulsory headgear
Our swim was a very different experience from swimming in the UK. First of all, you have to wear a swimcap. Which I've never worn before (well, except for the one I glued a wig to for my Rocky Horror costume a couple of weeks back!). Mrs Alex found us some cheap ones but they were very painful and kept pulling my hair. Not fun. And we had to buy padlocks, you can't just stick a coin in the locker. Which meant remember 7 different numbers - 3 numbers for the lock combination, 3 numbers for the entrance to the changing room, plus my locker number. Great. Just what I need when I'm trying to relax. On the bright side (for the other swimmers) French Canada hasn't adopted the French rule of "Speedo's only" (no swimming shorts).

A disappointing experience

I don't know if the YMCA pools are typical of Canadian public pools but I was definitely underwhelmed by the experience. The changing room had no benches or hooks for getting changed. When we got into the pool area it was rather clinical. The pool was surrounded by breezeblock walls painted in a spartan hospital white. Still, the water was the right temperature (cool but not cold), and was clear and clean. While we swam, three college-age lifeguards in red shirts were playing hoopla with some life-saving poles and rubber doughnuts. Not terribly professional, but harmless enough. After we'd done our lengths we tried the jacuzzi, which was nice enough but a little odd, being open on one side to a medium-sized warmish rectangular pool rather than being self-contained. Heading back out, I noticed more changing room deficiencies as well as the lack of hooks - there were only three showers - unsurprisingly all full due to the constrained opening hours. When I got into the shower the curtain and wooden bench were mouldy. I also noticed that the area by the lockers had carpet! Not useful when you have wet swimming shorts and nowhere to put them.

Overall, it was great to get back in the water. But I'm sad I can't easily establish a routine like I had in the UK where I went for a swim before or after work 2 or 3 times a week. I found it a great way to start the day and I do some of my best creative thinking while swimming. I don't want to pay to join a specific pool (or if I do, I want a significantly higher standard than this!). I had a look for other options on my local borough's site - but nothing quite seems to fit the bill.

My quest for a local, affordable, well-equipped pool continues. I hope it's not another 9 months before I find one.

Posted via email from Bowyer's Bite-size Blogettes

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Vive la différence!

Surprising and not-so-surprising differences between life in the UK & Canada

On the whole, life in Canada is pretty similar to life in the UK. That was possibly the biggest surprise. Nonetheless, after our first month here we've noticed various things which are definitely different from what we were used to back home - some have a big effect and some are just minor differences which you may find interesting. So without further ado, here are 10 things that I've found different living in Canada.

1. Groceries and Food

I always thought that with the combination of American mass-market economics and the French food-loving influence, that it would be easy to buy groceries affordably and cheaply here. It was a big surprise to find out that the price of groceries here is somewhat extortionate! For example, a pack of 3 peppers (capsicums) (which works out cheaper than buying them loose) is $4.99 (just under £3) meaning they are about £1 each - twice the price they are in the UK. And cheese is horrendously expensive, varying between $20-$40 a kilogram (£11-£22) meaning a 250g block of cheese similar to those you might buy at home for under £2 will set you back more like £4 here. And that's for basic cheddar. If you want some nice French cheeses it's a lot more.
Another thing that's disappointing is the quality of the food, the fruit and veg is often tired and doesn't keep more than a couple of days. Carrots, Potatoes and Onions I've noticed in particular seem to keep an age at home, but here they are spoiled within a week. It is possible to find some foods cheaper here - and it is cheaper when you eat out, especially quick snacks and fast food. But it seems if you want to eat well and cook nice meals, you have to pay through the nose for it.

I am not sure why groceries cost so much more here, perhaps it's because everything is covered in ice in the winter so food has to be imported from the US (although Canada's agriculture sector seems healthy). Or maybe it's not that it's expensive here, but that EU food subsidies make it cheaper in the UK. Or maybe it's just the effects of the downturn.

Another surprise about the food here is the lack of a "Canadian" cuisine as such. People say, what is the food like in Canada, sadly the answer is, like everywhere else. You can go to a French restaurant and have French food or a steakhouse or diner and have more typically North American food - or you can have any other world cuisine - Thai, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, Sushi/Japanese, Irish/English pub food, it's all here (although I haven't seen a fish and chip shop yet!)

