After being in Canada for two days now I have come to the conclusion of the very clear separations of personalities between the Montreal and the Ottawa citizens. My first impressions of Montreal, I think, were biased because of the things I heard others say about the people and the communications here. Aside from my biased view, I tried to remain hopeful, but realized that in general the interactions I have had here are not very well regarding social interactions. The only positive moment so far has been Stephanie & Max, two friends that I met at a dance club last night. They were immediately welcoming and set an example for what I wished all the others I have experienced could follow.

Upon spending a very long and tiring, but fun, day in Ottawa I fell in love with that city. It was beautiful. The experiences I had were “awesome” and the people were extremely friendly, apologetic (even when it wasn’t necessary), and humorous. I enjoyed the Bywater Market. It was a lot like New Orleans French Market, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. The street performers were everywhere, the fresh produce for sale was cool to see, including a scene where some woman shoved oranges down her top. The stores were really great as well. I bought two Gonesh figurines from a shop owner, and he and I talked about it and his travel to Nepal where he purchased them. The Bywater Market was very multicultural not just with its citizens, but with the tourists who came from all over the world. I heard some people talking about their journey from Turkey, Greece, USA, and India.

After a few days here, I was able to meet a few good people who were not frustrated at my presence (or so it seems). Jenilee, our “social tour guide” has helped us explore and learn about more of the cultural history and presence in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec and Canada in general. Through Jenilee, we have met quite a few of her friends; and from my own personal experience it is this close-knit group of friends that I can see as the only pleasant, and friendly citizens.

During our trip to Quebec today, I was under the impression NO ONE would speak English and there would be NOTHING in English. This wasn’t the case. This negative stereotype placed upon this city and its citizens, businesses, and consumerism was rather confusing to me. All of the people that I met and talked with, especially our tour guide Roch (Rock), were kind, smiled and eager to carry a conversation with me. This is again a juxtaposed position from the entirely separate feeling of Montreal. I think someone informed me of the wrong city.

In any case, I had a wonderful time learning about the culture, meeting the people, seeing the sights, purchasing (way too many) things. It is this culmination of experiences that has made this study abroad trip a success for me.

We learned in class that Bonjour-Hi is just a way of Montrealers to greet people to give them the opportunity to choose the language they want to speak and how Frencophones do not want Hi to be part of the greeting anymore. As Americans we are not used to hearing such thing other than “Hey,” “hi,” and even “What’s up?” when we say hello to someone. That is why as soon as we landed in Montréal, I was shocked because the first thing I heard was “Bonjour-hi” when I had to hand in my passport to pass customs.

After being in the city for 5 days I have noticed that most of Montrealers use this expression all day long. When someone has greeted me with only “bonjour” and I have said “bonjour” back, they immediately start speaking French and because my eyes open wide trying to process the words the person speaking to me realizes immediately that I obviously don’t know how to speak French whatsoever. Thanks to this way of greeting people, I have truly come to really like the city and not feel like a total foreigner and tourist like I felt the first day. It has given me many opportunities to meet people and learn about the culture and the life of the Canadians, especially Montrealers. Therefore,  really hope the Hi in the expression is kept alive because it opens up the door to many experiences to tourists and people like us studying abroad.

Special thanks to our social tour guide,

Jenilee, for teaching all of us about Montréal and for a really unforgettable week!

You’ll always be the “I” in our OHIO.

  Of course while we were all in Ottawa we all saw the lovely Tulip flowers and such around the city I love flowers, they smell like Candles, which I also happen to love. I wish we had time to attend the actual Tulip festival so I could get a more colofrul array of the flowers but to the left is the picture of the tulips I took while we were at the museum in Ottawa, i took a good amount of pictures of them and decided to share my best one with you guys. So far, my favorite part of this trip has been the flowers and sights, not the excursions of museums or walking but more the parts of Montreal where you could sit and enjoy the view, like the Atwater market or the view from Margaret’s museum.

 Here on the left is a close up picture of some chinese greenery I shot while at the Botanical Gardens next to the biodome, i love this picture, and i especially loved the gardens when we sat down for a rest under a small asian inspired hut, i got to see alot of pretty flowers glowing in the sunlight, I guess i should’ve taken some pictures huh?

This is another pretty plant-ish, it’s one of the pink trees outside of the Museum in Ottawa, I snapped a shot of this beauty because i thought it looked like my all time favorite tree, the Sakura tree, or better known as a Cherry Blossom Tree, not something common to the Newark citizen unless you wanted to travel to Athens, Ohio or Cincinatti.

Hi everyone,00 Final Montreal Trip

I have attached the schedule we will follow in Montreal. Please take a look at this in preparation for the trip.

SNL Canadian Celebrity Scoop Click here to see how guest Zach Galifianakis and SNL cast members report hot celebrity gossip as Canadians. Ohhhhhh, they’re soooooo nice (and cold, and did you notice their producer)!

Canadian comedian, Rick Mercer, in “Talking to Americans- Part 1” Click here to watch Canadian comedian, Rick Mercer, making fun of Americans. Albeit, as a Canadian, this is probably not the meanest joke Mercer could have employed–response-baiting passersby’s into revealing their own stupidity–it does reflect quite badly on Americans as a whole. At the very least, could we as a nation agree to just admit it when we don’t know something?

Hello!

During this course I’ll be looking at the differences in perspective between Canadians and Americans in relation to how we view each other. Which basically means:

What do Canadians think about Americans? versus What do American’s think about Canadians?

Though my daily thoughts seldom involve Canadians, I have to admit that the opinion I had formed followed the usual stereotypes–cold temperatures, better healthcare, and funny accents–all in all though, I thought they were basically like the US only much nicer.

Taking the time to learn a little something about our neighboring nation, however, has opened my eyes to some new and different ways of thinking. But I’ll leave that lecture to the professors, because what I really want to show you is how some of these stereotypes are maintained in our media.

Check back tonight or early tomorrow morning for some video clips!!

I’m excited about joining you all for the class and the trip to Montreal. I will periodically post links to useful information. Today’s topic: politeness in Quebec. I’m building on the comments Dr Rodgers made in class yesterday about personal space.

Check out this summary from eDiplomat on some common courtesies: http://www.ediplomat.com/np/cultural_etiquette/ce_ca.htm

And on Kwintessential: http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/canada.html

This site is dedicated to the students of the May-mester study abroad course traveling to Montreal. Please use this site to post your comments, photos, blogs, and other items while on the road abroad.