Advice

As the semester is winding down, I look back and see all the fun I could have had if only I went out and did X, Y, Z. In a better state of mind, I would have gone out more. I would have better stories to tell for this blog. However, due to circumstance but not location (the city itself is not to blame - Montreal is a fascinating place), I was not in the best state of mind. Nevertheless, I've learned a lot.

So...
Dear prospective Champlain College Montreal students,

I have some words of wisdom to impart onto you.

First of all, don't do what I did. There is time to read web comics, catch up on television shows, and play Call of Duty when you're back in the states. You have this chance to live and work and play in a thriving and lively multicultural metropolis - for many of you that may be a once in a lifetime chance.

Here are some things you should know on how to make the most of your time here:

The Champlain students tend to flock together. You can see them Monday through Friday flocking up and down Sherbrooke, going between UQAM and the Academic Center. But be one with the flock. Flock with the flock. Make friends with the members of the flock, because you'll be seeing these people nearly every day for the next three and a half months. I make it sound like a prison sentence, but really you're going to have a lot of fun and memorable times with the other Champlainers if you just put yourself out there a little. But I encourage you to branch out from the flock as well. UQAM is full of international students, so take advantage of it and mingle. Most of the students you meet will probably know more French than English, but language barriers are half the fun. In the first week here I met a gay French model named Mika (French as in from France, not French Canadian). He and his friends really live the life in Montreal. They go out until four AM every night, wake up in the afternoon every day, eat one meal, go to work, and go out and do it all over again.

I advise you to go out on the town, explore, and talk with Montrealers even though you may have to tell them: "Je ne parle pas francais, je parle anglais. Je suis Americaine!" On second thought, perhaps you should leave out the "je suis Americaine" bit. But chat, get out of your comfort zone.

Montreal is a good-sized city, so there's bound to be great shows no matter what music scene you're into. Gorillaz played up here earlier in the semester. I'm not the kind to go out clubbing (although there was that one time at Club 1234...), but techno and house music are big here, as they are in just about every major city in North America and Europe these days. Apparently there's also a metal scene, but the funny thing is I haven't seen many metal-heads around. Then again, I haven't spent my time here actively seeking them out. For any of you interested in post-rock, Godspeed You Black Emperor and A Silver Mount Zion are from the area, but unfortunately they haven't been playing shows for a while. The Tam Tams festival is a non-stop tribal jam with a lot of interesting characters in the mix, and besides, the park is a nice place to hang out on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I strongly encourage you to go, and moreover, I encourage you to buy a bongo and participate. If jazz is more your style, there's a huge international jazz festival in the summer that's worth a weekend visit. The Champlain gang here also really got into a jazz group that played at a little place nearby called L'Absynthe.

Also: Film festivals. It seems like there's pretty much one going on all the time in Montreal. So if Hollywood's high-budget special effects and completely unoriginal writing (these days it is particularly horrendous in my opinion) isn't cutting it for you, give some indie films a chance.

There's nothing worse than bad poutine, and it's not great everywhere you go. The strange thing is that the best poutine comes from the most unlikely, rundown joints in the city. That's where you get the greasiest, cheesiest, thickest batter, curds, and gravy all rolled into a pile of savory goodness. It sounds nasty and when you eat it you might start to feel your heart clog up, but not to worry, this is a perfectly normal side-effect of the poutine. Just beware of poutine overdose and poutine addiction, also known as a heart-attack and angina pectoris (respectively) in medical terms. You only live once and there's nothing better than a great dish of poutine. But for starters, try the kind they serve at Frite Alors and you can't go wrong.

Tim Hortons makes alright cheap coffee. I prefer it over the sugary-liquid-that-resembles-coffee that you get at Dunkin Donuts. Van Houtte is better than Tim Hortons, Second Cup is better than Van Houtte, and I've never been to Cafe Depot so I don't know where that one fits into the hierarchy. But if you want coffee with class, there are plenty of independent coffee shops and diners in the area - a whole lot around McGill and even more if you venture north towards the Mile End. You won't find as many Starbucks around here as in the states, but I mean, it's Starbucks - there's always one or two or three around somewhere, and they're usually right across the street from one another. But Tim Hortons is everywhere. No joke, they run the city. Also, Tim Hortons has little round doughnut balls like Dunkin Donuts has Munchkins... only Tim Hortons doesn't call them Munchkins. They call them... Timbits. You see, this is the essential kind of knowledge you'll need to survive in Montreal. Timbits, folks, not Munchkins.

