Learning to Live Outside
Montreal is cold. That in itself isn't a particularly incisive or descriptive sentence to begin a journal entry with, but sometimes the bare facts need to be stated without fanfare. Besides which, if you were walking down a street in Montreal braving temperatures of minus 25 degrees (celsius), poetry and metaphors wouldn't come easily. All you'd be able to utter out of your cakehole is a brief statement of fact, probably with an expletive thrown in somewhere. Perhaps this is why Canadian authors tend to write quite sparse, clipped prose.
The day begins well enough. Amanda's parents generously offer to drive us in to the city from Ottawa, which is two hours' worth of journey either way. From the car windows I can see a variation of the nowheres-ville Australian landscape I described for our coach journies between Sydney and Melbourne. Bare stubs of bushes and trees sit in the middle of dual carriageways, only this time they are caked with snow. The landscape between towns doesn't change much - the odd hill shows its side on the horizon, but nothing much of note appears. It seems to be a problem big countries have - sure, the landscape may in places be breathtaking, but it takes an age to get to whatever the next breathtaking thing is. There is no life and no surprises between the stops. I pass the time by reading a book. Each time I look up out of the window, I see much the same blank white sheet before me, with a few vague grey shapes. It's like bad abstract art created only with charcoal and bleached paper.
When we finally arrive in Montreal and get out into the open air, the cold air hits. It feels bearable at first, like loading frozen chicken into the giant freezer storage section of a supermarket. The notable difference is, of course, even in one's most nightmare Saturday job one wouldn't load frozen poultry into a storage unit for more than a few moments, and if one did it probably still wouldn't be as cold as this. As soon as the wind picks up, the temperature really takes its toll. My eyelids go numb and I claw at my face to check that they're actually still there and working. I know that it shouldn't be possible to get frostbite at such "high" temperatures, but it feels best to be on the safe side. Then my legs begin to go dead, feeling as if they're filled with my mother's entire collection of sharp sewing equipment. Each step creates a tingling, burning sensation on my upper thighs, like being continually whipped with the screwed-up end of a wet towel in the PE changing rooms (not that this ever happened to me, of course.) I beg to stop and enter a store at about the same time Amanda does. I'm glad that I don't beg for mercy at any greater or lesser time than a Canadian. I'm only too aware of how pathetic most of all I'm telling you sounds.
Everyone in Montreal runs from place to place urgently, as if in a great hurry to complete some enormous errand. Loud shouts of French, some of them unpleasant, can be heard up and down the streets. These people aren't, of course, hurrying due to some extraordinarily slapdash personal arrangements. The population of Montreal as a whole isn't as disorganised as all that. People are in fact running because it's deeply uncomfortable to walk, and the best way to warm up is to move incredibly fast from one building to the next. At one point, I see a man who looks suspiciously like Prince (in both height and personal style) walk immediately by me. I don't care. It would make sense if it were him. In these sort of conditions, few would notice, and the few who did would simply look the other way towards the nearest warm air duct. Who needs stars when you've got heat-giving electrical appliances in the great indoors? Any famous person whining about their wish for 'escape' should head here at this time of year immediately. That said, they may find they suffer just as much for their anonymity.
What I glimpse of Montreal through iced-up eyes seems actually genuinely promising, though, with large, imposing sandstone buildings (typically French provincial buildings, in fact) huddling up to each other, welcoming eateries and endless posters mentioning countless gig events and gallery exhibitions. Sadly, as welcome as the sight may be, I don't want to suffer to see it, and we end up diving in Montreal's underground metropolis of shopping malls and metro stations. Much of the commercial part of the city (and even some of the offices and apartments) were built underground to counter the extreme winter weather. Once you've been outside for more than ten minutes, it's easy to understand why.
As an astonishingly appropriate gift, Amanda's mother buys me two new jumpers in the swish Montreal department store (which, incidentally, stocks a far more interesting variety of clothes than exist in Camden Market these days, and appears to be populated by everyone from Britney-wannabe teens to ultra-cool, Strokes-haircutted youths with pouts on their faces and too much eyeliner, to old ladies.) Then, after Amanda makes her purchases, we head off home. We'll be back in Montreal soon, where I hope to have the physical faculties to make a longer, fairer assessment. In the meantime, you'll have to be happy with this little snapshot (from the safety of a car, natch) of the Molson brewery in the middle of a snowfield. Sorry if it's not that good. I could have got out of the car to get closer, but I feared another brutal mugging by Jack Frost and his band of unmerry rogues.
