montreal, take 2

my second trip to the happy french-ish city of montreal is, for some reason or another, not as euforically enthusiastic as my first visit in september. now, "never as good as the first time" definitively plays a part, but it could aslo be because i have come to the sad realization that my french it not what it used to be and will most probably never recover, since all of my attempts at "un cafe au lait s'il vous plait" up here are met with a polite smile (or is it a smirk?) and a swift, mercyless transition into english. bloody frogs. or, my impression might be skewed because it seems all the nice, polite, good-looking montrealitans i met here in september seem to have been replaced by a ragged, spiked-out, smelly "avez-vous un peu de change s'il vous plait?" bunch of punks and other alternative-looking people, slouching around in large groups with a tail of stray dogs and the distinct smell of genuine distaste for anything conventional or pretty. you'd think there was a g8 or world bank meeting here, but no, as i learned yesterday, these promoters of all things black, ugly and army-like have gathered in the city of montreal for (you'll never guess) a book fair for anarchists. yep. a book fair. seriously. who knew? not me. just as well they never met the over 20.000 motorcyclists who came through the city on saturday, blocking all major roads in a protest against extra insurance on their death-machines. that didn't help either. on second thought, thought, it could just be the sad and miserable fact that living in a warmer climate further south have spoiled me so thoroughly that the sad and miserable 5 degrees (for those of you depending on the us world hegemony to come around any day now and still cling to the f-scale, that translates to about 43 degrees, which overall sounds a lot better, especially if you are thinking celcius at the same time) and constant rain we've had for the past three days is not to my liking at all (for one, I did not bring anything remotely warm, thinking it was spring up here too). seriously, all of my trips to so-called sunny spots on this continent have so far turned out to be rahter not-so-much-so. miami: cold. california: cold, rainy, even with snow. mississippi: cold and rainy. new york: coldest spring in decades. and now montreal: cold and rainy. i see a trend. on the upside, the city has plenty of nice coffee places with good coffee where i can dry and warm up, connect my computer and bitch all i want.