Why does everyone love Montreal?

[Razor]

Originally Posted by flipv

You know, just to illustrate how fucked some of you are: it goes from me saying Montreal isn't special and I prefer European cities to Slavs are unsophisticated plumbers. And way to paint what? 250 million people?

You need your head checked - saying anything like that about another culture or race should get you banned.

ha ha ha ..laser pointer is now in the other corner sunshine..Go get it...Slavs all wear three striped Adidas matching jogging suits= Montreal is a provincial back water..Touche'

Don't be so thin skinned yourself. I was only joking..I know that that stereotype isn't true..Please don't change out of those three stripers because of what I said in jest.
You see..I know exactly what you are playing ..The ole Troll one foot shuffle..The obvious move where some simpleton like yourself instigates and antagonizes, and when you get some back at you, you play the victim and melodramatically demand that someone like me gets banned for some sort of over the top racism play...I betcha you suck at Checkers , let alone Chess.

Such an amateur you are.

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by flipv

Bitchy bitchy did I strike a nerve with he who hails from the provincial backwater? Honey, I've been to more countries, cities and continents than you can count on you fingers - since someone who doesn't know about microeconomics likely doesn't know how to do simple arithmetic.

I mean, I'm not really surprised. You try using ethnic cleansing as a joke - which just makes you a pathetic individual with sociopathic tendencies.

Oh Cosmo, you're so worldly! Please, don't stop! Tell us more!

Oh, and I tried your finger counting suggestion - it works! Thanks to you I have finally gone digital.

Now please, continue..

[Stryker]

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

I don't brag dumbass, people ask me and I answer, simple as that. I don't think people would care about you or your life beyond trying to find out how you became such a bitter nutjob, but I think we have the measure of you now. Just another simple minded insecure East-block reject with the usual sterotypical qualities. The fact you couldn't hack it in Eastern Europe speaks volumes (since you clearly didn't come here for the lifestyle or culture), I have relatives who moved to places like Croatia for the fantastic economic opportunities it provides and these are educated Brits!

Hit the nail on the head i fucking love eastern euros largely becuase i share many of the same qualities, but like fuck lets not lie here, east euros are not culturally white.

[Ramako]

Originally Posted by Razor

mmmm

Yes I'm stuck in Ottawa with my belly quite full and a fairly decent life, so I'll take my misfortune.

I'm trying to come up with a timeline of your own personal story, and correct me if I'm too far off will you?

You had a government job in Belgrade (Don't most people work in government in Eastern Europe).
You have some sort of degree..Maybe a banking or economics obtained via a free education system.

A terrible war broke out forcing you to come to Canada as a refugee.
First you came to Montreal, but there was large language barrier to overcome, and at the same time you became disgruntled after learning that the credentials you worked so hard to obtain in your homeland weren't recognized, so unfortunately some up-grading a re-testing were required.

You drove cab for awhile to make ends meet, and at some point made a move to Ottawa thinking that perhaps a smaller city would help in your transition. Besides, a lot of your fellow countrymen lived here in Ottawa already.
Again, you just couldn't make headway here because people failed to recognize how special and superior you were because you once had government position, and that you are one of the privileged holding a University degree from Belgrade. People should recognize you for it, but they just don't..It frustrates you to no end.

Subsequently, you move to Toronto and alas, you found your home..A bank hires you as an entry level financial advisor at 35 hours a week (salary), and you are just thankful that you don't have to drive a cab anymore..Damn you Montreal!..Damn you Ottawa!

It really is a familiar story

I was under the impression that flipv speaks french and hails from Switzerland... but I could be wrong.

[rousseau]

The hissy fits might be amusing if the insults were clever.

In any case, you can't argue with personal preference, but you can argue with arguments. Though all we have here are baseless statements. And I know you're not supposed to respond to trolls, but I get irritated when people outside Quebec say stupid things about Quebec.

Originally Posted by flipv

...it goes from me saying Montreal isn't special and I prefer European cities...

Look, regardless of whether you like Montreal or not, and aside from the intangibles that qualitatively make it special, it is an objective fact that it's a very unique place. kool maudit's explanation on the first page of this thread goes some way to nailing it down:

Originally Posted by kool maudit

because it's fun and pretty, and it's the only place in the world where english and french share space in this manner. it has a well-defined sense of place, and a lot of things that are peculiar to it. it's a 400-year-old eastern city with millions of people, and it's canada's only example of the type.

That you don't find that compelling enough to squander any precious vacation time away from Europe is, you know, personal preference. Shrug.

But Montreal is not Cleveland. Saying so is idiotic. Repeatedly saying so is trolling.

Hey, I'm all for detractors. I like'em wit' de backhoes. You can dig through the bullshit. Because too much smarmy adoration is annoying. That's how punk rock got invented. And burritos. But you gotta pick your spots. People who claim that Montreal is just like everywhere else are worse than Hitler.

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The hissy fits might be amusing if the insults were clever.

