As our company preferred hotel and close to the office in Montreal, I am no stranger to staying here. It’s a place I don’t loathe but don’t love either. The rooms are sparse but clean, and I typically feel a bit intimidated staying there, mainly due to the type of clientele the place attracts.
All this changed last Monday when I walked into the breakfast room at the St. Paul. Normally, this room is full of multi-lingual, Prada-clad Europeans sipping on espresso, but today there were senior citizens and baby boomers. The crowd consisted of overweight men and women, going back for seconds, even thirds on the breakfast buffet. Women were clad in pastel Capri pants and Easy Spirit walking shoes. Men were wearing sea foam green polo shirts and pleated khaki shorts. I suddenly realized I was the sharpest dressed woman in the room. What had happened to the St. Paul I knew?
The mystery was solved immediately thanks to the parties sitting to either side of me. Unable to control the tone of their voices, their comments rose above the din of the room. I quickly learned over 18,000 Rotarians from 154 countries were in town to attend the 2010 Rotary International Convention in Montreal.
While the conference and the efforts of Rotarians worldwide are commendable, as usual, I found myself surrounded by the best of the worst, stupid Americans. Unable to drown out their comments as they kept talking loudly over the others, I heard the following gems:
“While Old Montreal is charming, it sure could do with some modernization,” said an American woman, referring to the cobblestone streets in Vieux Montreal that almost made her trip. Apparently she was unaware that the term Old or Vieux was not accidental in referring to an area of town founded in the 17th century.
“I don’t normally do this when I go to a strange city, but I took the subway yesterday after the conference,” said another American. “It was very clean, and no one tried to mug me.”
The mean cobblestone streets of Old Montreal:
I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. Yes, haven’t we all heard about the dangerous subways of Montreal? Move over New York, you’ve got nothing on these French Canadian hoodlums.
My favorite couple hailed from Texas. The husband kept talking about his visit to the “Notre DAM!” Cathedral the previous day. As I cringed over his pronunciation of Notre Dame, his wife took it to the next level with her comments.
“The church was beautiful and there was even a mass going on,” the woman said, pausing to look at her audience. “It was so frustrating though. The priest was speaking in French and I couldn’t understand a word he was saying.”
That’s right. You damn French Canadians, speaking your native language in your French-language province of Canada. What is wrong with you? Don’t you speak American?
I wanted to yell at these Rotarians. Educate them. At the very least, notify them that they were using their outside voices and that I could hear them. I looked around at the sea of pastel clothing and realized it was hopeless, so I slunk out of the room embarrassed of my fellow citizens.
The next evening I took a walk on the mean streets of Old Montreal, careful not to trip on the ever unmodern cobblestone streets. The Rotarians are out in full force. All the sidewalk cafes and bars were jammed full with them, so I decide to walk a few blocks in an attempt to escape the herd.
Rotarians of a certain age take on Old Montreal:
As predicted, the crowds begin to thin out as I move away from Rue St. Paul. I am rewarded with a Rotarian-free outdoor table smack in the middle of the Place d’Youville at La Gargote. As I am admiring the view and consuming one of the best gazpachos ever made, a party of six American Rotarians is seated across from me. At first they are quiet, and they even greet the waiter with proper and polite pleasantries in French. I give them the benefit of the doubt and continue eating my savory soup.
Just as my faith was starting to be restored with my fellow citizens, the trust is suddenly shattered. One Rotarian apparently overwhelmed with the experience of sitting in Place d’Youville exclaims loudly:
“Montreal is so beautiful. It looks like something straight out of Epcot Center!”
Sigh...Yes, of course, Epcot Center. Where you can see the beauty of foreign countries in just one day, without ever tripping on a cobblestone and where everyone speaks American.
