Week 197 - Montreal Canada Photo Collection - 05-23-2010

Bonjour,

En Juillet 2007, nous avons fait notre premier voyage au Canada à Montréal. Montréal est une ville avec une collection d'architecture ancienne et nouvelle. La ville est sur une île au milieu du fleuve Saint-Laurent. Tous les noms de rues sont longues et se ressemblent. Il nous a fallu un trajet de 20 minutes de scooter se rendre à Montréal et 2 heures pour rentrer à la maison.

What? That's how we felt we are arrived in Quebec. Most signs are in French and all the street names are long and look the same. We stayed at Parc Mont Laval RV Park on Laval Island north of Montreal. Montreal is a 30 mile long by 10 mile wide island. We attempted to memorize our route from Laval to Montreal. It took us 20 minutes to get to Old Montreal and due the similar long French street names, we were totally lost and it took 2 hours to get back to the RV Park.

However, the city of Old Montreal is full of beautiful old and new buildings. This is Bonsecours Market which faces the St. Lawrence River.

Since the names were in French and we weren't, we really can't tell you what these Old Montreal buildings are.

This was a "farmers market" and we got this photo of a cute French girl when our target, the mime, ducked.

The photos show part of the "Underground City". There are 20 miles of underground walkways that connects you to the Metro Rail and over 1700 shops and businesses. It keeps people warm in the harsh winters and cool in the humid summers.

The stairway above lead to this atrium-covered business complex.

Parks and docks line the St. Lawrence River.

Perhaps you will get to Montreal someday. You will want to know more French than we did. So as a public service, we will demonstrate some of the things we learned. The French translations are in bold.

This is a limousine.

The Molson brewery.

Appartements built for the 1978 expo in Montreal.

The Montreal casino. Easy for you to say. We asked directions to the casino for several minutes from a parking lot attendant. He finally laughed and said "Oh, you mean the cause'-a-no!"

The 1978 US Pavilion, the biosphere. See, the language is not that hard, so why were we so lost? It gets harder.

This is the Bonsecours Market. After a bit of research and entering the building, we determined that this was a "market". Okay, now we're learning.

Apparently the French word for watercraft is Sea-Doo.

Here is some Japanese written in French.

Some French graffiti.

Now to our personal favorite experience of understanding the language. The following signs were along the road as soon as we entered Canada.

And shortly after that we see this bent height clearance sign. So quick, figure out if you are traveling 90 or less and determine if the 12 foot 10 inch Mothership will fit under this overpass. Whew! We made it under and shortly afterwards we converted 3,9 meters to feet and inches. 3.9m is 12 foot 9 inches! Our best guess is like the U.S. Eastern states, they allow for a foot or two of snow pack and still give you 12 feet of clearance.

And finally, a French lesson from the Colonel. KFC is PFK.

Vous avez une semaine bénie.

Love, Pete et Ellen

Photos from Jul 2007