We flew into Montreal from Vancouver on Thursday leaving at 7am and arriving at our Montreal apartment at 8:30 pm local time, fairly well exhausted. The flight itself was quite pleasant (although 4.75hrs) on an Air Canada 767 which was on it’s way to Paris, stopping at Montreal on the way.
The first impression I had was, everybody speaks French. Even though I knew this I didn’t really believe it until now. Quite a few of the people we met did not speak English at all. It makes things feel a lot more exotic and foreign somehow.
Friday Pauline and Simon did some work, apart from that we spent time finding things like the local bank and supermarket and after stocking up with groceries we walked into the historic centre of Montreal. For some reason there’s a huge statue of Admiral Nelson – seems rather odd in a french city! The place has a far more european feel to it and the historic part is quite beautiful. I’m very pleased to be here! I’ll write more later, but in the meantime here are some photos:
A note about the Bixi stands – these are places where you can hire a bicycle for $5 per 24 hours or $28 per month, there are many of them located all over the city, we have some at the end of our street. You can pick one up from one location and drop it at your destination if you wish. The city is very bicycle friendly, with cycleways everywhere.
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