Chinatown has a lot of Asian cuisine restaurants, and I mean a lot. So good luck finding out which ones are good and which ones are bad because you can never tell just from looking at the place. It's a challenge. La Maison Kam Fung is a little expensive, but they have more fancy and high quality food (the kind where you actually have to sit down and eat, not take-out).

A pint of Ben & Jerry's can cost you seven or eight dollars, so find another way to satisfy the craving for Chunky Monkey until you're back in Vermont.

As an informational bit for grocery shopping: IGA has higher quality food and cheap meat, but everything else there is expensive (especially cheese... why? Not a clue). Provigo is cheaper, and there are also discounts on Mondays. If you shop at Provigo you'll see this "Sans Nom" brand in yellow packaging everywhere. That's typically the best deal you're going to find, and some of their products aren't half bad (such as their sharp cheddar cheese). But Sans Nom is remarkably cheap, which makes it... Idunno, "fishy." I don't trust it (but I still buy the cheese). There's an IGA and a Provigo right near the UQAM Residence Hall, but if you're a food skeptic like me, you may want to look elsewhere for local and high quality foods. Atwater Market is a ways away and you'll need to take the Metro to station Lionel Groulx, but it's the place where you'll find some of the best meat, fish, and produce in town. I heard Marche Jean-Talon also had a wide selection of fresh and local goods, but it's somewhere even further away in the Mile End.

Anyways, back to fun stuff:

Most people will tell you that Saint Catherine is the main street, others will say Saint Laurent. Saint Laurent is more of a cultural and historic boulevard as it once divided the city with Francophones in the east and Anglophones in the west. On the other hand, Saint Catherine is more of a neverending commercial strip filled with restaurants and bars and trinket stores and well, mostly sex shops and strip clubs, at least in the downtown area. But there are many sides to Saint Catherine. It's a jungle of a main drag. The Gay Village of Montreal is on the East side of Saint Catherine, and whether you're gay or straight I encourage you to see the bars, clubs, and shops in the area. For straights, it offers you a different perspective, but just beware... whether you're male or female, gay or straight, you will probably be hit on. For most of us that's going a little too far out of the comfort zone. There's more than just gay culture in Le Village, it's come to represent acceptance of all alternative sexual tastes and preferences. So there are gays and lesbians, but then you also have transvestites, transexuals, and a diverse array of LGBT subcultures. For other major streets, also see Saint Denis and Rue Crescent for fun restaurants and shops. The "Historic" Old Port is actually quite small and it's usually filled with rich American tourists who want to ride around in pretty horse drawn carriages. With the tourism overload it's not so historic anymore. It's overrated in my opinion, but check out the cobblestone streets anyways. Rue Saint Paul in Old Montreal is lined with about a dozen art galleries - mostly with touristy and contemporary paintings, but it's still worth a look. The most interesting art you'll find will actually be in trendy coffee shops and elusive galleries - places you have to discover. So if you truly want to be adventurous, go beyond the places listed here and find somewhere new. You will realize in time that there is more to Montreal than meets the eye - keep in mind that there is a massive and bustling Underground City with a dizzying amount of shops, services, cafes, and fast food bars. At first it may seem hard to find La Ville Souterraine if you don't know where to look, but once you enter the labyrinth it's easy to get lost. There's also more to Montreal than downtown. The Mile End is not just a bunch of boring suburbs. Venture out there and you'll notice right away that Mile Enders are a very interesting bunch. The hipsters, artists, hippies, and other bike-riding, plaid-wearing, guitar-slung-over-the-shoulder counterculture figures that didn't quite fit in with downtown Montreal have all congregated in this lively and colorful neighborhood. If I could choose to live anywhere in the city, it would be here. The artsy outcasts and weirdos of the Mile End will remind you a bit of Burlington at first, but this is all blended with a Hassidic Jewish population and minorities of all different cultures.

