Vancouver vs. Montreal: The Inevitable Comparisons

It's been a brisk two weeks since returning from my jaunt to Montreal. With the exception of spinning records and listening to music on my precious first iPod, I've been terribly unmotivated since coming back to Vancouver. It's easy to write it off as post-vacation blahs, except that I was only away for a little over a week, in effect missing 6 days of work. Vancouver was still at the tail end of a brutal (by Vancouver standards) heat wave and it was comforting to sleep in my bed again and breathe in the drier, fresher air. Although I could have used a few more days of exploration in Montreal, despite the oppressive humidity over there, I was glad to be home.

Or was I?

I don't know how to really compare my experiences in Montreal to my life in Vancouver without sounding like I'm totally pissing on my hometown. I have a reverse bias, in that I've lived in Vancouver for so long that almost nothing fazes me anymore. The city has changed so much in the last 29 years and I've paid so little attention to it that time it's like nothing has changed at all. Instead of a fascinating memory stream like a time lapse video, I get an eery sense of stasis... of time standing still.

A week in a new city surely isn't long enough to uncover all the negatives of the same, but it's given me a taste of something new and very appealing. I'd like to make it easy for myself and mention two great things I noticed over there. The first, is the social vibe in Montreal is so much more textured and varied than it is in Vancouver. While there are visible cliques and groupings in all cities, in Montreal they are all so out in the open and simply co-exist in this great melting pot of subcultures. Every group seems to mind their own business accepts everyone on the outside so long as they keep to their own thing. As a results, you'll see all manner of people on the streets and everyone seems to embrace their own sense of style and individuality. In stark contrast, the people in Vancouver seem to be a lot more homogenous, with everyonef striving to become (or just buying into) some sort of socially acceptable image.

The second thing, of course, is the women. I've had a lot of help from different people, whether it be my sister, B. or my architect friend, R., in trying to describe just what makes the ladies in Montreal so attractive. It really boiled down to their sense of style, reflected in their urban chic fashion sense and their overall attitude. Girls are infinitely more creative and stylish in dress and conversely, they are much more willing to wear less. Whereas you routinely see women in Vancouver conforming to a certain "uniform" of trendyness or looking like they are trying too hard, you will find women in Montreal who just look comfortable in their own skin, even if they look distinct and unique from anyone else in a 3 block radius. I saw so many short shorts, summer skirts, mini skirts and skimpy tops over there that I just gave up trying to scope out everyone who passed. And most of it, believe it or not, did not look slutty. It just looked right.

There's more to report, but I'll save it for another day.