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It was pretty obvious from the start that my host family here in Montreal are very nice people but I've just been struck by Odette's increadible kindness.
They're always excellent hosts, offering me more food and engaging me in conversation. (Odette particularly likes to talk about the other students she's hosted.) I felt reassured when she told me how stingy some of the other families were; I figured that meant she wasn't like that and I was certainly right.
It was particularly convenient when I was telling them about my plans for Quebec city that Odette offered to let Edwina stay here in Montreal a night to shorten her travelling time. Alan mentioned something about an air mattress and I thought that sounded pretty good. So it all fell into place when Ed said that she wanted to see a show that was playing in Montreal on Sunday night.
When we got back from Quebec Alan picked us up from the Metro station and Odette dropped us off again so we'd make the show on time. We were already quite grateful for them being so accommodating but when we got back to the house and everyone was asleep, we found not an air matress but their master bedroom all made up for the guest! I felt a little guilty that they'd put themselves out for someone who was my guest, whom they didn't know from a bar of soap.
Monday 29 May 2006
La Dolce Vita
Being in Montreal for a week (and not just being a tourist but living and commuting across the city) has reminded me of what it's like to live in a cosmopolitan city. I quickly noticed the better quality of coffee and the presence of more trendy items in the cafes (I've never seen a friand in Indiana). Then I stumbled across an enormous concatenation of shopping malls, partly underground (they call it la ville souterraine). It reminded me a lot of the QVB because I couldn't afford to buy much in its very stylish boutiques andbut, more importantly, there's plenty of fancy gelato.
Bloomington is a lovely little town and certainly not a cultural backwater (the university helps a lot, especially the music department). But there's something about the way a small town deals with cultures that's a little different. The only example I can give is when the department secretary asked me if I like "ethnic food" rather than any specific type. I get the impression that having international students just passing through means that their cultures remain foreign to the locals.
Anyway, the thing that most made me feel like I was in a happening place was a musical act I saw Sunday night. Ed and I had just returned from Quebec and went straight out to see one of her favourite singers, Imogen Heap, at a smoky little cabaret in a trendy quarter on the east side of town. It was the most avante garde act I've ever seen and I loved it! The opening act was a cellist who was recording live loops of herself to play over the top of to create a really fantastic sound. Then Imogen Heap came on and recorded loops of herself singing and using various synthesised instruments to create a very rich and interesting sound. But I knew that this was a special city when all the Montrealers remembered their favourite son and called out for Heap's version of "Hallelujah" for the encore.
Bloomington is a lovely little town and certainly not a cultural backwater (the university helps a lot, especially the music department). But there's something about the way a small town deals with cultures that's a little different. The only example I can give is when the department secretary asked me if I like "ethnic food" rather than any specific type. I get the impression that having international students just passing through means that their cultures remain foreign to the locals.
Anyway, the thing that most made me feel like I was in a happening place was a musical act I saw Sunday night. Ed and I had just returned from Quebec and went straight out to see one of her favourite singers, Imogen Heap, at a smoky little cabaret in a trendy quarter on the east side of town. It was the most avante garde act I've ever seen and I loved it! The opening act was a cellist who was recording live loops of herself to play over the top of to create a really fantastic sound. Then Imogen Heap came on and recorded loops of herself singing and using various synthesised instruments to create a very rich and interesting sound. But I knew that this was a special city when all the Montrealers remembered their favourite son and called out for Heap's version of "Hallelujah" for the encore.
La Ville de Quebec
I've had a huge weekend!
Every Friday we get off school early (11.30). So after class I met up with an Australian friend, Edwina, who had been studying in Kingston, Ontario for the past year. After a few hours of sightseeing in Montreal we caught a coach up to Quebec city.
We arrived a little after 9 pm, not knowing where exactly our hostel was (somewhere in the old city) but a terrifically helpful busdriver radioed to get us directions. (I later discovered that I had the address all along and a map with the hostel marked in a guide book in my suitcase! Sigh!) The Auberge de la Pais is a very nice little hippie hostel in Vieux Quebec. I was impressed that we got a free breakfast included for $20/night! There are no locks on the doors but I took a couple of bag locks and there were no problems at all.
The next day we walked all around the old city. Apart from the souvenir shops ranging from beautiful to tacky there's art galleries and a whole street filled with original artworks being sold from stalls (some of it really very good). Then there's the Chateau and the fantasic view over the St Lawrence River. There's also some terrific restaurants but as we walked past the menus on display I realised that the higher up the hill the higher the prices!
