Our Montreal Vacation This Week (Unexpectedly Awesome!) With
We decided to take a short VC this year, and decided on Montreal (the flights were open). We left Sunday PM and returned today (Wednesday AM).
We had heard of the student protests there, but didn't do our research and didn't really think they were that big a deal. Well, we were kinda wrong.
We did the middle-aged deal Monday, taking the Grey-Line tour of the city, which was really kinda lackluster. (C'mon, Grey Line, pick it up now. You can do better than that.) When we got off the tour we stopped at Peel Street Pub to get a beer. There was a decent sized crowd in a park across the street with lots of flag waving, chanting (in French) etc. The pub staff didn't seem interested in talking about it.
On Monday night the hotel fire alarm went off about 1:00 AM. The management soon came on the intercom and said everything was OK. A minute later, Ms. ret5hd looked out the window and said there were LOTS of people in the street. I said something about the bars closing and she said "NO! I mean LOTS of people!" We watched thousands of people cross in front of our hotel chanting, flag waving, etc with the cops trailing the procession. After they passed our view, we could hear the "whoomp" of teargas canisters being fired and the crowd shouting "BOOOO!" after each one.
The next AM the hotel staff definitely were not interested in talking about it.
We ate, walked, drank, etc for a good while and decided to take the subway to the Latin Quarter. Oh man, what a different city...MUCH more to our liking! Vibrant and kinda grittier and lots more fun than the sterile tourist parts we had seen! Then Ms. ret5hd noticed that there seemed to be lots of people walking the same direction with little red squares on their shirts:
Then more people.
Then more.
Then more.
Then a guy with a bullhorn directing people towards some destination.
Then more people.
Then signs:
even the statues were wearing red:
We asked some young people if they spoke english, and they explained their actions. A 100 days ago the govt wanted to increase tuition and the protests started, but it was almost only students participating. What really got the overall population involved was a new law: No more than 10 people could congregate (later changed to 50 people). The population revolted!
Anyway, we kept walking down the street and saw that there was a march ahead. We hustled down there (in a slow middle aged fashion). This is what their law accomplished (I hope this shows up):
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v470/ret5hd/MontrealProtests/?action=view¤t=DSCN1697.mp4
Over 200,000 people!
We watched it pass us at this intersection, then walked back up the street, thinking it was all over. But then here they come again, even stronger. A 6 lane wide boulevard was completely packed, shoulder to shoulder, for over a mile (my guesstimate). Shouting, chanting, etc. My camera ran out of memory, so I don't have any more personal pics, but I saw some posted in other threads here.
Anyway, we are back home now.
Oh yeah: A history professor gave me his red felt square he had pinned to his shirt. We saved it in our "travel box".
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