Sara, having spent a semester in Paris, speaks French and seemed to really enjoy correcting my attempts to translate the billboards along the way. The subjunctive tense gets me every time. Most of the actual road/directional signage is provided in English which helped immensely. Our favorite translation was an electronic sign above one of the major highways in downtown Montreal. In French it read, "Covoiturage est économique certaine." (Or something like that...remember, Sara is the one who speaks French.) It was basically reminding commuters that carpooling makes economic sense. We commented on how nice it was that the Canadian government encourages practices that are environmentally (as well as wallet) friendly. Then the English translation popped up--we had time to read all of this because we were stuck in traffic...apparently folks in Montreal are not reading these announcements because there were many, many cars on the road--and it said, "Carpooling: an interesting choice!" We thought this was hilariously funny. I don't know how "certain" became "interesting" but I liked how the English version sort of gently nudged while the French version was like, "Carpool, damnit. It makes sense."
Anyway, we found Amherst St. in downtown Montreal with no problem, save for the traffic. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. We spent the first part of the afternoon ducking in and out of all the little shops, giggling like children over all the MCM finds. It truly was incredible. We stopped at a cute corner cafe for lunch and devoured the most fantastic paninis and salads. Shopping makes one hungry. We ate and talked for more than an hour and a half. I am so used to grabbing lunch on the go but when in Rome...
We then did some more walking and oohing and ahhing. Here are a couple of pics. from the stores we visited. I was tempted to buy a few things but they would have constituted major purchases and as I said in a previous post, Ry-guy likes input. So we just decided we'd have to go back...
So funniest story of the whole trip? Remember, I didn't want to make any major purchases because Ryan wasn't there to weigh in. But at this one shop, I noticed an adorable old-fashioned sign that said "Ouvert" (open, in French). It had a great patina on it and I loved its charm. Not really MCM at all but I thought it would be cute to put in the kitchen or something...just a little, random detail. Anyway, Sara liked it, too, so I asked her to hold it while we finished exploring the store. As we're approaching the counter to make our purchase, the owner, in a deliciously French accent and with a quizzical look on his face asks Sara, "Are you walking around with my sign?" Turns out that it was actually the sign he uses to announce that the store is open. If I had been by myself, I would have died of embarrassment. But since Sara and I had been laughing all day (we still hadn't gotten over carpooling being "interesting"), we both just cracked up. I don't think he thought it was particularly funny. In fact, he marched right over to the front of the store and plopped the sign in the front window as if to confirm its actual function. Ahh, making a fool of oneself in a foreign country. It's bound to happen, right?
Next up: our IKEA booty...
