Laura Joseph

I can’t understand them. They can’t understand me. They ask me if I’m French, or assume I’m being difficult by talking to them in a foreign accent when they can speak in English. In fact, they speak both languages – to everyone – and some (such as checkout workers) even try to do so at the same time resulting in a spasmodic greeting of ‘bonjourhi’.
The city itself is almost forcefully unique – a disorienting clash of absolutely enormous malls and department stores containing the odd boutique and gourmand food seller, on streets of designer and brand stores like Tommy Hilfiger and Zara whose window displays look more than a little Parisian. The odd mixture of the quaint European language everywhere amid such large-scale consumerism is unsettling.
It’s as if France and America had a kid and had spoiled it rotten.

An example of how old architecture meets new monstrosity – so much so in fact that the offices of the building in the foreground, Christ Church cathedral, are actually located in the skyscraper behind it.

To the north of the city lies Mount Royal….

…and to the south, Vieux Montreal and the Old Port.

McGill University. The Redpath Museum of natural history was filled with families with small children, although the displays of mummies and classical artefacts explaining their provenance and significance were fascinating. Particularly intriguing (if a little weird) was a collection of tiny Chinese shoes. Apparently, until about sixty years ago it was still common in China for women’s feet to be ‘bound’ so the toes curled back and the bridge of the foot was closed on itself. Chinese men found three-inch long feet erotic.

The McGill campus, right in the middle of the city.

Notre Dame Basilica, the biggest religious buidling in North America when it was built in 1829. The guy who designed it was so proud of it that he converted to Catholicism so he could be buried in it. And he was Irish. I think that says something about the grandeur of the place – or maybe it says more about how crazy the Irish are?

Parks down by the Old Port. It was really hot and sunny, though by this time the sun had gone behind a skyscraper so maybe it doesn’t come out so well in the pictures.

The Marche Bonsecours, an old market hall that still has lots of crafty boutiquey type shops in it. Allegedly. I didn’t go inside after I read that it was something of a tourist attraction, i.e. a hotspot for overpriced tat.

I love how big cities try and create ‘green spaces’ as if everyone who goes there will suddenly forget that they are still surrounded by traffic and somehow manage to ignore the massive skyscrapers obliterating the sun. These ‘terraces’ attached by walkways to the main piers are just floating grassy rafts with a cafe in the middle.

The ‘Champs-de-Mars’. Clearly not the real Champs de Mars, but as with the Notre Dame, Stratford-upon-Avon and London, the Canadians once again have proved themselves incapable of coming up with a new name for a place that reminds them of something European. So they just use our names.