But apart from a love of maple syrup (they even put it in baked beans!) and a few novelty things like Poutine (chips, cheese curd and gravy - a dish which seems more like it's from Yorkshire than Quebec!) there doesn't seem to be a Canadian style of food or any Canadian restaurants, which is a disappointment.

2. Apartments and Rent

Some things are cheaper, some are more expensive, and the good news is, rent and utilities are much cheaper here! We were amazed when we looked at lots of apartments around Montréal just how much space you can get for your money.

We saw huge 2 or 3 bedroom apartments with massive lounges and hallways, even balconies, for under £800. Our apartment is bigger than the ground floor of our house back home, yet it's only $690 (£387) including bills (electricity or "hydro" as it's called here, gas, and heating - water is paid from local taxes) ! Admittedly it's a less desirable area but considering we are in a city bigger than London (in size although not population) you would expect to pay a lot more. Interestingly, we have some friends here from the Dominican Republic who were finding the houses here are really small - so I guess everything is relative!

I suppose we will just have to get used to a different breakdown with our outgoings - more on food but less on the house!

The construction of the houses is different here too. Many houses are wood with a brick frontage - meaning we have been kept awake by noisy neighbours through the paperthin walls on more than one occasion. "Concrete construction" is a selling point specifically mentioned in property ads! Also, hardwood floors, not carpets, are the norm.

Another difference is apartment buildings here. If ours is typical, they all have a live-in janitor who clears the path, takes the bins out, does maintenance, collects rent and other matters. Ours is a Russian guy called Yuri. They also have a laundry room which means no need to buy a washer and dryer for every apartment. Although there can be some competition at the weekend. It's a good idea though - that I have not seen in England. Having a janitor is handy too and it means that there's always someone there if you have a problem.

3. Living with snow and ice

The scale of the snow and ice in the winter here was a big surprise. I knew there'd be a lot of snow but I didn't picture 10 foot piles of snow by roadsides, or sheet ice across pavements(sidewalks) and people still walking on them as normal. I didn't expect the massive industrial scale snow haulage operation with snowploughs pushing it to piles at the sides then machines that suck up snow and drive it away in trucks and dump it. And I certainly didn't expect to see what I saw the other day - a man clearing the snow off his lawn with an axe! The thing is that snow stays around here for a long time. So the bits underneath get frozen solid into blocks of ice. Most of the surface snow has melted now as we approach the spring - but there are many lawns still covered with compacted ice. It seems if you want to shift snow, you have to do it while it's fresh! It's amazing how quickly you get used to it though - a matter of days for us.

The most impressive thing about all this snow though is that life goes on. The "20 year snowfall" that brought the UK to a standstill in February was nothing compared to weekly snowfalls in winter here. People dig their cars out and clear their drives (if they're not already covered with special "Tempo" driveway covers) and go about their business as normal. I don't imagine that "snowed in" is a phrase that gets used here, although - given some of the photos I found online, like this one to the left, maybe it does. Well, I don't think it gets used much in the city anyway!

4. The Banking System

Another thing that surprised me is how different the banking system is. The photo on the right shows my Canadian HSBC card on top and my UK HSBC card below (with some details blurred out). You can see that the Canadian cards don't even have your name on, are not part of any international card networks such as Maestro or Cirrus, do not have chips and do not function as cheque guarantee cards. There is a Canadian equivalent of Switch called Interac, but it is not well known or understood - you often have to say that you'd like to pay with "debit card" rather than Interac. And there's no chip and PIN. There is swipe and PIN - although it's a bit random, sometimes you get asked to sign instead.

We found it easy enough to set up a bank account, but found that in Canada you have to pay for a bank account - around $12 a month! We've resorted to having just one account instead of individual accounts and a bank account. And if we want a cheque book, we have to pay $28! So far, we've resisted on principle. Although it does mean we have to withdraw our rent as cash (over 2 days since it crosses our $400 daily limit). Oh, and withdrawing cash is fun too. If we don't use HSBC, Bank of Montreal or National Bank ATMs, we get charged $1.50 for the withdrawal.. from both our bank and the ATM's bank! They should abolish these charges like we did in the UK a few years back.

