Bonsoir to all of my readers. Over the past week, the Université de Montréal had its orientation for new students (including exchange students), hence my absence for the last few days. If you’re ever planning to study at UdeM, definitely download the app Rentrée UdeM, it has all of the activities, times and places listed so that you can easily plan out a day. Personally, I don’t like orientations: I hate the crowds and the large groups and the « mandatory fun. » They do it differently here: nothing is technically requrired so you can choose to go only to what you need to. I’ll admit that I found the session for exchange students to be dreadfully boring (they spent over an hour talking about visas, registering for courses and other things that I had already taken care of months ago). I did find the tour of the main library (humanities), a tour of the whole campus, an overview of resources for non-native French speakers, and the tour of CEPSUM (the athletic facilities) to be very helpful.
A couple of tips I picked up:
- If you want to use the fitness center (cardio and weights) at CEPSUM, you will have to pay an extra fee. It’s not terribly expensive for the semester, but it is (yet another) hidden expense.
- Some of the buildings have cafeterias. The food is decent quality (much better than RIC, for sure), but rather expensive. You’ll save money packing your own lunch.
- A lot of the resources they suggested for extra support in French also cost extra money. One free resource for more advanced speakers is conducted through the French language office where there are free resources online and you can email them with questions to help with reading or writing.
- The campus is really big and spread-out, with a lot of buildings up-hill and with lots of stairs. This is of course in addition to the endless construction going on which is blocking off some of the roads. It’s honestly easier to just take the bus to the more far-away buildings and save your energy. Some of the buildings are large enough to get lost in, don’t be shy asking for help.
- It’s in your best interest to open a bank account in Canada. Many places are either cash only or if they accept debit cards, only cards from Canadian banks will work. Both the school (for tuition) and the residences will only accept Canadian debit cards for payment. I recommend opening an account at Banque Nationale. I went to the branch on 5070 Avenue du parc. I highly recommend them as the staff was very helpful and spoke English with us so I could understand some of the more complicated details. Ask for an appointment with Amina if you can, she was very good and very patient, especially because she was an immigrant to Canada as well. You will either need to wire money or use cash to add funds to your account. Just make sure to close your account before you leave!
During the orientation, there were also some more social events: a breakfast for new students, a convocation of sorts (also with free breakfast) and an outdoor party on campus. There was an event at a nightclub on Friday, but I chose not to go to that. The breakfast was fun and I met two students from Taiwan who are here to study English. The outdoor party was also fun, albeit a bit crowded and with terrible music that you couldn’t actually dance to (although my « freshman mentor » indeed made me try and dance… was that indeed a pitiful site!). One major difference between here and the States is that alcohol is sold at school events. It is much more acceptable in the culture here, so much so that it is allowed in the dormitories and (provided it’s not opened) on public transit. The convocation kind of dragged on and I didn’t win any prizes, but it was kind of a shock for me to see that the school has cheerleaders and plays American football. On Friday, I even saw « tail-gate » parties outside the stadium! It was almost as if I had never left the US! I’m fairly certain that this is the only Francophone country where you’ll see anything quite like it!
Apart from all the activities, I had some time to explore a little bit of the Côte-des-Neiges neighboorhood. This is the neighboorhood just south-west of the school. It’s diverse, historic, and where many new immigrants call « home ». There are many shops and restaurants in the area and it is easily accessible by public transit. I didn’t get to see too much of the neighboorhood, but I highly recommend the bakery Première moisson (5199 rue Côte-des-Neiges). It’s crowded but the prices are good and the food is high quality.
One of the most prominent landmarks and historic sites of Montreal is in this neighboorhood, L’oratoire de Saint-Joseph. This is a massive stone and marble church on the side of a mountain designed in the style of Paris’ Sacré Cœur. It is currently undergoing rennovations, notably in the garden in the front, but it is still accessible to the public on foot and the view of the city is quite lovely.
And, of course, no trip to Canada would be complete without that (in)famous specialty, poutine (French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds). Poutineville is a chain restaurant specializing in the dish and they have a location at 5405 chemin Queen Mary (about two blocks from the Snowdon métro station). While you can get the traditional here or even make your own, but they also have some more creative and sophisticated combinations among their specialities. I decided to try Le Zeus which puts a Greek twist on the classic dish by adding gyro, onions, tomato and feta. I’m not normally a fan of anything with cheese in it, but this was very good and rich! The gravy was a little too salty for my taste, but other than that is was excellent.
You’ll probably want to order the small… I was full just from that! If you’re feeling really adventurous, they do have this curiosity on the menu:
That’s all for this post. Next time I will share a couple pictures from Downtown and the Port where a Québécois friend gave me a really nice tour. À la prochaine!
Anthony à Montréal 