Quebec, Oh, File for, eh, While, eh, 2nd Post

A blog is not a diary, so I won’t be recounting my daily life here in Montreal, not telling you that last Thursday evening we went downtown to the Just For Laughs (JFL) Festival for the Chevy Chase Gala. A gala at JFL is a show hosted by a comic (our host was Chevy Chase and you’re not), who gets to open, MC, and do several comedic segments between acts of other guest comics. The night was hilarious. Six or seven guest comics appeared, who were from around the world, like Canada, United States, Australia, Canada, United States and Canada and the United States. Their humor orientation ranged from classic stand up one-liners to stories of going bald at age 23, to physical slap stick about the Dyson AirBlade hand dryers that are ubiquitous in Canada (you can’t dry yourself out of a paper towel around here). Chevy did a fine job, including a stint behind the desk for the news. Some things never get old (but Chevy does, he’s 70 now).

Since a blog is not a diary, I won’t recount our Saturday morning trip to the Ste. Anne Farmer’s Market for the Blues and BBQ event. We attended the BBQ seminar at 10:00 a.m., a workshop by local Montrealer John Lattuca, Pit Master.  He was the 2012 Jack Daniel's 'World Brisket Champion' and winner of a grill-load of other awards.  We parked ourselves in the audience to learn how to make perfect BBQ ribs.  After taking five pages of notes on building the fire, prepping the ribs, crafting a 'Texas Crutch', timing and testing, and seasoning, my wife, Marti, concluded her notes with: "or go to restaurant!"  After he finished his demonstration, and after the sudden appearance of the health inspector was dealt with, John was permitted to sell his food.  We split a plate of ribs, World Championship brisket, beans and coleslaw. Like Marti said, “Dang, it was tasty!”

Since a blog is not a diary, I won’t recount our Sunday evening trip to the Olympic Park for a soccer game. Many of you will recall the 1976 Summer Olympics (my all-time favorite summer games), think Nadia Comaneci, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Bruce Jenner the Decathlete. We drove to LaSalle, a suburb about 25 minutes from here, which is the terminus of the Green Line of the Metro. We rode 30 minutes on the subway to the stadium at the Olympic Park on the East side of town, where the Montreal Impact played the Portland Timbers.  My son John lives in Portland, so we texted him photos and such. He watched the game on TV and stayed dry, while we got wet in the downpour just before halftime.  Hey, this is boring let’s talk about…the fact that a blog is not a diary.   

                                                   1976 Olympic Park in background

Portland won 3-2, on a goal at the 83^rd minute. 

A blog is not a diary. If not, what is it? 

It is a log of events, a log of “b” events, I guess. The “a” events I’m saving for my next book.

Staying under 500 words I’ll close with…Good night, Diary.

Note:  Pit Master episode description courtesy of Marti Franti

Quebecophile for a While First Post

Welcome to Quebecophile for a While blog’s first post. I’ll chronicle our life here in Quebec over the next six months. I’ve also been posting pictures of outings and sights around Montreal on Facebook, so if you want to see those photos and future posts there you know what to do. 

A quick refresher on our journey….Marti and I are living in Montreal while I am on sabbatical, working at McGill University, working in the Bioresource Engineering Department. My primary goal on sabbatical (this is for the boss to read) is to create the content for a new course I will teach….hey this is boring, let’s talk about Quebec.

A Quebecophile is someone who loves Quebec, and obviously we do, or will, or might, or should since we decided to live here for half a year. We love winter and they have it here in spades, but unfortunately, we’ll miss it as it starts in earnest in January and we plan to leave…hey this is boring, let’s talk about Montreal.

Montreal is described as the city of festivals (by me). When we arrived the International Jazz Festival was in full swing. We attended the free outdoor shows one evening. Five, count it, cinq stages set up with free music in the Place de Arts district. Not small stages and not small acts. Great music, great environment, great, polite crowds. 

The next weekend the International Music Festival was concluding. Then the Just for Laughs Festival started running for two weeks. Again, lots of free street performers trying to get guffaws from the crowds and several free outdoor venues. We didn’t spend much time at the outdoor venues as the acts we saw were performing in French…hey this is boring, let’s talk about culture shock.

I only had one panic attack so far, and that was when I realized there are no blond-haired people here. As some of you know, I am 100% Finnish, land of the blonds, (I was very blond as a kid), and I also grew up in Northern Wisconsin where there are many blonds. But after being here a week I felt like I was on another planet, realizing, like, 100% of French descendants are dark haired, and all the immigrants, Chinese, Hispanic, African, Middle Eastern, are, like, also all dark haired. Thank god I married a blond.

The other culture shock was the topless matriarch who road proudly perched like a double bow sprit of her husband’s 50-foot, double-decker boat as they slowly cruised through the canals that run along the southern edge of Montreal. This was her way of celebrating Canada Day, comparable to our 4^th of July, and her French heritage...viva bra France!

Not much else on the culture shock page, except the French language is dominant in parts of the city. More on this later. One other observation is the common dress here and typical fitness of the populous. More on that later too.

So, staying under five-hundred words per post, I’ll end this…..hey, this is boring, let’s talk about…

Bonne journee, 
Tom