For the most part, Montreal is a peaceful city. It's illegal to carry a knife around here. You'll see very few police cruisers compared to in the states, but that's simply because in the supply and demand of crime and punishment, Montreal needs fewer officers because they have fewer criminals. I have heard that there are gangs here and that there is a mafia, but they've never bothered me. I've never seen them. There are groups of homeless people and they may hound you for money, but most of them won't chase you down to collect it (although that did happen to me once). In all honesty, I've met sketchier strangers in downtown Burlington, and never once have I felt threatened in my twilight excursions about Montreal. But bad things do happen. People get mugged. Or worse. So just be careful. Once again, don't do what I do. Go out with others.

That's all I have to tell you for now. The best advice I can give you is simply to be mindful and to be merry. Find the right balance between work and play and you'll have the time to pass all of your courses with flying colors, meet eccentric and lovely people, explore all of Montreal, and have crazy adventures to tell your friends, children, grandchildren, and so forth ("Remember that time in Montreal when..."). I know this sounds cliche, but it's true: it's a world full of opportunities. But it's only as exciting as you make it, and if you get out there you'll learn just as much outside of class as in class.

No More Pictures!?

Well, it's official: my camera's down for the count, so that means no more pretty pictures for the rest of the semester, everybody. It's a shame, I wish I could show you the intensity of this blizzard sweeping over the city, but then again I'm sure all of you in Burlington bare witness to the same scene... nothing but massive walls of white. I've just returned from an adventure to the top of Mount Royal in the winter wonderland (traffic is half frightening and half hilarious to watch in a storm like this), so now it's time to drink some tea, eat some soup, and thaw my beard-full of icicles. Oh, and write a blog post (see above).

Montreal's Catholic Past

These are a couple of photographs from Cathedrale Marie-Reine Du Monde - a Catholic Church on Rene Levesque Street just a fifteen minute walk from the residence hall. Walking around downtown Montreal you may have noticed the enormous green dome atop a building lined with rows of saints. This is just one of many beautiful churches in Montreal - the likes of which you normally would not see in the US (definitely not in small town New England with their little white churches). What's more popular is the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal, whose beauty I have yet to witness because there is a five dollar admission charge, which is something I have never experienced in entering religious institutions, but I suppose it's a reasonable amount when you consider how much is needed to preserve the artworks inside. Keep in mind that these are more than just churches, they are art galleries. They're preserving culture. But opposite to Notre Dame, Marie-Reine is free to visit and to my surprise, it's a quiet and empty sanctuary compared to the tourist trap at the Basilica.

I wish I could have taken more pictures - the ones above capture only a fragment of beauty in this massive work of art. I would have taken more, but I was asked to leave because apparently "photography is not allowed in the House of God." But upon my first visit to Marie-Reine with my father, I recall a middle aged woman approaching us claiming she was a Bosnian refugee without support from social services. She wanted help of the financial sort. I immediately gave her all the money I had in my pockets, which being a poor college student was only two dollars and thirty one cents (a great help I was). But my father refused to give anything, and coming from a traditional Catholic perspective, that's understandable - begging in the House of God comes off as sacrilegious. But this poor Bosnian woman was not the only one begging in the church. In fact there were a few people roaming about holding Tim Hortons coffee cups filled with change. And I'm okay with that, but I could not understand the reasoning behind letting people beg in the House of God and yet prohibiting photography in the House of God. I was there simply to appreciate the wonders of architecture.

It astounds me how such rich and intricate architecture - years of work from centuries past - can all be summed up in the digital world by this simple website here, not much more complex than this blog. In fact, both websites were probably created by only a few people (in my case, a single person - that's me), whereas this church was built by dozens of skilled architects, painters, laborers, and engravers. The internet is information-rich and there's much to gain if you read the right sources, but there's just no awe in it. But if you go out and see the physical manifestations of history, politics, religion, culture, war, etc. - this church as an example - that's where you find awe. That's when your brain shouts AHA! in epiphany and pieces together all these bits of information into a coherent story to make sense of the world around you. If you distance yourself from the world and learn only from books and the internet and lectures and formal education, then it all devolves into babble. You cannot retain information and learn without that element of awe.

There's the logic to study abroad. "The experience" is a vague phrase that's often thrown around when students cite their reasons for studying abroad, but what they're really looking for is awe.

And awe is most certainly the reason why us Montrealers are going to see Cirque Du Soleil on the last day of the semester.

