Hello From Montreal

Hello from Montreal,
Here, we're in what is called the Latin Quarter I guess. It's interesting. People speak both French and English. Frankly, I don't know how to start a conversation. I feel more comfortable in English so on several occasions, I've just asked the people. What do Montreal-ers like to talk -- French or English? They say "either one." Everybody speaks both. Well, that may be true but frankly, on my second day here, IMHO--they like to talk what they say is French. That's not so good for me. I don't follow the twangs -- the way they say the words. Oh well, I'm getting along now ok.

Late start today after a big day yesterday. We started with a flight from Milwaukee at 6 am. By the time we made allowances for early arrival required at the airport; then we found we were before the bus schedule started; so found out we needed to take a van to the airport--which had other stops, we had to get up before 4 am.

All went according to plan. Still it was about 11am when we arrived. Neither of us has been here before so we asked about getting down to town from the airport. $26 shuttle rides sounded pretty high. One guy said --"well, if you don't have too many bags, really the city bus is the way to go." It was cheaper - $5. But it took us awhile -- first to get on the right bus -- then we realized that they would not take the credit card which we've begun to rely on. They would take money but would not give change. I handed the bus driver a $20 expecting change for the ride which amounted to about $5 for both and he looked at me like "tuff luck baby." I grabbed the 20 back and let the bus go. Kathy went and bought a coke with the 20 and got some change. 20 minutes later, we had a better idea where we needed to go anyway. Then, a little lady, my mom's age who was planning a trip later this summer had just come to the airport to see if she could make her way began talking to Kathy. She was very helpful. As she began to explain the transfers we'd have to make to get downtown, I began to see why the early recommendation of the $26 taxi ride was made. Unfortunately, by the time I concluded we should have taken the first recommendations, we were uncomfortably crowded into a standing room only public bus on the way "downtown," at least, I thought we were. Unexpectedly, the little lady said "This is the place." -- to transfer to the subway. Okay subway. No escalators--just stairs. We both were carrying suitcases. I began to think about why I allowed all that educational material to be added to the weight in Milwaukee. I didn't have a lot of time to think about that because we had to figure out how this system worked. That crazy French accent they have makes them almost understandable to me.

Ok Ok. Unfortunately, subway exits always require montage--unsubbing. Again--few escalators and quite a long underground passageway just to get up to street level. Wow, when we finally climbed the last flight of stairs, I expected it would be somewhat peaceful. I was again surprised. Pandemonium. The French soccer team was about to begin playing so the windows of every restaurant/bar (they're all combined here) was open and there were chairs and tables around every tv. Besides that, it was the last day of a 9 day music festival--free like the River Festival used to be only this was at least 8 times bigger. So we had sports fans plugging up the sidewalks and festival participants taking up the rest of the space and then we were trying to get through all that with our suitcases--when suddenly, I wasn't sure if Kathy wasn't feeling good or what had actually happened.

Suddenly, she began to tell me. But, I could hardly hear her as she was trying to get to her cell phone asap that she "...had forgotten to tell (her brother) Ric to rewind the video tape when he set the VCR for the final game. " I sympathized. Okay, well I mean, game or no game recorded on the recorder at home, I was kind of glad just to get a bit of rest from hauling all that luggage up those steps and through all the crowds so I suggested let's just move out of traffic here for a minute and figure out what to do. Fortunately, Ric had his telephone switched on while he was in Sunday School and he agreed to head out to the house to make sure the tape was re-wound. Just like a good brother, he cut out of Sunday School and headed out to the house and called Kathy back on the phone. Before long, they had it figured out. Unfortunately, the game had already started.

OK, well, back to finding the hotel we had booked from an ad on the internet. Aha, there it was. Climbing up those last steps to the hotel, we began to feel that it might have been a good idea to have eaten a little more than -- let's see, poor quality airline coffee, a glass of orange juice there, the coke (we got when Kathy changed the money) and a Kit-Kat bar there.

Well, the room is cramped but comfortable. Remodeled 4 yrs ago, the a/c pours cold air in at the top (10' ceilings) and under the bed. Nicely painted. Bed is comfortable. We set up our room and headed outside -- to scout out a place to eat. Walking down the street, any restaurant that had not TV was totally vacant and any restaurant that had a TV was totally overcrowded. Whenever there was a good play that favored the French side, the whole area just erupted with noise -- I mean like the noise came out of every restaurant like Whhooosh!

We chose one that had a TV in the back where there was a huge crowd and there were a few non-sportive people at the front. Yeah really. One couple, from Milwaukee, another couple who were meeting for the first time he (loaded with touristic information) from Montreal and she, (a nice black lady) from LA -- they had met on the internet.

Ok, it was good to get a bite to eat and my croque madame and Kathy's salad concoction were really quite good. I'd wander back into the crowd periodically to see what was happening with the game. I can't say anybody was eating anything or drinking anything but boy they were sure reacting to the game.

After that, we continued to explore and wandered into the music festival. We found some good Dixieland bands who were on their last fling of the fest and we heard some good music. At about the starting time of one of the evening concerts -- and we had a good seat, although we never heard of the group, we looked at each other and realized that our day had been pretty long so we decided to head back to the hotel and skip the concert. Crowds were huge. We had probably a half a mile walk back to our hotel.

We slept well and didn't feel too hurried this am. We met some people from Denver at breakfast --here for a wedding. On the agenda today. We need to get some more Canadian dollars. We need a guide book. While I was writing this, Kathy found the guide book and another 2 lb. French dictionaary--for when graduation comes around.

Tom-Tom & Kathy in Montreal