In any case, you can't argue with personal preference, but you can argue with arguments. Though all we have here are baseless statements. And I know you're not supposed to respond to trolls, but I get irritated when people outside Quebec say stupid things about Quebec.



Look, regardless of whether you like Montreal or not, and aside from the intangibles that qualitatively make it special, it is an objective fact that it's a very unique place. kool maudit's explanation on the first page of this thread goes some way to nailing it down:



That you don't find that compelling enough to squander any precious vacation time away from Europe is, you know, personal preference. Shrug.

But Montreal is not Cleveland. Saying so is idiotic. Repeatedly saying so is trolling.

Hey, I'm all for detractors. I like'em wit' de backhoes. You can dig through the bullshit. Because too much smarmy adoration is annoying. That's how punk rock got invented. And burritos. But you gotta pick your spots. People who claim that Montreal is just like everywhere else are worse than Hitler.

I'm glad he doesn't like Montreal. One less asshole I might run into. Feel sorry for Toronto though.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by OutOfTowner

I'm glad he doesn't like Montreal. One less asshole I might run into. Feel sorry for Toronto though.

Montreal has enough already.

[OutOfTowner]

Originally Posted by TorontoDrew

Montreal has enough already.

Indeed. That's what everyone told me when I moved here. Not sure what they were trying to tell me..

[wg_flamip]

To return to the "most restaurants per capita" claim, I must admit I'm suspicious. The original article posted (and the report it was based on) doesn't actually compare Montreal to other Canadian cities. It also notes that other cities also claim the title. The report isn't some booster-driven PR piece either rather attributing Montreal's high rate of new restaurant failure to an over-saturated market. Further, a 2010 study conducted by the Canadian Restaurant Food Association found that, compared to those in Canada's other regions, people in Quebec ate out the least (twice weekly in Atlantic Canada and Ontario, 1.6× in Western Canada and 1.4× in Quebec).

All that said, I find number of restaurants per capita and restaurant visits per week to be terrible metrics for joie de vivre. We're not talking only about fine dining establishments or interesting I-know-a-place mom-'n'-pops: These stats reflect every third-rate fast food binge, every stress case squeezing in a meal and every person, young or old, who never learnt to cook. There is joy in cooking.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by Ramako

I was under the impression that flipv speaks french and hails from Switzerland... but I could be wrong.

Well if he is,then there goes my back story line then..

[niwell]

Well reading the last few pages has made my somewhat boring Xmas vacation with family a bit more entertaining.

[ScreamingViking]

Maybe this has been suggested before in the thread, but perhaps "Why does everyone love Montreal?" could be changed to "Why does almost everyone love Montreal?" and that would make everybody happy?
(as happy as they can be, anyway )

[shappy]

Yeah, the last few pages have certainly been entertaining.

I do think that Montreal gets elevated around here to a degree that doesn't quite jive with my impressions but I understand that historically it's Canada's urban heart and it's face to the world, so to speak, and one that Canadians have always been quite proud of.

I'm going to ramble a bit here... I came to the country as a young immigrant but even growing up well into my teenage years I didn't hear about Montreal often, so when I first visited I didn't have very many preconceived notions. One of the first impressions that formed was that Montreal felt like a big university town. It didn't come across like a big city and I suppose I wasn't really captivated. Now this is a while ago and I have obviously been back fairly often and, to rousseau's point, I see that it is objectively a good city (even by world standards). But yeah, I enjoy going there - it has a fun vibe, can be very pretty and the restaurants are consistently great (moreso than Toronto's IMO).

Originally Posted by mistercorporate

Kensington market is passé and is more of an old school artsy/hippie kind of place with a bit of a Latin flavour. W Queen W is the scenester hangout of the day. Perhaps Ossington too, but that also has a local mainstream Toronto vibe.

I think Kensington is a different animal. It's not a very trendy place but it's most certainly bohemian.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

The hissy fits might be amusing if the insults were clever.

In any case, you can't argue with personal preference, but you can argue with arguments. Though all we have here are baseless statements. And I know you're not supposed to respond to trolls, but I get irritated when people outside Quebec say stupid things about Quebec.



Look, regardless of whether you like Montreal or not, and aside from the intangibles that qualitatively make it special, it is an objective fact that it's a very unique place. kool maudit's explanation on the first page of this thread goes some way to nailing it down:



That you don't find that compelling enough to squander any precious vacation time away from Europe is, you know, personal preference. Shrug.

But Montreal is not Cleveland. Saying so is idiotic. Repeatedly saying so is trolling.

Hey, I'm all for detractors. I like'em wit' de backhoes. You can dig through the bullshit. Because too much smarmy adoration is annoying. That's how punk rock got invented. And burritos. But you gotta pick your spots. People who claim that Montreal is just like everywhere else are worse than Hitler.

Not sure I'd go that far, but yeah... it's idiotic. There seems to be in certain circles in Canada an allergic reaction to any recognition of the idea that Quebec (and by extension, Montreal) is truly different. Admittedly some people do play it up too much. I don't know if it's because people think doing so opens the door to political concessions, or justifies separation, or whatever, but the idea that Montreal and Quebec are exactly the same as the rest of North America* except for the functional code (language) most people use to communicate, is fairly common.

