Montreal is our next stop before visiting Toronto and Detroit.  It is just like being in France, everyone speaks French, all the sign posts and everything is in French. Very little English at all- and haven’t seen a McDonalds yet, but plenty of fromage places and people walking around in berets and holding french sticks, no joke.  They have a nice old town precinct, a Latin Quarter which is chocker block full of pubs, clubs and strip joints. Most of the shopping is in huge underground arcades linking the subway lines- there is 33 km of shopping underground- so when the streets are snowed under, you can quiet happily shop for foie gras or fromage or even onions.  Food has a distinct french style but there is the usual e-merican delicacies like burgers and pizza. Bottleshops have the French Champagne (Yes Moet) next to the beer- it’s really cheap packaged – you get a 6 pack of anything for well under $10- the European stuff the whole lot, but a schooner will set you back about $6-8 which is a bit more than the average Australian prices.  Not as good as the  US where (taking exchange rates into account) was as cheap as chips- we were paying as little as $2 US a pint- that’s probably only about $18 Australian by now.   Exchange rates here are about 80c to A$1- you can get a huge pizza slice for $1.25, a pub meal costs about $8-14.

Canada is in Election mode too- but the US elections are taking all the attention, even here. Sure New York and Boston are more democrat regions but Obama is really kicking some butt- Everyone is really into it- We went out for beers the other night in Boston while the debate was on- Everyone was watching it as if it was the last quarter in a close grand final- cheering and carrying on- weird stuff. Nothing like the apathy we have in Australia voting for either shifty or shonky. People are dressed up as if they are going the  the footy in their Obama Tshirt, badges and paraphernalia- very very weird.  We had a black guy on the train the other night who was giving a bit of a sermon to the carriage, really well educated and dressed guy who had some troubles due to the financial crisis- they are expecting so much to change, as if a light switch can be switched on and everything will be alright, but it just aint gonna happen!.  He is only one man in a big machine and hundreds of years of divisions and class hierarchy is not going to change – at least for a long time. Even in the week we have been here you can see a shift in the media to being very anti Bush and the republican policies.  Making it a interesting time to be here.