We had more fun and games when it came to setting up automatic bill payments. In the UK we have a great system called Direct Debit, which offers guarantees, allows you to see the payments you have set up via your online banking, and is easily set up with any company by just giving them your sort code and account number.

It's not so simple here. There is this scheme called "pre authorised debit" which basically allows the company to take a payment from your card each month without you having to authorise it. Unlike direct debit, the payment is not guaranteed, and if it bounces, you get charged by the bank, and the company, and you get a bad credit rating! So you are expected to know how much you will be charged (even for variable things like phone bills) and make sure the money is there. Not ideal.

To set one of these up they need the "transit code" and account number. There are two differences here. One is that accounts have two parts - the base account number and the last three digits which identify if you want the "chequing" or "saving" part of the account. Savings account seems to be an entirely pointless additional feature where you pay $5 every time you get money out of it, but you can earn interest at about 0.005% (not kidding!). Why anyone would want to use that I don't know. But you have to select Chq every time you enter your PIN on an ATM or card payment. Anyway, I digress. Once you have your account number you also need the transit code (a bit like sort code). But this is where things break down, because people don't understand transit codes or even agree on what they are. The number has two parts, the institution number - for example 016 is HSBC Canada - and the branch number. HSBC told me their branch code was 0001. I tried to use all this combined information to set up payments with my ISP, but they couldn't get the number to accept. They said what they needed was a cheque from the bank, which has all the numbers printed along the bottom. I went to the bank and got some blank (cancelled) cheques printed. Turns out reading the number on the bottom that the branch code was actually 10001. The branch don't even know their own code, so what hope do the general public have! Employers also need these blank cheques, so it seems that nobody trusts the numbering scheme and insist on seeing a cheque. Not very satisfactory at all!

Also, we wanted a Canadian credit card (since some companies don't like international ones!). Even though I've been with HSBC UK for over 15 years, apparently I have no credit history with HSBC Canada and am ineligible for a credit card. Despite HSBC International assuring me otherwise.

So there you have it, the wonderful Canadian banking system. My friend Paul assures me it's just as bad in the USA - apparently an electronic transfer consists of somebody at the bank printing a cheque and mailing it across the country!

5. The phone system

Sadly the phone system is not much better than the banking system. I have managed to rack up over $300 in phone charges in the first month, partly because it's very expensive, and partly due to me just not understanding the system because it's so different. In the US & Canada, both caller and recipient pay for every call. The caller pays to connect to your local exchange (in my case the Montréal 514 area code) and then the recipient pays to connect from the local exchange to your phone. So that means that every call you receive is charged to you as a local call - or if you are away from home - every call is charged to you as a long distance or international call!

I was completely caught out because my package only included 100 daytime minutes - but that covers making and receiving calls. Also I bought myself a calling card (where you dial a local or freephone number and then your number) to make my calls cheaper to the UK. What I unfortunately failed to realise is that I was still paying for these calls from my mobile company as well. Turns out they are no use with a mobile. I actually asked my mobile company what they recommend for international calls. They basically said, don't use a mobile phone. So now I have set up Sipgate VOIP to use on my Nokia over wi-fi and also via the X-Lite desktop client, at least I can send and receive calls to the UK a bit more cheaply now.

It's been quite difficult though, because they offer unlimited calls at evenings (after 7pm) and weekends - but when you need to either call Canadian businesses, or to the UK which is 4/5 hours later - this is not much help. Daytime minutes is what I need. I managed to buy a package which gives me 350 minutes instead of a hundred, but it's still not ideal. They offer all sorts of other bundles which "save you money" but you have to pay for them. $5 if you want your evening discounts to start at 5pm not 7pm. $10 for voicemail and caller display (oh and if you don't like that, tough, because they block call forwarding to other voicemail services - as I found out when I tried to set up SpinVox). So now I have no voicemail, because I can't justify paying for it. Great. $10 for "unlimited call receiving" (I have to pay for that?!). $7 for making international text messages affordable. And so it goes on. I'm looking at a package of around $80 a month to get what I need, and that's without voicemail. The only good things are the fact that you are not tied into a contract (if you have your own phone and buy just the SIM) and also the data service - 1Gig for $30 - having web access on my phone (and Google Maps) has been a godsend. More on that in a future post.