*Of course, this doesn't say much for the uniqueness of other places that don't even have a language barrier (and everything that goes along with it). But that's a whole other ball of wax. Let's not go there...

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Yep, we all have personal preferences.


But this is objectively untrue.


Maybe you don't, but I think this is precisely the kind of thing that people on a forum devoted to urban affairs would find fascinating.

Why are debt loads lower? How is that phenomenon reflected in the culture of Quebec? Probably the answers aren't that complicated. With smaller, denser living spaces, you have less space to put stuff, so you don't buy more stuff. Having lower incomes helps, too. Plus, a greater number of restaurants per capita suggests that going out for a nice meal is a bit higher on the list of priorities in Quebec.

It would be interesting to hear Quebeckers' take on this. Though I suppose the idea that there's a sort of joie de vivre in Quebec that isn't quite as prevalent elsewhere will ruffle regionally sensitive feathers, as these things tend to on SSP.

I wonder: Are there pickup truck forums, or maybe country music forums, where Quebeckers get testy about the lower per capita pickup truck ownership there in comparison to in Alberta?

I've said it before on here, but Quebeckers are more "experiential" than "material" in their wants and desires. They don't care so much about luxury, brand names and, even, to be blunt, about "quality above all".

Yes, they have 50% of the backyard pools in the country but the vast majority (crushing even) are 3000 dollar above-ground jobbies. Why is that? Because you don't need a fancy in-ground pool with interlock and fountains for the kids to have fun in and have pool parties with beer and a bbq every weekend during the summer. A cheap above-ground does just fine.

Average square footage of suburban houses in the suburbs of Quebec cities is also visibly smaller than in other parts of the country, as is the average size of vehicles on Quebec roads.

You notice this when you compare Ottawa to Gatineau. There are almost no recent or new SFHs in Ottawa that are below 2000 sf, whereas in Gatineau houses over 2000 sf are the exception, and even the nicest new neighbourhoods in Gatineau have lots of houses in the 1500-1700 sf range.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by niwell

Yeah like Monkeyronin said above this isn't really the case anymore. Chefs like Grant Van Gameron and others are innovating just as much as anyone in Montreal nowadays (and work closely together in many cases).

The difference, though, is that hockey moms in Listowel don't talk about Grant Van Gameron at the arena.

I know this will be met with much skepticism but hockey moms in Baie-St-Paul will talk about Montreal chefs Martin Picard, Louis-François Marcotte or Ricardo Larrivée.

This is not due to any higher level of sophistication (before anyone gets excited), but it does speak to a culture that is way more locally rooted.

I am an armchair foodie at best, and I actually don't even cook at all. And yet here is my name-dropping list off the top of my head of Montreal chefs and other foodie personalities (in addition to the three guys above):

Daniel Vézina
Giovanni Appolo
Jérôme Ferrer
Stefano Faita
Normand Laprise
Josée Di Stasio
Christian Bégin
David MacMillan
Chuck Hughes
Marilou Bourdon

I am sure I am missing some, but it gives you an idea.

While, as I said, Toronto has a great restaurant scene, you'd probably have to be a food critic for Toronto Life in order to put together a similar list for Toronto. Whereas Marie-France the real estate agent in Shawinigan will recognize all of these names instantly.

I mentioned this already, but will do so again: this is not necessarily reflective of the quality of the "scene". I mean, even Ottawa has Stephen Beckta. But he's not a household name to people at, say, the Law Office of MacKenzie, MacKenzie and Son in North Bay...

[Gresto]

Originally Posted by rousseau

kool maudit's explanation on the first page of this thread goes some way to nailing it down:

Hmm, whatever did happen to kool maudit? I liked his/her pithy prose.

[Acajack]

Kind of off-topic but this is the right place:

We had a pretty wild family Christmas gathering at our house this year. My family has a large francophone "branch" and a smaller but still sizeable anglophone "branch". This year, because of prior commitments and availability, the francophone "branch" of aunts, uncles and cousins was out in full force and only few anglos attended.

Anyway, after several hours of singing, dancing, stomping, spoon-playing, etc., I was talking to one of my sibling's spouses. One of the only "anglos" in attendance. This person has been in the family for about 5 years and is totally WASP from Southern Ontario. Also one of the most culturally open and perceptive people I know.

I would sum up that person's observations (unsolicited by me) in this way: "Well, that was certainly an interesting evening. I can tell you that in my 40 years on this earth, the total number of Smith* family Christmas parties that ended with everyone of all ages dancing for a couple of hours in the living room is... zero."

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Gresto

Hmm, whatever did happen to kool maudit? I liked his/her pithy prose.

He comes and goes with the occasional "drive-by" posting.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Ramako

I was under the impression that flipv speaks french and hails from Switzerland... but I could be wrong.

He definitely speaks French and has lived in Switzerland, but I don't think that's his homeland. He's from Serbia I am pretty sure.