On the way back to Montreal I was very happy to be sitting on a bus for three hours just because it gave my feet a break after so much walking and hill climbing.
Every Friday we get off school early (11.30). So after class I met up with an Australian friend, Edwina, who had been studying in Kingston, Ontario for the past year. After a few hours of sightseeing in Montreal we caught a coach up to Quebec city.
We arrived a little after 9 pm, not knowing where exactly our hostel was (somewhere in the old city) but a terrifically helpful busdriver radioed to get us directions. (I later discovered that I had the address all along and a map with the hostel marked in a guide book in my suitcase! Sigh!) The Auberge de la Pais is a very nice little hippie hostel in Vieux Quebec. I was impressed that we got a free breakfast included for $20/night! There are no locks on the doors but I took a couple of bag locks and there were no problems at all.
The next day we walked all around the old city. Apart from the souvenir shops ranging from beautiful to tacky there's art galleries and a whole street filled with original artworks being sold from stalls (some of it really very good). Then there's the Chateau and the fantasic view over the St Lawrence River. There's also some terrific restaurants but as we walked past the menus on display I realised that the higher up the hill the higher the prices!On the way back to Montreal I was very happy to be sitting on a bus for three hours just because it gave my feet a break after so much walking and hill climbing.
Tuesday 23 May 2006
Je Parle Français
I had my first class at the language school today. The mother of my host family drove me into town and pointed out the train stations (a subway that they call the "Metro") and bus stops I needed to know to get home. The trip back was very easy, 5 min on the Metro and 30 min on the bus. Only about 200 m or so to walk.
I was prepared for negotiating a big foreign city but was quite surprised when the teacher started talking in French to our absolute beginners class. Not one word of English, she just kept on explaining in French and miming until we claimed to understand. It's really not easy to understand when a French word is defined in terms of other French words! Not really knowing what's being asked of me is the worst bit. Once I get enough French to follow the instructions I'll be a good student.
I did get by. The podcast lessons I'd been listening to helped a little, especially with the pronunciation. But the words themselves I'm understanding via Italian. (I only really have a smattering of Italian but compared to my French I feel like Luigi Pirandello.)
Compared to the teachers, other Montréalers are really very good with English. Getting a taxi from the airport yesterday was no problem. I asked the driver, "Parlez-vous anglais?" and he looked at me as though that were a condescending question. So I figured I could just speak to everyone in English. My first purchase went fine but he was already speaking English with the guy in front of me. But I think I may have annoyed another shopkeeper. I spoke to her in English and she replied in French -- just the price, I understood -- but when I gave her too much money she said, in French, "No, I said..." She didn't realise that my problem was actually with the Canadian coins! I will try to say as much as I can in French when talking to strangers from now on.
I also saw my first snow-mobile today. Just in a showroom but it's still a very Canadian thing and quite foreign to me. I saw my first beret yesterday on the plane before we even got to Quebec. (Not the first time I've seen one, but the first time I've seen someone wearing a beret non-ironically!)
I was prepared for negotiating a big foreign city but was quite surprised when the teacher started talking in French to our absolute beginners class. Not one word of English, she just kept on explaining in French and miming until we claimed to understand. It's really not easy to understand when a French word is defined in terms of other French words! Not really knowing what's being asked of me is the worst bit. Once I get enough French to follow the instructions I'll be a good student.
I did get by. The podcast lessons I'd been listening to helped a little, especially with the pronunciation. But the words themselves I'm understanding via Italian. (I only really have a smattering of Italian but compared to my French I feel like Luigi Pirandello.)
Compared to the teachers, other Montréalers are really very good with English. Getting a taxi from the airport yesterday was no problem. I asked the driver, "Parlez-vous anglais?" and he looked at me as though that were a condescending question. So I figured I could just speak to everyone in English. My first purchase went fine but he was already speaking English with the guy in front of me. But I think I may have annoyed another shopkeeper. I spoke to her in English and she replied in French -- just the price, I understood -- but when I gave her too much money she said, in French, "No, I said..." She didn't realise that my problem was actually with the Canadian coins! I will try to say as much as I can in French when talking to strangers from now on.
I also saw my first snow-mobile today. Just in a showroom but it's still a very Canadian thing and quite foreign to me. I saw my first beret yesterday on the plane before we even got to Quebec. (Not the first time I've seen one, but the first time I've seen someone wearing a beret non-ironically!)
Monday 22 May 2006
Montréal
I'm now in Montréal! I had to wake up at 5 am (sic.) to get the 6.40 airport shuttle to be able to make my 10.30 flight. Stopped in Toronto for a couple of hours. The next flight was delayed for a little while to fix a cargo-bay door but I arrived at Montréal at 4 pm.