6. Opening hours and consumer power

Opening hours are different in every country, but we've noticed some big differences here. Like most cities, many shops and services in the centre are open into the evening, especially on Thursdays and Fridays where opening hours are sometimes as late as 10pm. Pubs and bars don't seem to be subject to much restriction on their opening - as is the case in the UK now too of course.

One thing that really surprised us though is that everything closes at 5pm on a Saturday! Imagine it's Saturday night, you want to pick up a few beers or a bottle of wine. Well here, you can't - even the off licences (the state-owned SAQ) close at 5pm.
On the other hand, on Saturdays and Sundays, some supermarkets are open from 8am to 10pm! And post offices, very sensibly, are open until 9pm every weekday. None of this rushing to the post office before work!

While I'm on the subject of shops, something that I have noticed that seems different from the UK, is that manufacturers and businesses don't seem to have responded to consumer demands as much as in the UK - or maybe consumers just aren't as demanding as in Europe? For example, recycling is here but has not permeated society to the same extent as in the UK (sadly there doesn't seem to be any recycling in our borough). Another example, it is very hard to buy free range eggs or free range chickens here. When you do see them, they are very expensive. There doesn't seem to be the same demands upon food manufacturers to label everything, make things from healthy ingredients, and be honest about what's in the product.

I also get the impression that if you have a problem with a service or product, that your rights are not as great or as recognised as we enjoy in the UK. It's not like the US with stores having real jobsworth attitudes about entitlements and regulations, or checking receipts - but there seems to be a difference. I don't have a lot of evidence for this impression yet - so I am prepared to change my mind, I may be wrong!

7. Friendly people

Canadian Bus Driver

This leads me on nicely to one of the best differences about Canada. People are incredibly friendly here - more than America, more even than Australia. On more than one occasion when we've stopped in the street and looked lost, someone has jumped in and asked us where we're looking for and if they can help. I'm not so sure that would happen in London. On the bus, if you're not quite sure when to get off and the bus driver sees you looking hesitant, he'll be sure to clearly shout out what each stop is. And if you ask for a specific location as you get on, he'll shout out and remind you when that stop comes around as well.

Strangers talk to each other! This is very novel coming from England where we are very private by comparison. We've had some great conversations with other citizens, on buses & metros, in bus stops and in shops, people will readily strike up a conversation or share a comment or observation with strangers. People are very polite too, for example waiting in neat lines and respecting order of arrival at bus stops.

It's nice to see that one aspect of US culture that hasn't seeped through is the strictness and jobsworth attitudes you sometimes see in stores or establishments there. People are willing to bend the rules, such as rounding down in the customer's favour when paying cash. Another example - when I went to my mobile phone company's store to give them our address, I was able to have them update my wife's account as well, without any ID for her at all. Now that is bending the rules to an extent I haven't seen in the US let alone in the UK!

8. Advertising in Montréal

There's a few things different about the advertising in Montréal. Firstly it's all in French, as I mentioned in my last post, this is required by law. This has actually proved really useful though as I am exposed to French daily. I carry a small French dictionary and look up words I don't know, so I can increase my vocab every day. They also have a great advertising/electronic information system on the Metro trains. It doesn't just tell you abou the next station and what buses you can connect with, but has lots of adverts and info - not just commercial ones but also information about events that are coming up, thought provoking quotes, interesting facts and all sorts. One of the most interesting advertising campaigns I've noticed around Montréal is the one I've shown to the right. Here is a translation:

A Montréaler. That's someone who stays in Montréal.

Montréal - A life close to everything.

It seems that the city is trying to fight the trend where more and more people are moving to the so called "North Shore" and "South Shore" - basically on the banks of the river rather than on the island of Montréal - and commuting to the city from there. I saw another sign which was even more designed to to influence people's thinking, "Don't put a bridge between you and your children. Live in Montréal. " These signs are everywhere around the metro and around the city. I'm not sure if it will work, but it's interesting.

