I work for a French-Canadian company located in the Montreal suburb of Le Gardeur (see map). Every once in a while, we're called into Montreal for meetings. Last year, we had a meeting scheduled in early March - but I couldn't go as I was recovering from my first hip replacement. And I really missed out on that trip as my boss took the sales guys up to Quebec City for a couple days. He apologized to me before they even went, saying that we'd do it again at some point. Actually, I'm kind of glad I didn't go because I understand it was unusually cold with well below freezing temperatures the whole time they were there. Other than the good restaurants they ate at, I was told by my colleagues that it was not a pleasant experience.
This year, however, we were summoned to Montreal for training on two high-end Danish audio cable lines we picked up recently - Siltech and Crystal. I hadn't been to Montreal for quite some time and I was really looking forward to going. At one point in time, Montreal was on my list of five North American cities I wanted to visit (the others were Memphis, Seattle, San Antonio and San Diego - I've yet to visit San Antonio and San Diego). My first visit was 8 years ago when I was hired by the company, and I'd made two other trips to Montreal for meetings. But we figured that it had been over four years since I was last in Montreal.
The demographic of Montreal is highly diverse. It's about as European as you can get and still be in North America. It's sort of a cosmopolitan melting pot of cultures and customs as both Francophone and Anglophone Quebeckers co-exist with a large Italian population, along with Irish, English, Scottish origin people. There's a large Jewish and Arab population, and a growing Asian population, as well. The largest Haitian population in Canada is in Montreal. Only Paris has more French speaking people inhabiting the city. It makes for some very interesting neighborhoods and restaurants.
Montreal is also the home of a high percentage of very beautiful women. I don't know what it is about the women in Montreal, but I have seen some of the prettiest and most striking women on my visits to the city. Many of the women have a very European look to them. It's difficult to be out somewhere and not find yourself staring at one of the beautiful women you'll encounter in the city. One of my Montreal colleagues told me, "Your parents probably told you it's not polite to stare at someone, but the women in Montreal take staring at them as a compliment."
The architecture of Montreal is very European, as well. A lot of the buildings and residences have a French flair to them. There's a lot of ornamental wrought iron work on townhouses and condos that line the wide streets of the city.
One thing that struck me from my first visit to Montreal are the amount of private swimming pools in the city. In the summer and early fall months, when you fly over the city on the final approach you can see countless swimming pools in the backyards of homes throughout the city. My boss has a house north and east of Montreal that is on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River. He has a swimming pool. When I asked him one time why all the swimming pools were around the area, he sort of shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't know. I guess I never really noticed that there were a lot of pools."
But one of my colleagues told me, "When the weather gets nice in Montreal, we just want to get outside. So people will put pools in their back yards. They only use them, maybe, four months out of the year, but they get a lot of use."
Montreal is still a pretty gritty city, though. There's areas that aren't safe after dark. One of my colleagues got his briefcase stolen out of his rented SUV last year. It contained his laptop and his passports (he has dual American and Canadian citizenship). While they were at dinner, someone came up and smashed the window of the SUV and grabbed his briefcase. I noticed walking in a couple areas while I was near downtown Montreal a lot of shattered glass on the sidewalks.
One of my colleagues told me that when the first Quebec Referendum that would pursue independence for the province from the rest of Canada came up 30 years ago, a number of people with money fled the Montreal area and settled in Ontario. He said, "It basically went from being a city with people who had money to a blue-collar city almost overnight." Crime became rampant in the city, but efforts by city officials to curb crime have been overly successful as the crime rate in Montreal has dropped over 40% over the past 15 years. Still, you've got to be careful of what you leave in your car in plain sight - even during the day.
Montreal has some world class restaurants and we visited a couple during our meetings. We also went to a couple small, but interesting cafes, as well. Look for posts on those places in the coming week.
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