Video of the Moment: October 2010

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Another Starting point.

And so the videos on my pre semester trip has ended. Up next, the exciting island of Montreal! (yes it's an island. I didn't know that until the 2nd week I got here. haha. Here're maps of Montreal, in Quebec, in Canada. Some geography lesson here.

So Quebec is in the eastern side of Canada, see the boxed up QC? That's the province of Quebec.

The chunk at the centre is USA.

Zooming in to Quebec. As a colony of France many years ago, this place used to be largely populated by the French who ventured into the Northen Americas. People here speak French as their first language. Interesting thing is, over the years, after Canada as we know today has ben formed, the French as a language here remains relatively unchanged while in France, vocabulary has been coloured, certain grammatical features made obsolete while new structures emerged. The French French I meet here tell me people here speak funny, like how the "ancient" French would. Some even said that the Quebecan French can be so heavily accented that they become mutually unintelligible. That's sometime I find really interesting. Oh by the way there's is a Quebec city within Quebec province. I was once confused.

And here you go, map of Montreal. See, it's an island! haha. I've marked out the region where I stay with a red star. That's really near downtown Montreal. It's conveniently located too. Would say Montreal is about as big as Singapore is. Quite as multicultural as well. Except that everything is in French by default. When they say "Bonjour!" I say "Hello". And then they switch to English, if they are capable of doing it. Most of them are, but I've met some who can't really do English.