9. Cars and driving

A Montréal police car.

One surprising thing about cars here is that they don't have numberplates on the front. I think it's the only city in the world where I've seen that! I'm not sure if this fact is related, but I haven't seen any speed cameras yet either...

I haven't driven in Montréal yet, but one difference I've noticed on foot is how easy it is to cross the road. More than any country in the world, cars stop for pedestrians. You just have to stand by the side of the road and traffic will come to a stop for you. You can even step out into the road and the cars will stop for you and patiently let you pass - I've never seen anything like it.

10. Measurements

Measurement

Another interesting difference in Canada is the way things are measured. I know we have a weird combination of metric and imperial in the UK, well due to their mix of French and US influences the Canadians have a very strange mix too! Let me explain:

• Weather temperatures are measured in Celsius, but for cooking Fahrenheit is often used.
  
• Distances are measured in kilometres, but floor areas are measured in square feet, and land in acres.
  
• Heights of people are measured in feet and inches, and people's weights are measured in pounds.
  
• Food is sold in grams and kilograms, but in quantities equivalent to imperial units - for example you would buy a 454 gram pack of butter.
  
• Nails have their length measured in inches but the weight of the box measured in grams.
  
• Drinks come in pints and petrol(gas) comes in litres. (At least they got that one right!!)

It all keeps you on your toes, that's for sure. You can read more here. Apparently in 2005 the Ontario government reintroduced teaching of the imperial system because people were graduating unable to use imperial measurements at work!

Well there you have it, that's the differences I've noticed so far between life in the UK and life in Canada. Nothing major, but it's the differences that make living abroad all the more interesting!

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Living in bilingual city

"One man's fish is another man's poisson"

One of the things that has been particularly fascinating to me since arriving here is the way that language is used here in Montréal. It is the first time I have lived somewhere truly bilingual. Canada is officially a bilingual country, but Québec is an entirely French province. Some parts, like Québec City, have little difference from France. Montréal though has a fascinating mix of "Anglo" and French, along with many other nationalities, Jamaican and Arabic being some of the most prevalent. It even varies between parts of the city. Notre-Dame-de-Grace, where we live, is a very Anglo area, as are most parts West and South of the mountain. On the other hand, the Plateau, Outremont, and areas East and North of Mont Royal tend to be more French.

On first impressions, you would think that you were surrounded by French speakers, because all the signs, billboards, store fronts and even announcements on the Metro are in French. Most stores and businesses have different names here - Kentucky Fried Chicken is branded here as PFK (Poulet Frit de Kentucky) and Staples is Bureau en Gros (literally "Office Wholesale"). Business owners and restauranteurs will often greet you in French, and when you attempt to respond in French, they will continue to converse with you in French. And this isn't surprising since 70% of the population speak French as their first language.

Arret!
Uploaded to Flickr by caribb

But this is by no means the end of the story. It turns out that the reason everything is in French is because it is legally enforced to be that way. The Charter of the French Language was brought in by the Québec government in 1977 to enforce that all signage and information presented to the public shall be in French, or predominantly French! This means that if you wanted to open a business here, you couldn't call it "Dave's Sandwich Bar", you'd have to invent a French brand, "Chez David" perhaps, and you could only print the English text in a smaller font underneath. And in schools here, half of the day is taught in French, and half in English. All this was done to protect the language which was feared to be being lost due to the influence of American culture and language. So actually, when you look deeper, you realise that American culture is more prevalent than you might think. I'm also beginning to realise that "North American" (i.e. USA & Canada) is an identity and a culture in its own right - and while Canadians are not keen on the US, they are happy to be considered North American, and will sometimes even shorten this to American - which can be confusing!

What has amazed me is that everyone you encounter - from waitresses to bus drivers to even the homeless - can speak both English and French to some degree. And for the majority, they are pretty much fluent in both languages. As a result, there are some pretty strange customs about conversation, and you regularly see people swap language mid-conversation. Waitresses greet you with "Bonjour. Hi." so you can respond in French or English. The etiquette is that you should always respond in the language in which you are addressed - unless you really are not able to. This works two ways - if you go into a shop and ask a question in English, this is not as rude as it would be in France (although it does mean you will probably be considered a tourist). The person will respond and help you in fluent English (it might be a bit less fluent on the East side of the city though).

