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<p style="margin:0in 0in 0.0001pt;text-align:left;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font><br></font></p><div style="text-align:left"><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">From: </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gI"><span name="Roger Thijs" class="gD">Roger Thijs</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:rogerthijs@yahoo.com">rogerthijs@yahoo.com</a></span></span><br style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
<span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
Subject: </span><span style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="gI">LL-L Travels</span><span><br><br></span><div><font face="Calibri">I have been
staying in Montreal this week (I’m returning to-morrow evening) and I think it
was an interesting travel experience.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">As for the
language, it took me some time to adjust to the pronunciation. At the
conference I attended, I met some people from Québec city, and I mainly had to
adjust to the pronunciation of their vowels: often unrounded and with a
strongly reduced nasalization, followed by a residual “n”.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font face="Calibri">I must admit
I did could not follow common talk by people in the tube.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri">Actually the
local French has quite some varieties,</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
- </font><font face="Calibri">the regional
French</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri"><a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ais_qu%C3%A9b%C3%A9cois" target="_blank">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Français_québécois</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
- </font><font face="Calibri">Joual spoken
in the popular areas of <span> </span>Montreal</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri"><a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joual" target="_blank">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joual</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
- </font><font face="Calibri">Magoua the
dialect spoken North of the town:</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri"><a href="http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magoua" target="_blank">http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magoua</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">I bought a
couple of <span> </span>little language booklets, but
they are worthless: they just give some local vocabulary and expressions. It
has no sense to lean these cute exoticisms. The key is rather forcing one’s ear
to follow the varieties in pronunciation.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">I thought
Montreal was bilingual English French. One hears quite a lot of English in the
business hotels. One hardly sees some indications in English in the street. The
only exception is Chinatown where things are trilingual:
Chinese-French-English. Tourist busses on Sunday were all from Toronto (The
border of NY State is only a few miles to the South but I didn’t see tourist
busses of that area)</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">The typical
food is “poutine”, what I would call in Dutch “frieten met stoofvleessaus”, or
French fries with stew sauce. The fries are cut in the shape of thick fries but
taste like baked potatoes, the sauce is sweet (clearly a mix of meat sauce with
ketchup, and a bit of cheese).</font></div><div><font face="Calibri">Cf. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poutine</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">It took me
some time for finding my way. The central railway station was close by as to my
street maps, but I didn’t find it at first. It actually is two levels down
with the elevator below the lobby of our hotel (the Fairmont) and it <var></var>looks rather like a shopping center. The
platforms are one more level down, but since people are only allowed to the
platforms shortly before departure, waiting queues are seen regularly in the
shopping area on top at the entrance of the proper platform stairs.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">Long distance
trains are managed by VIA Canada. In the evening there is also one departure by
Amtrak to New York City. In this station there is also a regular commuter train
to Deux-Montagnes, but for other commuter trains one has to be at a other nearby
rail station “Lucien-L’Allier”, just one metro station away.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri">That sounds
easy, but it is not that easy. The metro station connected to the railway station
is called Bonaventure, but for reaching it one has to find one’s way in a
poorly marked underground street labyrinth, with quite some turns, doors, two high
roller stairs further down and some more classical stairs…</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri">Price of a
metro ticket is 8 CDN for a full day. I took it for the shopping center Angrignon
at the end of the green line. Cf. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrefour_Angrignon" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrefour_Angrignon</a></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri">One evening
I took the orange line to the “Mont Royal” plateau. It is a kind of cozy quartier
with many young people in the streets and a big diversity of eateries.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">The
underground labyrinth has – as to my tourist guide book – a total length of 30
km. Since it is really a labyrinth and many gangways lead to a dead end, one
gets easily lost. In the summer most little underground shops close at 6pm. Summer
live rather happens above ground.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">I had a nice
walk on Sunday into China town, and returned through old Montreal, down at the
river side. The latter looks like a provincial French town. Since long queues were
waiting outside for a seat at the tourist restaurants, I skipped those. The
town is actually on the slope of a hill, and it took me some time to find my
hotel uphill. I found some good and affordable restaurants in the “Ville Marie”
area, close to the shopping street “rue Sainte-Cathérine”.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">Since I was (and
still am to-morrow) at a conference, I unfortunately did not have the time for
discovering the town any further.</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Calibri">Roger,</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman">
</font><font face="Calibri"><var></var>from my room
on the 14<sup><font>th</font></sup> floor with sight on the roof of the cathedral.</font></div><br></div>
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