I'm staying with a French-speaking host family. Actually, he's a Scot who's been living in Canada for decades but she's a Quebecois. There's plenty of English spoken in this house so I'm feeling pretty comfortable.
Today's a public holiday in Canada, Victoria Day; it's basically the Queen's Birthday long-weekend. But here in Quebec, where they're not so keen on the British monarchy, they call it National Patriots' Day, a celebration of a famous rebellion against British rule!
Tomorrow my first day at GEOS Language School in downtown Montréal.
I'm staying with a French-speaking host family. Actually, he's a Scot who's been living in Canada for decades but she's a Quebecois. There's plenty of English spoken in this house so I'm feeling pretty comfortable.
Today's a public holiday in Canada, Victoria Day; it's basically the Queen's Birthday long-weekend. But here in Quebec, where they're not so keen on the British monarchy, they call it National Patriots' Day, a celebration of a famous rebellion against British rule!
Tomorrow my first day at GEOS Language School in downtown Montréal.
Saturday 20 May 2006
Tipping
I've done a little research for my trip to Montreal to try to find out the local customs. It seems they have tipping, just like the USA. (Except in the US there's a little more discretion ie 10-20% is recommended whereas in Quebec, because the tax is 14.5%, everyone equals the tax, I'm told.) It reminded me of just how unnatural I find it to give extra money on top of the charge. Of course I do it, but it's a matter of When in Rome. Most of the time it's not hard to remember but the other day I ate at a restaurant where we had to pay up at the counter, only after I paid did I realise that the tip was meant to be left on the table. (I went back to the table and left one.)
It's this fact that you're paying the waiter, separately from paying the establishment made me wonder if it's the process of having to evaluate the service that makes it feel weird to me, or just the fact that it's cash being thrown around none too discreetly. I think it's both. You don't need to be a militant unionist to feel that wages should be negotiated between the employee and employer, without the customer being involved. (Government regulation of minimum wages is different, because they're already involved with taxation etc. But I have heard that in the USA, waitstaff are not entitled to minimum wage because tipping is so entrenched!)
But I've also come to realise that, apart from this argument against it, I do have a cultural prejudice against filthy lucre. I assume it's a Britishism that Australians don't traditionally give cash as gifts. I know this is changing, and I suspect it's got something to do with immigration from Mediterranean countries (Asian cultures don't have a problem with cash either, especially with Chinese New Year, but their influence on Australian culture has come far later). I know I'm slightly more etiquette concious than other people my age but I don't think this is a rule-based objection, I just find it unseemly.
The thing that I find surprising is when at weddings Anglo-Celtic couples decide that they'd prefer cash and explicitly ask for it! A few years ago my friend Sara got married and sent with the invitation a little poem asking for cash. I got this mental picture of her leaving the reception in a wedding dress but, instead of a veil, wearing a bank-robber's mask and carrying sacks marked with dollar-signs! So that's what I gave her, a big sack of 20c coins marked with dollar signs!
Addendum 2006/6/8:
I accidentally offended a waitress last night.
I was out with friends from school and after dinner we went to a little cafe for dessert. (The strawberry cheesecake was excellent!) When the bill came I put down a note that was just over what I owed and then, instead of carefully equalling the tax, I put a bunch of coins on top that would have been a decent tip. As we were leaving the waitress plucked out all the pennies and handed them back to me saying, "I don't need these"!! I was too taken aback to say anything at all.
I remembered that, in the US at least, one can insult a waitress by leaving a tip of exactly two cents but I'd left more than that. Could it be the mere presence of copper coins that someone would find insulting? Sounds petty, as though they're not deemed legal tender! After a while I remembered when my family was in San Francisco back in '92 and my sister was giving change to a bum and he did the exact same thing as this Montreal waitress. (Thereby refuting the old adage!)
I felt really bad about it at first when I thought that I'd committed some sort of faux pas but the money was legal tender so they have no right to object. And, most importantly, I'm under no obligation to give them anything. There's no pleasing some people!
It's this fact that you're paying the waiter, separately from paying the establishment made me wonder if it's the process of having to evaluate the service that makes it feel weird to me, or just the fact that it's cash being thrown around none too discreetly. I think it's both. You don't need to be a militant unionist to feel that wages should be negotiated between the employee and employer, without the customer being involved. (Government regulation of minimum wages is different, because they're already involved with taxation etc. But I have heard that in the USA, waitstaff are not entitled to minimum wage because tipping is so entrenched!)