There's also this effect where people "size you up" to try and judge your likely language, and address you in that language.. sometimes getting it completely wrong, such as a checkout girl in Bouclair (a bit like the Pier) who was chatting to away her colleague in English as a native English speaker would, and completely threw us by turning around and addressing us in fluent French!

It turns out that the key thing here is understanding what's been said, and then it almost doesn't matter what language you respond in. I've even seen a mother and child conversing on the bus, where everything the daughter said was English, and everything the mother said was French. This was completely natural for them!

For my wife and I, the implications are somewhat different. For her, working in academia where English is the language of science, and being able to get served in English fairly reliably, means French is not as critical. For me, as someone who is likely to be working with people - and therefore could be addressed in French or English at any time, it is vital that I can understand and converse in French. So I've dusted off my 1995 A-Level and started putting it to use in everyday conversation. We've both found that when you're immersed in a language, a lot comes back to you, that you didn't think you knew. (Although it's not really a total immersion here - since you can switch out to English at any time).

Generally I've found my understanding is pretty good, I just need to sharpen up my vocabulary and pronunciation and gain a bit more confidence. Fortunately, as I mentioned in a previous post, I've been getting some French lessons, and I now have a second person I meet with for French conversation practice, which is particularly useful.

All in all, it's quite a unique environment to live in, and for me it reinforces the observation I made while in India last year - wherever you go, people are just people, with the same basic needs and desires - and language and cultural variation are just like layers masking that truth from being immediately obvious. I hope that in future as the world becomes more globalized, more people will become aware of this and just maybe, there could then be a little less trouble between nations and religions.

Update: I have just remembered something I intended to write with this post but forgot to include. I was thinking about how I might explain what it feels like here in terms of the balance between North American, French, and European influences. Here's what I came up with. If I wanted to create a city that felt like Montréal, here's what I'd do. Take one US city, with a lot of space and low population density. Send all the Americans living there away to a quiet part of France for 10 years so they become fluent in French and European in attitudes (They'd probably take their holidays in the UK and lose a few Americanisms too). Meanwhile, move a city full of French people into the city, so that they set up French businesses, infrastructure, signage etc. Make sure that they do business with the US and so they will have to become fluent in English as well. Pick a nice old city in France and select some of the nicest 100-200 year old buildings and transport them brick by brick to the center of this new city, to make it feel more French (this will be the old town). Now after the French have been in the city for 10 years and adapted themselves to North American culture, bring the Europeanised Americans back to integrate with the Americanised French. Let them set up their businesses in the city but only if done in a French way, or at least a more European way than they would in the US (although they can still link in with their business contacts and chains back in the US). Leave everything to blend for another ten years and there you have it. That's what Montréal feels like to me. An American city, with a layer of French culture and history, with a mix of English & French language, a mix of American and French businesses, and full of bilinguals, some more French, some more Anglo, but all of whom are more European in manner than American but yet have all adapted to a North American way of life!

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Penguins, Ice Slides and Maple Snow Lollies

The 2009 Montréal en Lumière Festival and other weekend Highlights

Montréal en Lumière

Alex and I have just enjoyed our second weekend in Montréal, in which we have not only managed to complete the furnishing of our apartment but have also celebrated Alex's birthday in style thanks to the Montréal en Lumières festival. The event, also called the High Lights Festival takes place every year in the city and was started up ten years ago as a celebration of life in the city and to get people energised and out of their houses to raise spirits (and profits) in the midst of the bleak winter months! It lasts from mid February until the start of March and includes live music performances, fine dining experiences, activities for kids, firework displays and a whole lot more.

On Friday evening we went to something called the Soireé au claire de lune (Moonlight Soirée) at the Biodome and Olympic Center. The Biodome is a kind of indoor zoo, a set of self-contained ecosystems containing plants and wildlife from all over the globe. There is a tropical rainforest zone (which feels just as hot and sticky as the real thing). It is particularly atmospheric at night when you catch glimpses of bats flying past your head as well as crocodiles and flamingoes by the water's edge.

