"If you're lost, stand in a corner and then make the call" - Daphne Hinds

Hello all you avid blog readers!

Today was my first day in Montreal. I woke up at about 5am and the 3 other girls in my room woke up not much later. It looks like we’re all feeling the effects of jet-lag.

At breakfast I had my first taste of Canadian Crepes (aka American style pancakes….shhhhhh! Don’t tell the Quebecers that!) The maple syrup was in abundance and tasted incredible with the ‘crepes’. Our waiter, Yanni, was very obliging and we soon understood the essence of the Québécoise sense of humour; I’m not sure if there is a technical rhetorical term for it, but Yanni seemed to enjoy giving us false information in a much exaggerated way or implying we had committed a serious offense, for example when Annie set another place at our table: he reprimanded her, moved the fork an inch and then laughed heartily.

So, task no. 1 – Get au fait with the Quebecoise sense of humour. Watch out guys!

At about 11.30, I met Daphne Hinds who is a contact founded through Mum’s involvement in the Mothers Union. I struggle to explain what this organisation is exactly to people, so if you don’t already know, I’d suggest Googling it!

Meeting Daphne, a local, was very comforting on my first day in Montreal. We took the bus to the metro, Du College, and then headed Downtown. If the centre of Montreal is ‘Downtown’, the hotel was definitely ‘Out of Town’, but thanks to pretty good public transport and the metro network it only took about 45 minutes to get there. Knowing that my knowledge of the Canadian dollar was/ is weak, Daphne had very kindly brought me the exact change for my bus ticket. I suppose that saved her the embarrassment of being stuck with the tourist that has to squint at each coin to find its worth. Later in the day, she took me to a ticket kiosk where I was able to buy a 3 day bus/metro pass for only $16. It was well used by the time it expired.

Daphne and I got off at Metro station McGill, which is named after one of the main Universities in Montreal. The other main university is called Concordia. We had a look around the shops in the Eaton Shopping Centre and saw that there were lots of sales. There was also a very long queue of students that were waiting to get their bus passes for the year.

We exited the shopping centre onto Ste-Catherine Street and went into a church that Daphne went to for Mothers Union events. After seeing the inside of the church, we went to visit one of Daphne’s friends that used to be the President of the Montreal branch of the Mothers Union. Daphne didn’t have a mobile so we spent about 15 minutes trying various places in search of a ‘Bell’ (a telephone box). Ultimately, we went to Angela’s travel agency but found that she was out at lunch. As luck would have it, as we were walking back towards Ste-Catherine Street we bumped into Angela, her son and her Granddaughter. These friends were hilarious and we had lots of international banter. The son watches Gordon Ramsay TV programmes so wanted me to say ‘Bloody Hell’ in my English accent. Angela wanted to know whether I was teaching American English or British English and then didn’t believe that Sainte Georges actually existed, to which I replied “I’m British, not stupid” and she roared with laughter and told me I’d passed the test. She welcomed me to ‘the family’ and said she was going to come and visit.

                                                              (Angela, me, Daphne)

Daphne and I left Angela to her work and headed to the Botanic Gardens which took a little while to get to on the metro. Whilst on the Metro, Daphne bumped into a young man, whose mother she knew. The guy gave her his umbrella as he had heard that it was going to rain in the afternoon. I found it really encouraging to see how much consideration people have for one another here.

When we arrived at Metro Pie- IX, we found the Olympic Stadium, the Tower of Montreal and a random football stadium that was under renovation (as much of Montreal seems to be at the moment).

There is a famous Biodome on the site, but we decided that paying $20 was a bit steep. I also realised that there is a local rate and a tourist rate when it comes to paying for entry tickets. We thus decided to head for the Botanic Gardens as they were rumoured to be a sight not to be missed. In our pursuit of these sought after gardens, we got incredibly lost. A man kindly pointed us in the right direction, which meant ambling up a long hill amongst forest. Of course I was dressed appropriately for such a trek in my dress and flats recently brought from Selfridges...

When we eventually arrived I was sure to reveal my newly acquired work permit that makes me some sort of resident of Quebec (may have made that up), but I flaunted it in front of the ticket vendor anyhow, so I got in at the local price thank goodness. $10 saved!

Just after the entrance to the gardens, there was an Insectarium, which Daphne was keen for me to visit. Not being a particular bug lover, I politely admired the dead insects that were pinned to various boards to indicate various sizes of termites, spiders and ants. I also learned which I could find at various times of the day. A particularly eye catching feature was a handmade ant run. There were glass containers on either side of a huge rectangle box and branching out of each box were touchable twigs that all entwined and were decorated with flowers (not that I’d touch a red ant! I repeat…”I’m British, not stupid!”). The ants would go along the twigs carrying petals back to their colonies. It was also remarkable to see in detail the vibrant colours of certain insects, such as beatles.

We left the insects and moved into the beautiful gardens. There was a pretty rose garden with lots of different types of roses. My favourite was the delicate and pink Fairy Rose.  We passed through these gardens into the Chinese Gardens. There were bright lanterns hung everywhere and then a somewhat tacky display of plastic Chinese men and women on the river. Apparently it looks more effective in the dark when they are lit up. The path led us to an Alpine garden which portrayed the vegetation found in the mountains here. After this Daphne and I discovered a vegetable garden which exhibited herbal remedies from South America (Daphne is originally from the British Guyana, so she found it particularly interesting). There were also pumpkins being grown in preparation for a Halloween exhibition where children go to the gardens and paint and carve the pumpkins.

A plan emerged for the Language Assistants to all meet Downtown to go for dinner, so Daphne came with me to find the others before she left me so that she could go home to have dinner with her granddaughter. This is where the advice, “If you’re lost, stand in the corner and then make the call” emerged from as trying to find the other Assistants was a bit manic!

The other assistants and I found a food court to eat at, which ultimately gave me food poisoning. The long journey back to the hotel was rather uncomfortable to say the least and I ended up sprinting off the metro in desperate search of a local loo.

On the way back to the hotel it rained warm rain, which was strangely comforting and not a bother at all, unlike English rain!

A good night’s sleep is definitely in order and I hope to feel better in the morning, ready for another productive day of site seeing!