“You’ve got to leave a tip” – Renaud Brissonneau

5/09/2012

I woke up feeling so much better so the girls in my room and I all decided to head off to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal.  Since one of the other assistants had already been to the Old Montreal, I was keen to see it for myself. 

The square outside the cathedral used to be the site of the original Notre Dame before it was knocked down and reconstructed in the nineteenth century. It now hosts a statue of the founder of Montreal, Paul de Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve.

The first thing that strikes you when you first walk through the door to Notre Dame is the astounding sanctuary. Words cannot describe the beauty of this place, so I will let this picture tell a thousand words.
One thing that surprised me in the Cathedral was that the statues all seemed to be begging. But one very cool fact is that Celine Dion was married there. En addition, you don’t have to be rich or famous to get married there. 


After Notre Dame we attempted to go to Mont Royal, which is a mountain with a terrific view over the city, however, we spent so long trying to find the bus from Ste Catherine Street that we ran out of time and ended up in a cute café. We happened to bump into some other assistants while we were there, which was surprising since Montreal is a huge city!

We had to move out of our room in the hotel that morning to move into different rooms that were being paid for by the Ministry of Education in Quebec.

Not sure how it happened but my current housemate Jen and I were put in a hotel room together. She asked to check in but they told her there was a 20 minute wait. I went to the desk and asked to check in and the receptionist did it immediately! I’ve obviously just got that Wareham charm ;)

Later that evening we met the Mexican and German assistants. It was a bit awkward as everyone knew that they weren’t probably going to be seeing each other for a long time and cliques had already formed between each nationality respectively. Furthermore, from that evening onwards, each nationality was segregated from the other so it probably would have been more productive to sit with other British Council Assistants and bonded with them since we had to work together for the rest of the week and time was limited. The best part of international bonding time had to be Anika asking a Hispanic looking German what the time difference between Canada and Mexico was!

After the awkward meet and greet, we got to let our hair down a bit at a hockey bar down the road from our hotel. We got to see out first hockey practice and had our first experience of leaving tips! After being given a huge lecture on tipping by Renaud (the guy who’s in charge of us), apparently there is a good reason for leaving tips but when you’re charged $8 for a drink and then they lump on tax and then you have to leave a tip, it all gets a bit much! However, it’s something that is a part of the culture over here and it’s all part of the experience.