King of the Penguins

Next is a marine zone, with fairly convincing sea cliffs complete with nesting seagulls and underwater viewing areas to see crabs, starfish and even piranhas.
Then there's an arctic and antarctic zone where you can see antarctic penguins and arctic birds up close (They are kept separate, in case you are wondering).

Something that really brought the experience to life though was that the centre had employed various actors and improvisation artists to interact with visitors as you wander through.

Strange Penguin Bobsleigh Men

I met a ship's captain, a lost fisherman, and weirdest of all, a set of human-penguin hybrids in a training session for a bobsleigh race!

After we'd finished going round the Biodome, we went up the tower of the Montréal Observatoire (second time for us), this time for some night-time views of the city. While viewing some spectacular vistas over downtown and Mont-Royal, we also saw a magician and tarot expert, then wandered down to another room where red lighting and logs created the effect of sitting round a campfire.

Storytelling up the Montréal Tower

Two cowboy-types told a funny story about a shoemaker and his wife and the deals they made with the devil (a character which is very common in local stories thanks to the Catholic influence). As with the best raconteurs it was as much the way the story was told as the story itself that made it so funny and memorable, especially when they started translating for each other but got mixed up about who was doing what language! All in all it was a really unusual experience and a great way to celebrate Alex's birthday.

On Saturday we paid a visit to Atwater Market, a really high quality market selling fresh fruit and veg, French cheeses and top quality meat and sausages. After that we went to pick up a microwave we'd found via Craigslist for the bargain price of $40 (25 pounds). We carried it back home on the underground and the bus which was fun! In the afternoon we were driven around to a variety of people's houses to buy furniture, by a man with a van who charged only $25 an hour! By the end of the day we had a bed, 3 bookshelves, a kitchen table and chairs and a futon, for only a couple of hundred pounds in total.

We spent much of Sunday making the apartment nice, arranging furniture and cleaning, but by the evening felt relaxed enough to put our feet up and play Super Mario Galaxy and Guitar Hero on the Wii. We also cooked our first proper meal in the house (albeit using the stove in the empty flat upstairs as ours is still not connected!). We had Butternut Squash stuffed with mince & veg (and for a taste of home, flavoured with Henderson's Relish - Sheffield's finest sauce - which Giles had given us as a leaving present). Delicious. It's really starting to feel a lot more homely now!

La Glissade

But back to the festival. Unfortunately our moving efforts on Saturday meant we missed the Festival du Fromage that ran during the day - a real disappointment given Alex and I are such huge cheese fiends! But not disheartened we set out to enjoy the evening festivities in Vieux Montréal. There was a real festival atmosphere, and a great deal going on, from rides in a horse-drawn carriage to huddling under heat lamps and listening to the live music (which was really excellent, a sort of French version of the Levellers!).

Flaming our sausages

They also had open fires where you could frazzle sausages on sticks or toast marshmallows - we thought this was a really novel idea and just the thing for a winter festival! There were also a couple of maple stalls. As you probably know, maple is very popular in Canada, and is made from the sap of the maple tree. There is a tradition that when the first syrup of the season is made, it is poured over snow and rolled around a stick to make "taffee" lollies - and at the festival they had trays of snow where you could try this out for yourself, which was definitely a new experience for me! There was also La Glissade, a slide running the whole length of the Place Jacques Cartier, made entirely from blocks of ice! It was a very impressive site to see, and the kids seemed to be loving it. We would have had a go but the queues were a little long.

Tire d'érable

There's still a week to run of Montréal en Lumière, it culminates next week in something called the Montréal All Nighter - where all the bars and restaurants open all night long and street parties continue until morning. Sounds like a lot of fun; you can be sure we'll be there. From what we've seen so far, Montréal is certainly living up to its reputation as a party city where there's always something going on. When this festival finishes it won't be long until the next one starts, as this website and many others show. I'm particularly looking forward to the Comedy Festival and the Jazz Festival.