But I've also come to realise that, apart from this argument against it, I do have a cultural prejudice against filthy lucre. I assume it's a Britishism that Australians don't traditionally give cash as gifts. I know this is changing, and I suspect it's got something to do with immigration from Mediterranean countries (Asian cultures don't have a problem with cash either, especially with Chinese New Year, but their influence on Australian culture has come far later). I know I'm slightly more etiquette concious than other people my age but I don't think this is a rule-based objection, I just find it unseemly.
The thing that I find surprising is when at weddings Anglo-Celtic couples decide that they'd prefer cash and explicitly ask for it! A few years ago my friend Sara got married and sent with the invitation a little poem asking for cash. I got this mental picture of her leaving the reception in a wedding dress but, instead of a veil, wearing a bank-robber's mask and carrying sacks marked with dollar-signs! So that's what I gave her, a big sack of 20c coins marked with dollar signs!
Addendum 2006/6/8:
I accidentally offended a waitress last night.
I was out with friends from school and after dinner we went to a little cafe for dessert. (The strawberry cheesecake was excellent!) When the bill came I put down a note that was just over what I owed and then, instead of carefully equalling the tax, I put a bunch of coins on top that would have been a decent tip. As we were leaving the waitress plucked out all the pennies and handed them back to me saying, "I don't need these"!! I was too taken aback to say anything at all.
I remembered that, in the US at least, one can insult a waitress by leaving a tip of exactly two cents but I'd left more than that. Could it be the mere presence of copper coins that someone would find insulting? Sounds petty, as though they're not deemed legal tender! After a while I remembered when my family was in San Francisco back in '92 and my sister was giving change to a bum and he did the exact same thing as this Montreal waitress. (Thereby refuting the old adage!)
I felt really bad about it at first when I thought that I'd committed some sort of faux pas but the money was legal tender so they have no right to object. And, most importantly, I'm under no obligation to give them anything. There's no pleasing some people!
Friday 12 May 2006
Fireworks
At the supermarket the other day I noticed fireworks for sale! (In a supermarket! It's always surprising the things they sell in supermarkets here.) I haven't bought any yet but I am on summer vacation and have a little time on my hands. If I can't find an excuse before then, I'm sure explosions will help get me into the spirit come the Fourth of July.
I also noticed that they sell chewing tobacco. As if smoking the stuff wasn't disgusting enough! That's one American custom I won't be embracing.
I also noticed that they sell chewing tobacco. As if smoking the stuff wasn't disgusting enough! That's one American custom I won't be embracing.
Friday 5 May 2006
Finished!
I just submitted my last paper for this semester!
That's two semesters over. Now for a relatively relaxing summer break. (I'll be keeping occupied with a few bits an pieces but nothing to get too stressed about.)
That's two semesters over. Now for a relatively relaxing summer break. (I'll be keeping occupied with a few bits an pieces but nothing to get too stressed about.)
Tuesday 2 May 2006
Exam Season
I just got out of my Oral Exam.
Despite reassurances that they never fail anyone I went in there with the small worry that I might be the first that they do kick out of the program. A more likely result was that I would do badly and have to spend my summer writing a twenty-page paper on some question I'd answered poorly. I resigned myself to this when my advisor, Jordi, explained that it is only to make sure that all the students have learnt what they need to know.
I was not too surprised by Jordi's questions, they could have been much worse! Jim's were hard to answer just because they were so vague. He didn't mention the specific books much, just asking about the history of science as a discipline!
After they grilled me for half an hour on each of the three core class I took this year, they sent me out of the room so they could confer. Then they came out to tell me that I passed! They were happy with my performance and I don't have to write the extra paper.
Now I just have to get working on the two papers I do have to write for classes (due Thursday and Friday). I can't celebrate 'til Saturday but I will be celebrating.
Despite reassurances that they never fail anyone I went in there with the small worry that I might be the first that they do kick out of the program. A more likely result was that I would do badly and have to spend my summer writing a twenty-page paper on some question I'd answered poorly. I resigned myself to this when my advisor, Jordi, explained that it is only to make sure that all the students have learnt what they need to know.
I was not too surprised by Jordi's questions, they could have been much worse! Jim's were hard to answer just because they were so vague. He didn't mention the specific books much, just asking about the history of science as a discipline!
After they grilled me for half an hour on each of the three core class I took this year, they sent me out of the room so they could confer. Then they came out to tell me that I passed! They were happy with my performance and I don't have to write the extra paper.
Now I just have to get working on the two papers I do have to write for classes (due Thursday and Friday). I can't celebrate 'til Saturday but I will be celebrating.
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