Montréal, Sunday and Monday

[filkerdave]

Sunday was a rainy and wet day; it would have been a good day to sit by a fire with friends or a partner, sipping tea and playing games, or making music. And, after Saturday's late night at the pub I wasn't in a rush to get out and get places, really.

Still, food was a necessity, and there's a Tim Horton's just down the street from my hotel. My

Comments

[kallisti]

One of the strange things about Montreal is that it has some of the cheapest rents I have ever encountered. In places like Verdun, or NDG, you can easily get a 3 bedroom apartment (What they call a 5 1/2) for under $600 dollars. Put three people in it, and you are all paying less $200 a month, electricity and phone included. Being a tourist city, you can make that as a beggar, or with a part time job.

ttyl

[filkerdave]

Mmm...that might explain why some of the beggars look to be in reasonably good shape compared to what I expect (nothing wrong with that, BTW, although it bothers me that any civilized place has them -- we're relatively wealthy nations, we should be able to take care of people)

[hawklady]

IIRC, there are still some pretty hefty regulations on rentals, leasing, rent controls and so on. My former employer moved into the Montreal market and we had to do all sorts of kinky things to the software and product mix and documentation to comply with the extra regulations.

My info's a few years outdated, so it could be obsolete now. One of the more amusing things -- and a nightmare from a staffing and product-mix standpoint -- was "Moving Day". IIRC, by law, all twelve-month leases not otherwise specified run the exact same period, so, everyone who was going to move ends up moving at the same time. An entire year's worth of relocation happening at the same time.

[beige_alert]

I live in Milwaukee and occasionally visit downtown Chicago, and the differences in begging styles are vast. In Chicago people will sit rattling a container that they hope you'll throw money into. I've never seen that in Milwaukee. Here they walk or at least stand and either ask for change or else launch directly into a (sometimes lengthy, if you give them the chance) hard-luck story.

[filkerdave]

Mmm. Both types here, I think