The snow has continued on and off for the last few days, I've been very impressed how everything keeps running here - buses still run on time, people go about their business more or less as normal (admittedly with thick boots and lots of snow shovelling!) Here is a picture I took this morning out of our window - the streets were a hive of activity, with the bin men emptying bins and sticking markers in the ground next to cars they want the owners to move, mini snowploughs clearing pathways, people digging their cars out, and in the midst of all of this a school bus trying to get past!

Busy streets outside our apartment

You can find more pictures to accompany this post on Flickr (don't forget to let me know your Flickr ID so I can add you as a friend so you can see all of them) and also on Dr Alex's blog..

Until the next time!

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2009: À Montréal!

New Year, New Start!

Well I haven't written a "what I've been up to" post since India really so given I'm about to have a major life change I thought I should get into gear and post something! I had a very enjoyable and eventful time over Christmas and New Year. We spent time before Christmas with my family in Northumberland. We did a lovely walk just a couple of days before Christmas by Dunstanburgh Castle in warm sunshine! On Christmas eve we headed down to Kent to spend Christmas with Mrs Alex's family (or Dr Alex as I should say now!) in Kent. Christmas was great, lots of wonderful food as well as my first visit from Santa in about 16 years - I must have been a good boy - and a surprisingly enjoyable trip to the panto in Canterbury. For New Year we rented a couple of lovely cottages at Pekes Manor in Sussex with a big group of friends and enjoyed relaxing and not doing very much. Then I went up to London for a couple of days to visit my good friend and talented actor Ben, we attended a Creative Visualization workshop by John Osborne Hughes together, which was very enlightening, the perfect way to set some New Year's Resolutions and make them more tangible.

Returning home on the 4th of January we really hit the ground running. Mrs Alex had completed her PhD viva successfully before Christmas, and our work permits for Canada were waiting for us when we got back. Mrs Alex has landed a post-doctoral research job in Montréal, so we are emigrating to live out there for the next three years! It wasn't until the work permits arrived that we knew it was definite, so then it was all systems go! Within a few days we'd given notice on our rented house and my job at IBM UK (That seems very strange to say that after 6 and a half years there!), as well as booked a flight and some initial accommodation in Montréal. So January has turned out to be an incredibly busy time!

It's amazing just how much needs sorting out when you're leaving the country. Storage for a house full of furniture is extremely expensive (about £5000 over 3 years) so we have opted to sell everything that isn't sentimental, and fortunately my parents have said we can store the remainder in their attic (they have a big house). Even so, there's a lot of downsizing to be done, so we have been taking stuff to charity shops, selling things at car boot sales (making a surprising profit of £200!), selling things on ebay, ripping our DVDs and CDs onto some nice new 1 Terabyte hard drives, not to mention sorting through a lifetime worth of accumulated boxes of what can only be termed "stuff"! It's a marathon effort which we are only part-way through, but we're getting there and all is on track to fly out on February 9th!

So, what am I going to do, you may ask? Well I've decided this is the ideal opportunity to branch out from big-company IT and spread my wings into some new areas, broadening my life experience in the process. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing yet, but it's likely to involve writing, innovating, and working with people in some way - maybe I might find ways to weave in my interests in the usability/human side of computing, or helping people with productivity as well... Truth is it's a very exciting time for me, to not know exactly what I'll be doing. Some people would say I'm crazy to leave a stable job in a multi-national with the economy the way it is - but I'm just reminded of the line from the Baz Luhrmann song:

"Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t."

Time for a little adventure in my life, I feel!

I'm quite sure that I will find Canada completely different from the UK - Montréal in particular is very French so I imagine the culture will be some sort of mix of French, English and American influences.. It sounds like a great city, and I can't wait to find out what it's like! Very cold as well, I'm told, but less rain than in Britain so maybe that's a reasonable trade-off!

Anyway I will certainly keep blogging about my experiences of Canada while I'm out there - it will be very interesting to compare it to life in Britain - so come back to this blog and read more every now and then - just check for posts tagged Canada

. In the mean time, Happy New Year to all of you - and watch this space for news of our adventures in Canada!

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