Insect Insight

Speaking of hives and insect colonies, here are some pictures of our class trip to the insectarium at the botanical gardens. It's a fascinating place and I encourage you to go... if you like insects. It's not all pretty butterflies and honeybees down here, but I spared the images of the real monstrous and unearthly-looking creatures for the faint of heart (actually, the only pictures of tarantulas and ten-legged eight-eyed four-toothed whatchamacall-its all came out blurry, lucky for you). When you're separated from these bizarre animals by walls of glass and plastic, you realize there's no rational reason to fear them.

As a child I had an intense fear of spiders, but come to think of it I can't recall every being bitten by one. Now I just think they're creepy, and most people will agree with that. But as we learned from one of the insectarium employees, less than one percent of all spiders are capable of inflicting serious harm to human beings. Indeed, the vast majority of insects are essentially harmless. So why are things like spiders, centipedes, and scorpions the "stuff of nightmares"? Is it merely their alien appearance? Why is arachnaphobia so common?

I have a little hypothesis that it has something to do with evolution. You see, there are remnants of the reptilian and early mammalian layers of the brain that emerge in dreams. I mean, how often do we dream of being chased? Beyond that, how often do we dream of being chased by wild animals? Don't quote me on this, but I think it's a phenomenon that occurs across all cultures. But for most of us in the 21st Century, running from a predator does not occur in everyday life. And yet it still happens all the time in our dreams. And millenia ago while our ape ancestors (even neanderthals for that matter) in the wild were sleeping and dreaming, they would have to be ready to awake and protect themselves from any threat. To avoid predators, apes would sleep in trees, and there's a hypothesis that falling dreams are an evolutionary device designed to wake us up before we fall out of the tree. The only reason we still have falling dreams is because it's left over from our tree-dwelling ancestors in the mammalian part of the human brain. On the other hand, neanderthals slept in dark and enclosed areas - caves and huts and so forth. All these sleeping spots in our evolution - the trees, nooks and crannies, caves, and huts - while they were perfect for hiding from the big predators, they were also perfect habitats for spiders and scorpions and most insects. So while apes and neanderthals were sleeping and dreaming... they would often wake with the sense that something foreign was crawling on the skin... and immediately the reptilian part of the brain shouts "predator, predator!" And so they would quickly brush it off and go back to sleep. But these constant interruptions in sleep must've left an evolutionary mark, so that's my hypothesis of how spiders became a symbol of fear, the stuff of nightmares.

Or maybe they're just really creepy looking.

Anyways, it's around this point in my Montreal experience that my camera broke. Well, semi-broke... I can't see what I'm taking pictures of, so if any image from this point on looks a little off-centered, it's not any new artistic style, it's just the slow expiration of the cheapest digital camera available. That would also be why all the pictures of ten-legged eight-eyed four-toothed whatchamacall-it insects came out blurry.

The Underground Ant Colo-... I mean, the Underground City

For the longest time I couldn't find "The" Underground City of Montreal. I had been to a lot of the metro stations in the area, but I didn't see any sign of this subterranean world that people talked about as if it were a magical place. People would point out the downtown parts to me on maps, but that only showed the surface of the city, so the underground part was still unknown, elusive, mysterious. There's a sense of wonder in that phrase: "The Underground City." As if it was a secret place, hidden and eternal. Like it's Atlantis or something.

Along with not knowing where it was, I didn't exactly know what it was. At first I thought it was all in one place - a shopping mall in the shape of an underground coliseum, but I soon learned that it was a series of tunnels. Like a giant maze. It's a Labyrinth, not a coliseum... and so it's not easy to point it out on a map. It's everywhere, right under your soles. In my mind I envisioned a vague blur of tunnels, railcars, shops, and moving, talking, bustling crowds of people. And when I discovered what It was, I realized I was not far from the truth. La Ville Souterraine is a vague blur.

Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing feat of architecture and there is a sense of enchantment about it. It's no Atlantis, but it puts you in a kind of daze with all the flashy lights, glass, decorations and most of all, the people. Hundreds of thousands of people walk through this Labyrinth every day. And at night it all empties out, back into the sea of surface-life like tides. And what do they all come here for if they're not riding the Metro? Shopping. There are levels upon levels of shops connected by tunnels that lead to... even more levels of shops! The excitement never ends down here, you see. You walk and walk and you pass a shoe store, a clothing store, a jewelry store, another shoe store, a sushi bar, a magazine vender, another clothing store with more mannequins dressed in more flashy clothing, a video game store, a food court with another sushi bar, and it just goes on and on and on. Not all the stores down here are from Big Corporations and chains, but aside from the fact that this intricate network of tunnels was built by the City of Montreal, it seems to have less to do with the city's culture and more to do with its capitalistic economy. It's not too distant from the idea of the American mall. Some of the shop names are different, but they're all selling the same material objects. Fashion, Food, and Fun in all shapes and sizes.

