Study Abroad: Finding my feet in Montréal

It’s a November morning in Montréal, Canada. Snow is piled up against the windows of our downtown basement apartment. I reluctantly drag myself out of my warm, cosy bed and start to get ready for the day. As the kettle boils on the stove, I stare out into the street through the partially-obscured window at the snowflakes that are gently drifting down into the road, covering the cars and pavement. “It’s actually called sidewalk,” I tell myself, smirking slightly.

Adjusting to the cultural differences has been interesting to say the least. You wouldn’t think that Canada would be wildly different to the UK, and, in many ways, it’s not. But the contrasts are definitely still there, permeating throughout the trials of daily life. I speak French quite proficiently, but I was not in any way prepared for Québecois French, which is, in fact, a whole different dialect. The accent, the colloquialisms, the way of speaking are all very different to the French I had been taught. Just a simple interaction at the checkout of a supermarket poses a difficulty to me, so much so I have to mentally prepare myself every week for the excursion.

The traffic lights don’t make noises when you’re allowed to cross, people walk on the right here, and everything has more sugar in it

Taxes are added onto everything that you buy too. You might look at a price tag and think to yourself, “this isn’t too expensive. I’ll get it.” When you arrive at the checkout though, you notice that the total amount doesn’t reflect the original price and that’s when it hits you…“oh yeah, I forgot about taxes.”

The traffic lights don’t make noises when you’re allowed to cross, people walk on the right here, and everything has more sugar in it – even foods that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have that much sugar in them. I knew a lot of these differences already before coming, but it still took me a while to do the mental switch needed to programme myself for this change. Just yesterday, a professor changed my spelling of ‘analysed’ to ‘analyzed,’ because, of course, things are spelled in the Americanized way here. You can’t buy alcohol (a must for students, of course) from the regular supermarkets. No… you have to go to a designated store – an SAQ (Société des alcools du Québec) – to get any spirits or hard liquor. Though, on second thought, that is probably a good thing.

Kindness is a social etiquette that is taken very seriously here and is not the same as the passive-aggressive politeness we practice in England

These are just minor inconveniences, though. I love Montréal life. It’s definitely not a stereotype that Canadians are super friendly people – the amount of times random strangers have held open doors for me when I’m struggling with my grocery bags is more than I can count. On the métro, people offer up their seats without having to ask. In the street, people smile at each other. Kindness is a social etiquette that is taken very seriously here and is not the same as the passive-aggressive politeness we practice in England. In this way, I have felt very welcome in the city. The beer here is great, poutine is just as good as people claim it is, and the autumnal (fall) colours are really something else.

Montréal also exhibits a unique blend of architecture that I haven’t really encountered anywhere else. Skyscrapers are interspersed with traditional buildings, remnants of the old city. It is great that these styles have been preserved and it gives the city character. The most bizarre example I came across was when I was leaving the vieux-port (old port) and entering one of the business districts and I suddenly noticed that right next to a high-rise office building was a small church. I imagined how weird it would be like to look out of your office window and see a spire reaching up into the sky about five metres away from you!

It is absolutely the opportunity of a lifetime and serves as a lovely refreshment between the chaos of second year and the daunting prospect of final year

However, I do also feel obligated to mention that moving abroad – whether for a study or work placement – comes with its downsides, and I don’t just mean silly things like cultural differences. I never thought of myself as someone who gets badly homesick. I’ve travelled a lot, I stayed away from home at a young age for long periods of time, and in my first term at uni I didn’t go home until Christmas. It’s not even necessarily the fact of being away from my hometown, but more because I am very much a family gal. I call my parents more than is average for a uni student and I love spending time with my younger brother, making it hard when I have to spend long amounts of time away from them. The time difference also doesn’t help – especially on weekends when I want to have a lie in. By the time I’ve woken up, it’s their evening and therefore sometimes too late to catch up.

If I was to be asked what I would say to someone thinking about choosing to do a year abroad, I would say this: loneliness is inevitable, as well as doubting all your life decisions, worrying about money, and struggling to make new friends at first. However, it is absolutely the opportunity of a lifetime and serves as a lovely refreshment between the chaos of second year and the daunting prospect of final year. Good things don’t always come without their trials and tribulations, trust me.