Under the Baobab Tree

Will That Be All, Mademoiselle?

I just spent two days in Montreal working with our local counsel. I had never been to "Canadia" before and was unprepared for what I found.

First of all, there is hardly anyone in this country. I flew from the chaos of LaGuardia to an airport that is modern, cavernous, peaceful, silent, bright, airy and deserted. We flew over cornfields covered with large ice puddles and red barns and then landed alone on a long runway and taxi-ed to a gate at a terminal that was not serving any other planes. I walked a long way all by myself in almost total silence to customs, where there were many customs agents but no arriving passengers in line. Then I went to baggage claim and saw maybe two other people. Then walked down another long space-age hallway in silence to a long line of taxis where I was the only customer. I don't know what happened to all my fellow passengers -- they dissolved into the Corbusier-esque architecture.

No traffic on the wide open, corn-colored highway into town. No clouds in the sky. Light blue and pale yellow.

I arrived at a tall office building downtown and no-one was in the lobby. I passed a sign in the lobby that said Attention! Chute de Glace! (Attention Falling Ice). The zeal of the announcement seemed out of place in the vacant space. I rode the elevator alone.

Finally I found my colleagues -- a native Montrealer and a Lebanese-Canadian from Toronto. Also, two client reps.

The man from Montreal is more French than a Frenchman. We mainly conversed in Esperanto because it turns out that all schoolchildren in Quebec are required to be fluent in English, French and Spanish, and if in a Catholic school, now Mandarin as well. So we conversed in franglais plus spano-portuguese plus the occassional latin legal phrase (first time in my whole career that I have found "ipse dixit" or "factum" actually worth saying).

I taught him the phrase "have a cow" which is not uttered in Canada -- they say "have a bird.".

He told a story about Yo Yo Ma, the famous "sellist."

He told me the hotel I was staying in was very "eep" and "ah ehn" (hip and high end).

He said he and his wife have two daughters because they did not want "tree." If they have "an udder shilde," ee opes it is a boy.

I dared him to say the name Thelma Thedwick. ("Delma Dedwick.").

I taught him to say "Bawlmer" instead of Baltimore. I did a little Murland "Dang! I tell you what!" which amazed him.

He told me his opposing counsel had gone to an ashram in India for a month and would came back "hanging from the drapes.". This means "on his high horse" (aye orse).
Etc.

In between our language classes we ate copious amounts. Lunch was catered in and consisted of delicate cheeses on a bed of watercress, cucumber sandwiches, fruit compote and chocolate truffle cake. A receptionist came in and set our conference room table with china and linen placemats. We moved all the papers off the table and settled in for a leisurely meal. We ended with proper coffee in china cups, served to us by someone. We ate looking out the 48th floor straight across the flat Canadian plain to the West -- more pale blue and yellow.

Dinner was up the mountain in an underground french cellar. We ate about 15 tiny courses of things one can barely imagine: lobster cappucino, caesar salad mousse, almond milk with oxygen (?), chocolate ravioli in a lake of flan, ice wine, wild Canadian grasses, etc. It was fabulous. I was so stuffed at the end I had no room for cognac. We rolled down the mountain in the moonlight to my eep ah ehn 'otel.

Today we read documents in French and spoke about them to one another in Esperanto. The mental effort to read something in French and then say it out loud in Esperanto for 4 hours was stupendous. Today's view was south over the St Lawrence to a very distant mountain range -- snow covered.

For lunch we went to an Hasidic Charcuterie up the mountain called Schwartz, for "smoked meat", pickle, and a cherry soda. It is a famous dive -- linoleum floor, white tile walls, a deli counter, surly staff, and newspaper clippings on the walls from Gourmet, Conde Nast Traveler, etc. You have to loiter outside on the street for a while until the surly staff decides to let you in. The line is very long. Smoked meat is basically a hot pastrami sandwich but you will apparently be kicked out if you say that. Same if you order a coke instead of a cherry soda. I had a "smoked meat medium," cole slaw, a pickle, and a Cott's cherry soda.

After lunch we walked to a very trendy coffee shop for coffee amidst Montreal's "eep opp" crowd.

Then it was back to the office for a chocolate croissant (the size of my head) and something maybe called a pastris langelois, I'm just not sure -- round, dense flour, yellow fruit flavored custard on top (yum).

At this point, I began to quote Monty Python -- "ah! No! I couldun eet a-nudder baht if ah tried! Just one more! It's wafer thin!". "Ah! No! I weel explode!". BOOM!

Am finally back at the deserted cavernous airport waiting for the only flight of the day to Dulles. I believe I am in a food coma and plan to take a petit nap.