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walbournIt's been a busy few days of long meetings and overindulgence. French meals are incredibly heavy, with your choice of foods that involved various levels of cruelty to animals. Last night we went to two 'supper clubs' here in Montreal. The evening starts with fine (French) dining served by waitresses all dressed in matching outfits (as near as I can tell, the hiring policy for these places comes down to "can you fit into this size 2 dress?" and "do you like to party with drunk strange men?"), then over several hours they crank up the music, pull away the tables, and it turns into a dance club. Of course at no point does the drinking let up.
Montreal is a hard-partying town. The European influence here is evident in their lifestyle and entertainments. Downtown has a network of underground malls featuring almost exclusively food courts, clothing, shoes, and jewelry--underground because the temperatures range from well below freezing in the winter well to into the 90s (er, 30s Celsius) in summer, although the evenings in summer are pleasant. I do find the less Puritanical attitude towards the female form than that found in the States more healthy. Bare breast are sexy, but not fetishized to the point of stupidity like we have in the US, and they even show soft core porn on standard cable after 11pm here. Yet there's definitely a misogynistic tone to much of the culture. Montreal has something like 53% women to 47% men, so the emphasis on competition, looking thin and beautiful, and willingness to use looks to gain access to power and money is rather extreme. How they manage to stay thin with all the French food is a testament to the power of nicotine, so maybe the fact that we've stopped smoking in the States has eliminated the one force powerful enough to fight off fat gain from an excess of food and cheap fructose syrup. That and those thinning lung cancers.
The town seems to attract a lot of immigrants as well. Our waitress last night moved from California last year, one of the game developers had moved from Vancouver a few months before, and we ran into several other people recently from Hungry and other Eastern European locales.
About the time my fellow travelers decide to check out the adult entertainments I peeled off and went to bed. Montreal is not as wild as Moscow, but it's a hell of a lot safer place to be a hedonist. It certainly gives Vegas a run for it's money...
Montreal is a hard-partying town. The European influence here is evident in their lifestyle and entertainments. Downtown has a network of underground malls featuring almost exclusively food courts, clothing, shoes, and jewelry--underground because the temperatures range from well below freezing in the winter well to into the 90s (er, 30s Celsius) in summer, although the evenings in summer are pleasant. I do find the less Puritanical attitude towards the female form than that found in the States more healthy. Bare breast are sexy, but not fetishized to the point of stupidity like we have in the US, and they even show soft core porn on standard cable after 11pm here. Yet there's definitely a misogynistic tone to much of the culture. Montreal has something like 53% women to 47% men, so the emphasis on competition, looking thin and beautiful, and willingness to use looks to gain access to power and money is rather extreme. How they manage to stay thin with all the French food is a testament to the power of nicotine, so maybe the fact that we've stopped smoking in the States has eliminated the one force powerful enough to fight off fat gain from an excess of food and cheap fructose syrup. That and those thinning lung cancers.
The town seems to attract a lot of immigrants as well. Our waitress last night moved from California last year, one of the game developers had moved from Vancouver a few months before, and we ran into several other people recently from Hungry and other Eastern European locales.
About the time my fellow travelers decide to check out the adult entertainments I peeled off and went to bed. Montreal is not as wild as Moscow, but it's a hell of a lot safer place to be a hedonist. It certainly gives Vegas a run for it's money...
