Montreal
is, for sure, definately without a doubt, still part of Canada.
“We
are, you know, even though some people in the rest of the country don’t believe
it.”
That
was an elementary school administrator who I was talking with.
“We
may be a bit more patriotic to our province than most other Canadians and we
may talk differently and have a bit more radical politics, and have a different medical plan and a different
pension plan and celebrate a few different holidays, but we are Canadian.”
I have spent much of the summer here helping
someone move to the heart of the city.
Things
I have learned: Everyone
rides a bicycle. The streets are filled
with bikes from early morning til past midnight. There are old bikes, new
bikes, fast bikes, slow old fahioned
bikes. Business people ride them. Students ride them. Women with dresses ride
them. Bike riders ride them. But there
are no bike lanes.
That is not entirely true. In all my time
driving around the city I have seen one separated path for bikes. But it went only three blocks.
The rest of the bikers ride with traffic.
They ride the way most bicycle riders ride: they don’t stop at red lights,
they go the wrong way on one way streets, they talk with other bike riders
while riding, and 950 out of a thousand
don’t wear helmets.
But it all works. There is no controversy,
there is no anger between the riders and
car drivers, and there are no shops closed because of bike lanes that prevent cars parking so
drivers can’t go shopping. And there are
no endless radio talk shows arguing whether there should or should not be bike
lanes.
In my time here listening on morning radio to
the usual reports of gang land shootings and traffic fatalities, there has not be one report of a bicycle accident. Of course they happen, but in
simple truth drivers do not want
to hit bikes and riders do not want to
be hit. So they both try to avoid
hitting. That is the way it has worked
since crowds were invented and people tried to avoid bumping into each other.
They do it naturally with no government concrete barriers that will not
be used in winter.
And since riding in winter is difficult, many
people don’t own bikes. They rent them. There are thousands of the same looking
bikes rolling down the roads. You can get one at hundreds of locations, $7 a
day or $15 a week. Just slip you credit card into a machine and pull out your bike. Return it anywhere
you end your ride.
Montreal Thing Number Two: French. That is the
one and seemingly only topic on talk radio, at least on the English stations.
But when I
walk into a store and get Bon Jour I say Hello and the clerk
switches to English. No problem. I have not had
any problems, anywhere.
On the radio it is a problem. I will think
of that the next time I hear of a
problem in the media. I will check and see if it is also a problem on the
sidewalks or just in the mind of a producer on the radio show in need of a
problem to talk about.
Actually,
after English the most common language
I have heard is Spanish from new immigrants who are
here in great numbers. In five or ten years
the English talk shows will complain that there is too much Spanish
and we should get back to basic French.
Thing
Number Three: Bagels. They do make them better here.
The new landlord who is Chinese told me
about the best bagel shops in the neighbourhood. There are three within four blocks. He talked about
the bread like it is wine. One shop had
a better zing, another had a better texture. He eats Chinese food at home, with bagels.
Bagels,
you know, are the soul food of bread made by bakers who are Jewish, at least
originally. Whatever they do to the flour and water it is magic and it comes
out with a flavour and chewyness that makes you think you could almost
live on bread alone .
Luckily,
for bagel eaters Montreal has many Jews, many orthodox Jews who wear long black coats and have long beards and
plain dressing wives. It is almost like being back in Brooklyn which also has
very good bagels.
But
the neatest thing about the Jews in Montreal is that the city also has many
Moslems. The Moslem women wearing head to toe coverings share the sidewalks
with the men with long coats and beards. They do not kill each other. They live
next door to each other. The Moslems buy their
bagels from the Jews. One shop I was in had Moslems making and selling bagels, to Jews.
You can’t taste more multi-flavour than that.
The
leaders of the Middle East should visit Montreal.
But back to the original point: I did learn this old beautiful city is truly
still part of Canada when I drove into the suburbs and saw Costco, Future Shop
and Wall Mart.
That’s it. Lessons: Visit Montreal, ride a bike,
buy a bagel, learn Spanish.
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