If you love to shop, then this is Heaven. If you dislike shopping or don't have the money to shop, the Underground City is still an interesting Labyrinth to explore. I visit it frequently these days, almost as much as I climb Mount Royal. I haven't explored half of La Ville Souterraine, so all I've had to say about it is merely a first impression. I go there just to see the buzz and hear the drone of this thriving underground hive. In a place like this, you learn from a first-world perspective what the 21st Century is all about.

Mount Royal Cemetery - A Halloween Special of Sorts

Mount Royal Cemetery is one of the most isolated, beautiful places you will find in the city. Reach the overlook on top of Mount Royal and head just a ways beyond on that gravel pathway until you reach the gates of this hidden sanctuary. For nature lovers, it's a must. If you're missing the simple sight of trees and grass (as I am), this will feel just like home. Whoever the groundskeeper is here, he really knows what he's doing. Lilacs are planted in abundance in every section of the cemetery. The sight and the fragrance give the sense that life is still in bloom, and here in the cemetery it blooms even in after life. Elsewhere in the city, these metaphorical lilacs of life bloom everyday, on every street corner, in restaurants, in galleries, in bars, in coffee shops, all around La Ville-Marie. The cemetery is not a gloomy scene at all. In fact, the cemetery is the perfect place for self-reflection. Walking around these graves, you begin to realize that you are vulnerable and mortal, your time is finite, and who you are will be remembered through the best and the worst of your characteristics. The sense of time overcomes all else.

The cemetery is just as multi-cultural as the cemetery it lies in. No surprise there - the dead are just as good an indication of a city's culture and history as the living. In the cemetery there are Jewish sections (which are gated off and far removed from the rest), Greek sections, Eastern European who-knows-what sections, and as my girlfriend and I strolled through rows and rows of tombstones on a Sunday afternoon, we came across... strange groupings of graves where we couldn't quite see the connection. About forty identical tombstones were given their own plot, and the only thing they all had in common were deaths around the years 1948 to 1953. Where did they come from? Where have they gone? It makes you wonder what's been going on in this city for the last two hundred years. There are thousands of different family names, thousands of different stories. Even some of the Molson family lies here at the top of the hill. It's only as soon as you see, in person, how many graves there are here that you realize how magical this place is. Half of Mount Royal is for the dead; the spirits of Montreal.

Apple Country

This past weekend the Champlain crew took a train out to rural Quebec for some apple picking. Just a breath away - a twenty minute train ride - from the pillars of concrete and glass that construct this hectic urban landscape, there are orchards. There are trees fruiting.

In the above pictures I make my first appearance on this blog. I'm the bearded one with glasses on the far left of the circular wood-cut-out children faces. My hand also makes a cameo - the one with the hornet on it. And you can see from these pictures that we, as twenty and twenty-one year old college students readying ourselves for the "real world" of e-game design and public relations and broadcasting professions, are still absolutely enthralled by childish activities like petting farm animals and picking apples And this is a great thing. If everyone on this earth had their own farm animals to pet (or use for food) and orchards to harvest, then the world would have much fewer disputes and strife. Young and old alike can enjoy a day's worth of apple picking.

In about fifteen minutes, we had already picked as much as our apple bags could hold. At that point I was looking for the largest, reddest apples to pick and eat on the spot. After about five red giants, I was appled out. So there was a bit of time lingering before the bus left for the train station and I took a walk out to the unpopulated parts of the orchard next door. And out there in the middle of nowhere in Canada, you can pretend you're in the middle of nowhere in Vermont. It's the same landscape. The fields are yellow and withered and the trees are bright oranges and reds, as they should be this time of year. It's natural dying beauty - that flickering spark before a desolate winter. And Burlington came out of the same landscape as Montreal, more or less, a few degrees of difference. We both have apple picking and cider and pumpkin craze in autumn, but there's a border that separates us and thus a cultural split, and that seems to make all the difference.