(PS Yes, my new user icon is David Hasselhoff. Start protesting now...)
The day begins well enough. Amanda's parents generously offer to drive us in to the city from Ottawa, which is two hours' worth of journey either way. From the car windows I can see a variation of the nowheres-ville Australian landscape I described for our coach journies between Sydney and Melbourne. Bare stubs of bushes and trees sit in the middle of dual carriageways, only this time they are caked with snow. The landscape between towns doesn't change much - the odd hill shows its side on the horizon, but nothing much of note appears. It seems to be a problem big countries have - sure, the landscape may in places be breathtaking, but it takes an age to get to whatever the next breathtaking thing is. There is no life and no surprises between the stops. I pass the time by reading a book. Each time I look up out of the window, I see much the same blank white sheet before me, with a few vague grey shapes. It's like bad abstract art created only with charcoal and bleached paper.
When we finally arrive in Montreal and get out into the open air, the cold air hits. It feels bearable at first, like loading frozen chicken into the giant freezer storage section of a supermarket. The notable difference is, of course, even in one's most nightmare Saturday job one wouldn't load frozen poultry into a storage unit for more than a few moments, and if one did it probably still wouldn't be as cold as this. As soon as the wind picks up, the temperature really takes its toll. My eyelids go numb and I claw at my face to check that they're actually still there and working. I know that it shouldn't be possible to get frostbite at such "high" temperatures, but it feels best to be on the safe side. Then my legs begin to go dead, feeling as if they're filled with my mother's entire collection of sharp sewing equipment. Each step creates a tingling, burning sensation on my upper thighs, like being continually whipped with the screwed-up end of a wet towel in the PE changing rooms (not that this ever happened to me, of course.) I beg to stop and enter a store at about the same time Amanda does. I'm glad that I don't beg for mercy at any greater or lesser time than a Canadian. I'm only too aware of how pathetic most of all I'm telling you sounds.
Everyone in Montreal runs from place to place urgently, as if in a great hurry to complete some enormous errand. Loud shouts of French, some of them unpleasant, can be heard up and down the streets. These people aren't, of course, hurrying due to some extraordinarily slapdash personal arrangements. The population of Montreal as a whole isn't as disorganised as all that. People are in fact running because it's deeply uncomfortable to walk, and the best way to warm up is to move incredibly fast from one building to the next. At one point, I see a man who looks suspiciously like Prince (in both height and personal style) walk immediately by me. I don't care. It would make sense if it were him. In these sort of conditions, few would notice, and the few who did would simply look the other way towards the nearest warm air duct. Who needs stars when you've got heat-giving electrical appliances in the great indoors? Any famous person whining about their wish for 'escape' should head here at this time of year immediately. That said, they may find they suffer just as much for their anonymity.
What I glimpse of Montreal through iced-up eyes seems actually genuinely promising, though, with large, imposing sandstone buildings (typically French provincial buildings, in fact) huddling up to each other, welcoming eateries and endless posters mentioning countless gig events and gallery exhibitions. Sadly, as welcome as the sight may be, I don't want to suffer to see it, and we end up diving in Montreal's underground metropolis of shopping malls and metro stations. Much of the commercial part of the city (and even some of the offices and apartments) were built underground to counter the extreme winter weather. Once you've been outside for more than ten minutes, it's easy to understand why.
As an astonishingly appropriate gift, Amanda's mother buys me two new jumpers in the swish Montreal department store (which, incidentally, stocks a far more interesting variety of clothes than exist in Camden Market these days, and appears to be populated by everyone from Britney-wannabe teens to ultra-cool, Strokes-haircutted youths with pouts on their faces and too much eyeliner, to old ladies.) Then, after Amanda makes her purchases, we head off home. We'll be back in Montreal soon, where I hope to have the physical faculties to make a longer, fairer assessment. In the meantime, you'll have to be happy with this little snapshot (from the safety of a car, natch) of the Molson brewery in the middle of a snowfield. Sorry if it's not that good. I could have got out of the car to get closer, but I feared another brutal mugging by Jack Frost and his band of unmerry rogues.
(PS Yes, my new user icon is David Hasselhoff. Start protesting now...)